sat 14/06/2025

David Nice

David Nice's picture
Bio
The classical music and opera editor of theartsdesk, David writes, lectures and broadcasts on music. A former music critic for The Guardian and The Sunday Correspondent, he has made regular appearances on BBC Radio 3, not least in the long-running series Building a Library. He has written short studies on Elgar, Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky and the history of opera, and is currently working on the second volume of his Prokofiev biography for Yale University Press. He runs two Zoom lecture series, Opera in Depth on Mondays and a symphonies course on Thursdays.

Articles By David Nice

Salonen conducts Sibelius, RFH/Oramo conducts Salonen, Barbican review - Finnish psychedelia

Read more...

Johnston, BBCSO, Oramo, Barbican review - sheer adrenalin in early Sibelius

Read more...

Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci, Royal Opera review - one tenor, two samey brutes

Read more...

Batiashvili, BBCSO, Oramo, Barbican review - electricity in Sibelius and Hillborg

Read more...

Mitsuko Uchida, RFH review - Schubert from rough to heavenly

Read more...

theartsdesk in Stockholm - HK Gruber and sacred monsters

Read more...

Falstaff, RLPO, Petrenko, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall review - Bryn Terfel leads a merry dance

Read more...

Remembering Dmitri Hvorostovsky (1962-2017)

Read more...

The Rake's Progress, Wilton's Music Hall review - mercurial Stravinsky made cumbersome

Read more...

Messiaen & Shostakovich, St John's Smith Square review - Osborne and Gerhardt anchor 1940s masterpieces

Read more...

Schubert Ensemble, Kings Place review - spot-on introductions, dazzling performances

Read more...

Dmitri Alexeev, St John's Smith Square review - a Titan at 70

Read more...

Leif Ove Andsnes, RFH review - interior magic from a master colourist

Read more...

The Consul, Guildhall School review - blowsy melodrama rooted by committed students

Read more...

Soltani, West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, Barenboim, RFH review - passionate pilgrimages

Read more...

October, LSO, Strobel, Barbican review - Eisenstein with steel score

Read more...

Pages

latest in today

Help to give theartsdesk a future!

It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.

It followed some...

Album: The Young Gods - Appear Disappear

Swiss electro-rockers, Young Gods have been around for 40 years, but this in no way should suggest that they’ve gone soft in their old age. These...

Jane Austen Wrecked My Life review - persuading us that the...

Do the French do irony? Well, was Astérix a Gaul? Obviously they do, and do it pretty well to judge by many of their movies down the...

The King of Pangea, King's Head Theatre review - grief...

There’s an old theatre joke. “The electric chair is too good for a monster like that. They should send him out of town with a new...

Album: Sam Binga - Sam Binga Presents Club Orthodontics

When I was writing the introduction to my book, Bass, Mids, Tops: An Oral History of Soundsystem Culture, I came up with a phrase, which...

Yoshitomo Nara, Hayward Gallery review - sickeningly cute ki...

It’s been a long time since an exhibition made me feel physically sick. The Hayward Gallery is currently hosting a retrospective of the...

Hespèrion XXI, Savall, QEH review - an evening filled with l...

For the first encore of the evening, it was not just the audience but the whole ensemble of Hespèrion XXI that was mesmerised as its leader,...

Album: Neil Young & the Chrome Hearts - Talkin' to...

When Neil Young releases a new album, you can be reasonably sure that you’ll get either a disc of melancholy singer-songwriter fare or a set of...

Samuel Arbesman: The Magic of Code review - the spark ages

The slightly overwrought subtitle, "How Digital Language Created and Connects Our World and Shapes Our Future", gives a...

Album: Mary Halvorson - About Ghosts

Although Mary Halvorson leads the sextet Amaryllis on About Ghosts, instrumentally, she does not place her guitar to the fore. The first...