Manchester
Robert Beale
Manchester Camerata give relatively few old-fashioned concerts these days – I mean the sort that are done in purpose-built concert halls, with a conductor, soloist and conventional orchestra strength – because they’re busy crossing boundaries and attracting new audiences. But when they do return to the traditional path, they do it extremely well, and especially when music director Gábor Takács-Nagy is in charge.This time, at the Royal Northern College of Music, there was the additional distinction of Jean-Efflam Bavouzet as soloist in two Mozart piano concertos. He and they have recorded Nos Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The equipment pictured above is the Powertran 1024, one of the first digital sequencers to hit the market. According to the May 1981 issue of Electronics Today International magazine, which unveiled it to the public, the British-invented “1024 composer is a machine which will repeatedly cause a synthesiser to play a pre-determined series of notes either as short sequence or a large compositions of 1024 notes: i.e. several minutes long.” The article was headlined “Treat your synth to this sequencer/composer.”One musician who swiftly treated his synthesiser to the Powertran 1024 was Bernard Read more ...
Robert Beale
Two young guys called Ben graced the BBC Philharmonic platform at the Bridgewater Hall – looking almost like Ant and Dec if you let your imagination wander. Ben Gernon, 27, had just been announced as the orchestra’s new Principal Guest Conductor (while predecessor John Storgårds now rejoices in the title of Chief Guest Conductor … it almost seems a bout of alternative facts is coming on), and this was his Bridgewater Hall début. Piano concerto soloist was Benjamin Grosvenor, a virtuoso Manchester knows well.Stickless throughout, Gernon began with Beethoven’s Third ("Eroica") Symphony, played Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Elbow fans will remember how 2014's The Take Off and Landing of Everything took the band's existing sound and twisted it a fraction. The result was a piece of work that, above all, felt powerfully uneasy. Not simply because of the personal heartache it expressed but also the impression of an entire world out of kilter. How interesting then that, now half the world feels unsettled, Elbow return with an uplifting album full of heart.Little Fictions was written around the time of Guy Garvey's marriage, and it's this sense of personal contentment that dominates the album. "You Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
At September 2010’s MTV Video Music Awards, Lady Gaga took the stage in a dress made of stitched-together cuts of meat. The outfit, she said, was a political statement worn to draw attention to the aspect of the US military's don't ask, don't tell policy preventing anyone who "demonstrate[s] a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts" from joining the forces. The first female singer to wear a meat dress on stage, though, had less of a profile.Lady Gaga’s prototype was Liverpool-born art-rock provocateur Linder Sterling who, on 5 November 1982, was playing Manchester’s Haçienda with Read more ...
Robert Beale
Colin Matthews’s arrangements for orchestra of the 24 Debussy Préludes (originally commissioned by the Hallé) have been widely admired. The BBC Philharmonic’s concert, conducted by Nicholas Collon, at the Bridgewater Hall on Friday night began with three of Ravel’s five piano Miroirs, two of them orchestrated by Matthews (one a world premiere) and one by the late Steven Stucky.The Matthews approach to Debussy has been compared in places to Ravel’s own orchestral technique (though a direct claim that he transcribed Debussy as Ravel might have done seems over-egging the pudding somewhat). His Read more ...
Veronica Lee
We're back at Friday Street, the crumbling cop shop on the wrong side of Manchester, where DI Viv Deering marshals her squad of anarchic misfits to fight crime. Paul Abbott's rude but not crude police comedy drama was a great hit first time round and managed to be riotously unPC while unravelling a complicated serial murder case. And, as with the late, great Cagney and Lacey, some of the best scenes were in the ladies' loo; two of Deering's closest aides are women (played by Elaine Cassidy and Alexandra Roach).At the end of the first series we learned that Deering's husband was the killer and Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
Got Soul! Honeybelles! Mums in Durham! Three shortlisted finalists from the north and Scotland. Along the way we – and Gareth Malone – were sung to by the Mancunian Rhythm of Life, not to mention Too Many Cooks in Inverness, and a septuagenarian all-male group from Malton kept in order by a retired schoolmistress, who had evolved into a disciplined conductor – and had a fit of the giggles when faced with Mr Malone.Hundreds of choirs involving thousands of people applied to be considered by the choirmaster of the nation for the Best in Britain. Our Gareth is subject in the programme to scores Read more ...
Jasper Rees
In the end, what makes a good drama series? It’s probably that you want more of it. This is the end of Cold Feet until a next time which has already been promised, and more is certainly what’s wanted. No one was quite sure if a reincarnation of Cold Feet was a good idea eight episodes ago. Back when the characters were in their 30s the show slowly turned into a bit of a weight round its own neck. Fay Ripley opted out of one season. Helen Baxendale was written out of another. The show began looking under rocks for characters to replace the ones who weren’t there. Eventually it ran out of steam Read more ...
Simon Bent
It’s a little over two years since I was approached to adapt The Mighty Walzer by Howard Jacobson for Manchester Royal Exchange. I was living in Liverpool at the time and had recently seen That Day We Sang by Victoria Wood at the Exchange. It was terrific, wonderfully directed by Sarah Frankcom. I had never seen a musical in the round before, it was so dynamic. There’s nowhere to hide in the round, you can’t get away with anything, you’re totally exposed, and I remember thinking how great it would be to write for such a space.I read Walzer in one sitting and couldn’t put it down. It’s a Read more ...
Robert Beale
’Tis the season for big children’s choirs to show off their end-of-season projects, and the Hallé Children’s Choir and Orchestra had something exceptional to present under Sir Mark Elder’s baton on Sunday afternoon: the world premiere of Jonathan Dove’s A Brief History of Creation.Commissioned by the Hallé for the children’s choir, it formed the second part of a concert that began with the First Suite from Bizet’s L’Arlesienne music and Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. There’s little doubt that Dove's new work will be a piece other accomplished children’s choirs allied Read more ...
joe.muggs
In 2016, grime is facing a new test of its ability to operate on its own terms. At the start of this decade the genre was flirting with major label crossover that resulted in a few great pop records, but all too often diluted its musical impact or left its stars stuck in contractual or “artist development” limbo. Other urban genres pushed it aside, and it was no longer the only game in town for inner city youth.By stages, though, it reasserted itself. Around 2012-13, its instrumental side became respected as a serious force within clubland, and the Butterz organisation proved that it was Read more ...