Venezuela
CD: Devendra Banhart - MalaThursday, 07 March 2013
Devendra Banhart has never been afraid to push boundaries and mix genres. Still, of all the ways the once-prolific songwriter could have chosen to return, releasing a dance album is surely one of the least likely.It’s why “Golden Girls” - the dense... 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 in Raploch: Sistema Scotland Makes Big NoiseSunday, 17 June 2012
For perhaps the most widely cheered orchestra on the planet, it doesn’t look like much of a concert venue. Fenced in with wire, flanked by a road which leads away to low-rise housing, a scrappy patch of scrubland stretches over a few nondescript... 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... |
BBC Proms: Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, DudamelSaturday, 06 August 2011
Marley & Me: that’s the film about living with a neurotic dog, out now on DVD. And Mahler & Me? It could be the Gustavo Dudamel story. Conducting Mahler was what first brought everyone’s favourite Venezuelan to world attention, when he won... Read more... |
Royal New Zealand Ballet, From Here to There, Barbican TheatreThursday, 14 July 2011
All ballet companies dream of finding a genuine creative talent among their ranks, and the Royal New Zealand Ballet, visiting from the farthest end of the world ballet map, have one in Andrew Simmons. The unknown name on their triple bill on this... Read more... |
Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, Vásquez, Royal Festival HallFriday, 15 October 2010
It's now 21 years since I first heard the then-untrumpeted protégés of El Sistema, the Venezuelan phenomenon which has launched a thousand youth-and-music projects worldwide. On that occasion the Royal Festival Hall was less than a quarter full, but... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Berlin: More Venezuelans, Even YoungerSunday, 10 October 2010
Just seconds into a performance by the Orquesta Sinfónica Juvenil Teresa Carreño it is immediately clear what Sir Simon Rattle meant when he said, “I have seen the future of music.” The passion and physical and mental energy with which they play,... Read more... |
Flamenco Sin Fronteras, Paco Peña Dance Company, Sadler's WellsWednesday, 30 June 2010
Spain and Venezuela are two countries divided by a common language - in dance and music, as well as in culture. Hence the hook for Paco Peña’s latest production, Flamenco sin fronteras, which while wearing a faintly anthropological air also packs a... Read more... |
Classical Music CDs Round-Up 9Saturday, 19 June 2010
This month’s selection includes a flamboyant fin-de-siècle Italian symphony that could give you a nosebleed. A little-known American band provide a fresh take on a British 1930s warhorse, and classy Viennese musicians play some delectable... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Helsinki: Sunflowers By the Frozen BalticSunday, 25 April 2010
Venezuela's joyful musical education programme known as El Sistema is the phenomenon of the age, the success story that many western countries now seek to replicate. And that's great. But Britain, for a start, might re-engage its own back-to-basics... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Lucerne: Simón Bolívar Meets William TellSunday, 04 April 2010
Glaciers melted early this year when a Venezuelan army of well over 100 generals arrived in central Switzerland. The Swiss spring coincided with their visit, a gentle thaw with bees buzzing confusedly around the primroses, snowdrops and winter... Read more... |
