21st century
theartsdesk at the Presteigne Festival of Music and the ArtsWednesday, 01 September 2010
The Presteigne Festival, which has just ended after a packed long weekend of events of various shapes and sizes, is a music fest with a profile very much its own. Presteigne is one of those enchanting pocket county towns that proliferate along the... Read more... |
Tognetti, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Cadogan HallWednesday, 01 September 2010
Australia has many fine exports – wine, women, gap year anecdotes – but increasingly it is her orchestras that are setting the standard. With a magnificent Proms performance from the Australian Youth Orchestra still fresh in the ears (as well as a... Read more... |
The SwitchMonday, 30 August 2010
Step aside Prince Charming – there’s a new fairy tale in town, and your only substantive contribution fits into a small plastic sample pot. At some point in the last few years the Shangri-La, the unattainable dream of romantic comedies, shifted from... Read more... |
Bavouzet, Philharmonia Orchestra, Salonen, Royal Albert HallSaturday, 21 August 2010
From Russian “avant-garde constructivism” to Estonian minimalism via a jazz-inspired French concerto and the defiant originality of Scriabin – last night’s Prom from Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra had a lot of ground to cover. I... Read more... |
Ibragimova, BBC SO, Gardner/ BBC Singers, Endymion, Hill, Royal Albert HallWednesday, 18 August 2010
Meditative experiences are hard to come by in the Royal Albert Hall. The twitching, scratching, fidgeting ticks of over 5000 people conspire to break your focus, to draw attention from the musical middle-distance back to the here and now. Last night... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Jo Bartlett of the Green Man FestivalSunday, 15 August 2010
The Green Man festival takes place this coming weekend at the Glanusk estate near Abergavenny in the rolling hills of the Brecon Beacons. What begun in 2003 as a glorified gig for the husband and wife duo It's Jo And Danny has become the very... Read more... |
Silver Apples, The LuminaireTuesday, 10 August 2010
One doesn't want to be prejudiced about audiences, but when you go to see a show by a “pioneer of electronic music”, particularly one in his seventies, you most likely expect a crowd that are fairly male, fairly unfunky and tending towards the... Read more... |
BBC Symphony Chorus, Stephen Jackson, Royal Albert HallMonday, 09 August 2010
Every year there are a couple of Proms that have a haphazard look about them, as if a fire had suddenly broken out in the BBC archives, and the programming committee grabbed whatever came to hand – a piano quartet, a couple of choral odes and a... Read more... |
Australian Youth Orchestra, Elder, Royal Albert HallSaturday, 31 July 2010
The stage of the Royal Albert Hall has a rather unfortunate habit of making orchestras seem incidental. Stretching endlessly across, one of the world’s largest organs by way of backdrop, even the most generous conventional ensembles take on... Read more... |
Film: Beautiful KateFriday, 30 July 2010
Finding a cheerful Australian film these days is quite a challenge. Having discovered the particular affinity between Australia’s parched and expansive landscape and the genres of horror and misery memoir, the nation’s filmmakers have set about... Read more... |
Nevermore, Barbican TheatreThursday, 08 July 2010
If there was an opposite to the limitless “ever after” of fairytales, the relentlessly nullifying "nevermore" of Edgar Allan Poe’s raven would come pretty close. A deformed, sickly smiling "musical fable for adults", the ominously named Nevermore is... Read more... |
LPO, David Murphy, Royal Festival HallFriday, 02 July 2010
A packed Festival Hall and a cheering, stamping, standing ovation – hardly the usual welcome for an evening of contemporary music. Sitting, wizened and waistcoat-clad, at the centre of the front row was the reason: Ravi Shankar. Framed by the... Read more... |
