Barbican
David Nice
It was good of the EFG London Jazz Festival to support this concert and bring in a different audience from the one the LSO is used to. But how to define it? Jazz only briefly figured in works by Gary Carpenter, Bartók, Barber and Abel Selaocoe. The only category would seem to be All Things Vital and Dancing. Anyone who’d come just for the phenomenal South Africa-born cellist, singer and composer must have been riveted by the rest, too.Charismatic conductor Duncan Ward, as attractive in presenting the works as in sinuously conducting them, would seem to have played a major part in the Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
To watch virtuoso jazz pianist Hiromi perform is to experience a vast weather system of sound; at some moments exuberant hailstorms of notes alternate with thunderous chords, at others, sombre atonal passages resolve into a burst of sunshine.By any standards she’s a remarkable stage presence; at the same time as segueing effortlessly between three keyboards, she laughs, stands up and sits down, conducts the other performers and sometimes claps along. Whatever you think of this party, she’s certainly having a ball.It’s the complete lack of self-consciousness that contributes to what – from Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
For the first half of this spellbinding recital, Maxim Vengerov chose three works framed by one of Romantic music’s most infamous and turbulent stories.In 1853 the violinist Joseph Joachim became close friends with Robert and Clara Schumann – and as a result introduced them to the then unknown 20-year-old Johannes Brahms. The precise dynamics of what precisely happened then has been subject to much speculation. Yet Vengerov’s repertoire bore vivid testament to the fact that it proved as stirring a time creatively as it did personally for all three composers.He opened with Clara Schumann’s Read more ...
Sarah Kent
RE/SISTERS is a show about the brave women who’ve been fighting to protect our planet and the artists whose work – mainly in film and photography – is, in itself, a form of protest. The opening section, Extractive Economics demonstrates the problem – companies trashing the planet for profit, regardless of the cost to people and the environment.Simryn Gill’s photographs offer horrifying evidence of a mindset which views the earth as resource to be polluted and plundered at will. A mangrove forest in Malaysia is festooned with rubbish washed in by the tide while in Pilbara, Western Read more ...
Jenny Gilbert
On the whole the Bible is not big on sex and sensuality, with the exception of one very short book in the Old Testament. The Song of Solomon – aka Song of Songs – is a hymn to carnal pleasure, one whose vivid descriptions of perfect flesh and brimming wine flagons have divided religious scholars for centuries.The New York-based choreographer Pam Tanowitz turned to the text when looking to deepen her understanding of her Jewish roots, and invited the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang to collaborate. It should surprise no one that their Song of Songs, which has just played at the Read more ...
David Lang
I wouldn’t say that I am super religious, but I am definitely religion-curious. It is a big part of my family background, and, to be honest, a big part of the history of my chosen field, Western classical music. For the past 1000 years, the church has been the most powerful commissioner of Western music, and its most active employer of musicians.Because of this, much of our foundational repertoire is explicitly on the subject of how music helps a listener get in the mood for a religious experience. And that is interesting to me.Music and religion are intertwined, not just because of Read more ...
David Nice
Poetry came an honourable second to sharp rhythms and lurid definition in this choreographic poem of a concert. You don’t get more tumultuous applause after an opener than with Ravel’s La Valse played like this. Vienna may have nearly collapsed after World War One, but the Scheherazade of Fazil Say’s 1001 Nights Violin Concerto lives to see a bright dawn, and Rachmaninov cries “Alliluya’ to whirling demons in his swansong Symphonic Dances.Once again, there’s no doubt that the London Symphony Orchestra has made the right choice in Antonio Pappano, this season titled its Music Director Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
If there’s a better name for a vocal group than Roomful of Teeth I have yet to come across it. But if it conjures up images of brash, in-your-face showbiz the reality couldn’t be more different.This hip Grammy-winning American ensemble bill themselves as a “band” and their pieces as “tunes” – although there are precious few conventional tunes in their repertoire – and present themselves in a low-key, un-histrionic manner, setting out to “mine the expressive potential of the human voice” through largely self-commissioned music.At Milton Court on Saturday their repertoire included music by Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
These days British orchestras count themselves lucky if they can see, and plan, five years ahead. In Bavaria they do things rather differently. As the ducal court ensemble, and later the house band of the Munich opera, the Bayerisches Staatsorchester can trace its history back to 1523. Last night the BSO, as part of a six-country tour to mark its 500th anniversary, arrived at the Barbican with the first of two programmes conducted by music director Vladimir Jurowski.Their opening concert began with a hauntingly meditative work by the contemporary Ukrainian composer Victoria Poleva; then the Read more ...
Guido Gärtner
Nine cities in seven countries; all in all, eleven concerts, on top of that, an appearance at home in Munich. Celebrating its 500th anniversary, the Bayerisches Staatsorchester is currently on an extended journey. We have been looking forward with great anticipation to this tour during which we are aiming to present everything from our longstanding tradition that has stood the test of time and share it with a great number of music lovers throughout Europe.The Bayerisches Staatsorchester (Bavarian State Orchestra) can count itself lucky to be able to call the National Theatre in Munich home ( Read more ...
Saskia Baron
The Barbican’s effort to open up the art centre to a wider audience than just City workers and wealthy local residents makes a leap forward with a new exhibition in the Curve. The free gallery space that wraps around the back of the main concert hall, has become home to Differently Various, a lively show and series of workshops co-curated by a group of artists from Headway East London, a charity for people who have experienced brain injury. A sign informs us that strokes, head injuries and conditions that damage the brain account for the leading causes of death and disability Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
Sinead O’Connor, who has died aged 56, was, the world agrees, a brilliant, unstable, unique talent, a provocateur with an angelic voice. The Mirror’s front page yesterday was a moody black and white picture with the headline “Nothing Compares…”. Morrissey was not the only one to point out the lack of support for her art for the last 30 years from mainstream companies and media. Now that she has passed she can safely be made a saintly legend. “In the middle ages, I would have been burnt as a witch” she told Peter Culshaw in their 2013 interview, republished below. The cover of The Mirror Read more ...