RFH
Mulatu Astatke, Royal Festival HallSunday, 14 September 2014
It was Jim Jarmusch’s film Broken Flowers that first really got Mulatu Astatke major Western attention – in same way that Angelo Badalementi’s music for Twin Peaks gave a rich and strange dimension to David Lynch’s TV epic, there was an even greater... Read more... |
Art Garfunkel, Royal Festival HallFriday, 12 September 2014
The voice no longer soars with easeful power, nor does it possess that tingling, honey-coated purity that gave hits such as “Bridge Over Troubled Water” such emotional force. This should hardly come as a surprise, since Art Garfunkel is now 72. Away... Read more... |
Christy Moore, Royal Festival HallFriday, 18 April 2014
“You’re great listeners. You have surrendered your ears.” The reverent hush that descended for two hours on the Festival Hall is a new sort of sound at a Christy Moore concert. There was a time when such a gathering would bristle with fervour.... Read more... |
Organ Gala Launch Concert, Royal Festival HallWednesday, 19 March 2014
The newly restored Royal Festival Hall organ was inaugurated in a celebratory atmosphere with this gala launch concert, which also marks the beginning of the Pull Out All the Stops organ festival.The varied programme included works for solo organ,... Read more... |
St Lawrence String Quartet, San Francisco Symphony, Tilson Thomas, RFHSunday, 16 March 2014
A voyage around Beethoven by Ives and John Adams, and then beyond him by Berlioz, added up to a vintage San Francisco Symphony programme from its music director Michael Tilson Thomas. Forty years on from his first concert with SFS, he’s still... Read more... |
Philip Glass/Steve Reich, Royal Festival HallMonday, 11 November 2013
The Southbank’s artistic director Jude Kelly was out in force at this penultimate weekend of The Rest is Noise festival, delivering little triumphalist, Ryan Air-like fanfares, reminding us how pioneering they had been to programme composers... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Lahore: Music, mysticism and fistfightsSaturday, 06 April 2013
On Wednesday I will strap on a guitar and take the stage at the Royal Festival Hall for the opening night of this year's Alchemy Festival. I am the musical director and happy accompanist to a line-up of spectacularly talented musicians, all with... Read more... |
Mitsuko Uchida, Royal Festival HallThursday, 07 March 2013
The magic usually descends quickly in a Mitsuko Uchida recital but the opening Bach of this rescheduled Festival Hall concert - a pair of Preludes and Fugues from Book 2 of The Well-Tempered Klavier - took a while to draw attention from the farthest... Read more... |
Herbie Hancock Plugged In, Royal Festival HallTuesday, 13 November 2012
At the beginning of last night's show, Herbie Hancock looked like he was going to perform with the dignity and serenity befitting a 72-year-old with some 50 years playing experience. The improvisation that launched from a base of Wayne Shorter's “... Read more... |
Interview: 10 Questions for Herbie HancockMonday, 05 November 2012
Herbie Hancock has never stood still. He hit the ground running, joining Miles Davis's second great quintet on piano in 1963 at the age of just 23, and from that moment on demonstrated a Stakhanovite work ethic and appetite for the new which saw him... Read more... |
Diamanda Galas, Royal Festival HallThursday, 02 August 2012
Diamanda Galas is a woman who once wrote a book called Sh*t of God and whose avant-garde screeching on subjects like AIDS and schizophrenia frequently takes gothic into an area where it could scare bats. Her CV includes stints as a research... Read more... |
Jessye Norman, Royal Festival HallTuesday, 22 May 2012
There comes a point in almost every great soprano’s career when she tells the world that Tosca, the Marschallin or Isolde be damned: what she wanted to sing all along was The Great American Songbook. This announcement tends to be made - how shall I... Read more... |
