Southbank Centre
The Unthanks, Songs from the Shipyards, Purcell RoomSaturday, 27 October 2012
When The Unthanks staggered into the spotlight with their haunting and beguiling Mercury Award-nominated 2007 album The Bairns, with bracing songs about infant mortality and child abuse, they became a folk band adored by people who don’t even like... Read more... |
Hahn, LPO, Skrowaczewski, Royal Festival HallThursday, 25 October 2012
Stanislaw Skrowaczewski. That's quite a mouthful. Bruckner's symphonies can be too. But this is one of the reasons why Skrowaczewski has acquired quite a cult following for his Bruckner performances; it's why I once drove all the way to Zurich to... Read more... |
Weltethos: CBSO, Gardner, Royal Festival HallMonday, 08 October 2012
The quest for the spiritual in the musical has been the dominant preoccupation of Jonathan Harvey’s since his earliest works. Rudolf Steiner’s philosophy has been an acknowledged influence on the composer, who has made a career of exploring what... Read more... |
War and Peace: Russian National Orchestra, LPO, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallSaturday, 06 October 2012
Can two half-orchestras playing together ever be better than one well-established organism? The second and third concerts in yet another special project masterminded by Vladimir Jurowski, drawing together British and Russian perspectives on war and... Read more... |
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallSunday, 30 September 2012
What, another review of an LPO/Jurowski concert in less than a week? Reasoning the need, it only has to be said that other orchestras may kick off their seasons by mixing the unfamiliar with core repertoire, but none would dare launch with not one... Read more... |
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jurowski, Royal Festival HallThursday, 27 September 2012
Dissatisfied housewives who eventually stand by their men joined jewelled hands in a divine evening of operatic decadence. Suppressed Bianca all but steps over the body of her strangled lover to get at the muscles of her killer husband in Zemlinsky’... Read more... |
Full programme announced for 2012 London Jazz FestivalThursday, 13 September 2012The full programme for this year's London Jazz Festival has been announced. Running from Friday 9 to Sunday 18 November, the 10-day event includes premieres, talks, family events, films and workshops. In total, there are over 250 shows in... Read more... |
Hal Willner's Freedom Rides, Royal Festival HallMonday, 13 August 2012
This was an odd duck of a concert for the final night of the Olympics. Elsewhere in London were the reformed Spice Girls and Blur and general partying, whereas this was at times a sombre show, curated by Hal Willner as part of Antony’s Meltdown... Read more... |
Lou Reed, Royal Festival HallSaturday, 11 August 2012
“I would cut my legs and tits off/ When I think of Boris Karloff." Those were Lou Reed’s opening lines at the RFH, taken from Lulu, his recent collaboration with Metallica and his most poorly received record since 1975’s Metal Machine Music. One... Read more... |
Autumn "Sounds from a Room" programme announcedMonday, 02 July 2012Jarvis Cocker, Josh T Pearson and Charlie Fink (Noah and the Whale) have signed up for autumn shows as part of Artangel's Sounds from a Room series of shows streamed live from the Room for London installation on the roof of Southbank... Read more... |
Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, Dudamel, Royal Festival HallWednesday, 27 June 2012
Standing ovations. Spontaneous genuflections. A we-can-change-the-world lecture. This must be what's it like to live in a Communist state. Funnily enough, the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra, who we were saying goodbye to last night in the... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Conductor Gustavo DudamelSaturday, 16 June 2012
At the Royal Albert Hall one summer evening in 2007, a teeming ensemble of young South Americans served up a BBC Prom that is the most YouTubed classical concert this side of the Three Tenors. Under the baton of the compelling Gustavo Dudamel, an... Read more... |
