festivals
theartsdesk at the Glastonbury Festival 2011Thursday, 30 June 2011
Thursday 23 JuneHaven’t left yet but someone sends me an email saying, "Not going to Glastonbury this year and feeling rather smug about it." What are they feeling smug about? The fact that they’re going to have a forgettable, normal weekend while... Read more... |
Music and Maths: A Yardstick to the StarsThursday, 30 June 2011
The history of maths and music is the history of early Greek philosophy, medieval astronomy, of the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the two World Wars. While mathematics at its purest may be an abstraction, the quest for its proofs is deeply and... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Folkestone: Art Echoes by the SeasideWednesday, 29 June 2011
The locals are understandably proud of Folkestone; Everywhere Means Something to Someone is an idiosyncratic guidebook offering an insider’s view of the town that bears witness to the depth of people’s attachment to it. Put together for the ... Read more... |
Birmingham - Home of MetalTuesday, 28 June 2011
This site has never acknowledged a distinction between high and popular culture. Nor, it seems, does the city of Birmingham. Currently bidding for UK City of Culture 2013, it is also promoting itself as the "Home of (Heavy) Metal". This summer, at... Read more... |
Colin Currie, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, CBSO, BCMG, Oliver Knussen, Aldeburgh FestivalMonday, 27 June 2011
Yesterday afternoon's final concert at the Aldeburgh Festival saw an astonishing world premiere. A major new double concerto from a 102-year-old Elliott Carter. Imagine Schubert premiering a song cycle in 1900, or Van Gogh unveiling a self... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Home Festival, DartingtonMonday, 27 June 2011
While Michael Eavis’s fields were colonised by the solstice hordes, transforming a tranquil farmstead into a vibrant (and muddy) drop city, a very different and much smaller crowd assembled in the enchanting grounds of Dartington Hall in south Devon... Read more... |
We Are Shadows, Spitalfields MusicSunday, 26 June 2011
Spitalfields Summer Music Festival is now finished for another year, but bid farewell to its audiences in fitting style with We Are Shadows – a new community opera devised by composer John Barber and librettist Hazel Gould. Bringing together over... Read more... |
Sónar 2011: Day 3 and Round-upTuesday, 21 June 2011
This is where the delirium kicks in. Tired but happy, the attendees started the third day of Sónar festival slightly boggled by how to pick and choose from the strange delights on offer. Saturday was when the true musical variety of the festival was... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Montréal: Les Francofolies de MontréalSunday, 19 June 2011
Montréal natives The Arcade Fire sing in English. Yet 65 percent of the Québec city’s population have French as their first language. Les FrancoFolies de Montréal is Francophone Canada’s annual celebration of non-Anglo Saxon music. This year, big... Read more... |
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Renes, Spitalfields MusicSaturday, 18 June 2011
Everyone in the BBCSO is a potential soloist. I know this because the course I run at the City Literary Institute linked to the orchestra has welcomed principals, duos, two string quartets and three viola foursomes (proving that department the most... Read more... |
Sónar 2011: Day 2Saturday, 18 June 2011
Thursday was gentle – an easing into the festival experience – but yesterday is when Sónar Festival really kicked into gear. With tapas and Estrella coursing round their veins, the audience was thoroughly drawn into Barcelona's bohemianism and ready... Read more... |
Sónar 2011: Day 1Friday, 17 June 2011
“This is what Ibiza used to be like,” said the man dancing next to me. I've never been to the White Isle, so I have to take his word for it, but he presented a very convincing argument that the commercialisation of dance music's Mediterranean Mecca... Read more... |
