piano
Kim, RSNO, Stockhammer, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - bold programming survives a replacementMonday, 29 November 2021
What happens in an orchestra when your designated conductor for three gigs at the end of the week phones in with Covid on Monday morning? By Monday afternoon, when he was writing his introduction to the programme notes for this concert, Alistair... Read more... |
Kolesnikov, Sinfonia of London, Wilson, Snape Maltings review – volcanic Britten and Vaughan WilliamsMonday, 22 November 2021
They’re singing songs of praise in Aldeburgh today – namely Britten’s magical unaccompanied choral setting of Auden’s Hymn to St Cecilia on the composer’s birthday and the annual celebration of music’s martyred patron. And what a right to... Read more... |
Dmitri Alexeev and Friends, St John's Smith Square review - an almost breathless brioFriday, 05 November 2021
As part of a concert series devoted to the memory of a great pianist and teacher, Georgian-born Dmitri Bashkirov, Russian legends Dmitri Alexeev and Nikolai Demidenko were to have reunited in a two-piano spectacular (I well remember their Wigmore... Read more... |
Album: Tori Amos - Ocean to Ocean, reviewWednesday, 27 October 2021
A “sonic photograph” is how Tori Amos describes her sixteenth album, recorded at her home in Cornwall during the spring and summer of Britain’s third lockdown, when, travel, her usual mode of coping with “troubling things”, was not an option. Living... Read more... |
Gabriela Montero, Kings Place review - improvising to a Chaplin classic is the icing on a zesty cakeSaturday, 09 October 2021
As the Statue of Liberty appears in Charlie Chaplin’s The Immigrant, our improvising pianist proclaims “The Star-Spangled Banner”, only for it to slide dangerously. The passengers on the ship taking them to a new life are brutally cordoned by the... Read more... |
Geniušas, SCO, Emelyanychev, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - glorious return to a much-missed venueSaturday, 02 October 2021
This concert almost had me in tears before a single note was played because it marked (joy!) the first classical concert to take place in the Usher Hall since it was shut in March 2020. She has been closed for eighteen long months, but she hasn’t... Read more... |
Album: Helen Sung – Quartet+Thursday, 09 September 2021
Dazzling. That was the first adjective with which the illustrious Marian McPartland described Helen Sung’s piano playing, when she had the remarkable Houston-born pianist as her guest for an episode of the NPR radio show Piano Jazz in 2006.On... Read more... |
Elisabeth Leonskaja / Goldmund Quartet, Edinburgh International Festival review - established and emerging stars shine brightSaturday, 21 August 2021
A gem in Edinburgh International Festival’s classical music programming has always been the Queen’s Hall series. Hosting some of the finest chamber musicians on the international stage, that venue has seen countless incredible, more intimate... Read more... |
Uchida, Philharmonia, Salonen, RFH review - Bach to the futureFriday, 11 June 2021
In the beginning, 38 years ago, came a career-making Mahler Third Symphony for Esa-Pekka Salonen in his first concert with the Philharmonia. Reassembling that vast epic wouldn't be possible under present circumstances. Last night, ending 13 years as... Read more... |
Grosvenor, RSNO, Chan, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall online review - too big for the small screenTuesday, 08 June 2021
By chance, I started watching this streamed concert shortly after hearing a live BBC broadcast of the Philharmonia playing in front of an audience for the first time in over a year. Much though I love the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, steadfast... Read more... |
Bronfman, Philharmonia, Salonen, RFH review – celebration around C majorSaturday, 05 June 2021
One of the many things we’ll miss when Esa-Pekka Salonen moves on from his 13 years as the Philharmonia’s principal conductor will be his programming. For this first of his farewell concerts, he’s not only chosen what he loves but made sure it all... Read more... |
Michael Spitzer: The Musical Human review - charting our age-old relationship with musicWednesday, 21 April 2021
Music and time each dwell inside the other. And the more you attend to musical sounds, the more complex their temporal entanglements become. Time structures music, rhythmically and in its implied narratives. From outside, we place it in biographical... Read more... |
