festivals
theartsdesk Q&A: Musician Frank TurnerSaturday, 10 August 2013
In a world of reality television show winners and interchangeable flash-in-the-pan singer-songwriter critical darlings, Frank Turner stands apart as the real deal. Over the past 18 months, you’d have been forgiven for thinking that Turner had... Read more... |
Camp Bestival 2013, Lulworth Castle, DorsetThursday, 08 August 2013
Camp Bestival is overrun with children, even the night is alive with them. Where WOMAD is full of old hippies, Camp Bestival is full of raver-parents who refuse to stop shaking a party limb, even if they must haul little Finlay around on an exotic,... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Edinburgh Art FestivalWednesday, 07 August 2013
The highlight of this year’s Edinburgh Art Festival is undoubtedly Peter Doig’s No Foreign Lands. As you enter the beautifully proportioned and wonderfully hung rooms of the Scottish National Gallery (until 3 November) the spirit of last year’s... Read more... |
WOMAD 2013, Charlton Park - Days Three and FourTuesday, 30 July 2013
Arriving early on Saturday, the first music I was exposed to in the tranquil arboretum area of the Radio 3 Stage was the mesmeric and gorgeous sounds of Leicester sitarist Roopa Panesar floating from the stage, with dreamy oboe-like shenhai adding... Read more... |
WOMAD 2013, Charlton Park - Day TwoSaturday, 27 July 2013
If there’s a patron saint of WOMAD it must be Bob Marley. His visage, serious but gentle, peers out from more T-shirts than I care to count. And all the festival-goers who don’t have WOMAD-standard long, white, straggly hair sport dreadlocks. The... Read more... |
WOMAD 2013, Charlton Park - Day OneFriday, 26 July 2013
I am a WOMAD virgin. “Princey will be here later, he usually frequents this bar,” a man with straggly white hair tells me as I wander aimlessly about. I think he means Prince Rogers Nelson, the diminutive rock star who sang “Purple Rain”, and I grow... Read more... |
theartsdesk preview: Tauron Nowa Muzyka Festival, Katowice, PolandWednesday, 24 July 2013
The city of Katowice in Upper Silesia, Poland, was once an epic industrial hub on the western edge of the Soviet bloc. It was a gigantic centre for coal and steel that was awesome in scale. Those days are long gone yet it seems fitting that one of... Read more... |
Britten and Poulenc at the Cheltenham Music FestivalThursday, 11 July 2013
"Britten or Poulenc?" The question may seem a fatuous one, geared to the 100th anniversary of the Englishman's birth and 50 years since the Frenchman's death. Yet it certainly livens up what would otherwise be the usual dreary artists' biographies,... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Røros, Norway: Fiddling amongst the slag heapsSunday, 07 July 2013
It’s just before midnight on Friday. A few hundred couples circle the floor of a school gym. On stage, violinists play a rhythmic music which cycles repetitively. Coloured with sad, minor notes, it sounds like a stately ancestor to bluegrass. Hands... Read more... |
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Hard Rock Calling, Olympic ParkMonday, 01 July 2013
"Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park" is a wonderfully grand name for the venue for this summer's Hard Rock Calling festival, but the reality doesn't quite match up. Rather than basking in the glory (and shiny new stadium architecture) of Mo and Jessica's... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Göttingen: Handel goes eastSunday, 26 May 2013
Let me confess: I had to return to lovely Göttingen as much for the frogs as for the Handel. Puffing out their throats like bubblegum, the amphibians' brekekekek chorus in the ponds of the great university’s botanic gardens actually made a more... Read more... |
SPOT Festival 2013, Aarhus, DenmarkFriday, 10 May 2013
“Are you thirsty? I’ve got water and beer.” The car’s trunk is opened to reveal a picnic-style plastic cooler. But this is a taxi, so in goes the case. “If you’re hungry, I’ve got liquorice.” It’s unusual hospitality, not what’s expected from a taxi... Read more... |
