Scotland
Curiouser and curiouser: snubbed Scottish Ballet chief bites backTuesday, 09 November 2010
Scottish Ballet’s artistic director Ashley Page yesterday angrily made clear that when he leaves the company in 2012 it will be against his wishes. Last Thursday the company issued an emotionless brief statement that Page had “felt he was unable... Read more... |
Interview: Violinist Nicola Benedetti goes RomanticFriday, 05 November 2010
It’s not often that a serious musician goes into the recording studio to play requests. But as the closest that classical music strays to The X Factor (unless you count Paul Potts), Nicola Benedetti has a different kind of relationship with... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Composer James DillonSunday, 31 October 2010
Glaswegian James Dillon (b 1950) is one Britain's most critically acclaimed living composers. Early detours as a drunken and drug-taking wastrel gave way to what he calls "musical terrorism". By which he means his blistering career as one of the... Read more... |
Pioneering Painters: The Glasgow Boys 1880-1900, Royal AcademyThursday, 28 October 2010
If you'd been a painter at the time of Impressionism, what would you have done? Rushed to Paris to become a disciple of Manet or Monet? Taken the Symbolist route with Odilon Redon or headed to Brittany to whoop it up with Gauguin and co? No, the... Read more... |
KT Tunstall, Shepherd's Bush EmpireThursday, 21 October 2010
First up, a confession. I’m one of those who’ve never considered KT Tunstall to be quite the real deal. She’s sometimes described as indie, but I’ve always found her more background music for filling out a tax form to than someone to help you... Read more... |
Scottish Ballet, Geometry + Grace, Edinburgh Festival TheatreFriday, 24 September 2010
Quietly, without pomp and fanfare, Ashley Page has been mustering a balletic strike force over the border in Scotland. Scottish Ballet has launched the new ballet year with a programme that trumps anything else offered in Britain as a season opener... Read more... |
Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Ticciati, Usher Hall, EdinburghSaturday, 28 August 2010
Which of the following has the thorniest dissonance: an early 18th-century dance-drama by Rebel, a symphony by Bizet, a concerto by Poulenc or a new work by South African composer Kevin Volans? If you think it's a trick question, you'll guess the... Read more... |
Futureproof: Scottish Photography Graduate Show, GlasgowTuesday, 10 August 2010
To Futureproof is to ensure that we don’t become technologically obsolete, but keep in touch with as yet undeveloped technologies and exploit those already in the ether. It’s an apt title for this exhibition of work by 16 graduates from the five... Read more... |
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Runnicles, Royal Albert HallThursday, 05 August 2010
Being a great Mahler conductor is all about going the extra distance: the near-inaudible pianissimo, the seismic crescendo, the rhetorical ritardando; the accelerando that borders on reckless, the tempo change that crashes the gear-shift, the... Read more... |
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Runnicles, Royal Albert HallWednesday, 04 August 2010
What a quintessential Prom: a quartet of works by English composers which aspire to international status, and in three cases wholly succeed, performed by the BBC's Scottish orchestra at world-class level under its homegrown but deservedly... Read more... |
Mary Stuart, Opera NorthSaturday, 05 June 2010
Among the many pleasures of Donizetti's Mary Stuart is the fun of watching a chunk of primary-school history filtered through a florid bel canto imagination. There are moments when you want to cry out, “That’s not what happened!” But it’s so fast-... Read more... |
Chroma/ Tryst/ Symphony in C, Royal BalletMonday, 31 May 2010
A Balanchine on a mixed bill is a reminder of what a choreographer should desire to offer his audience: a specific new experience of art each time, not a repeated thumbprint in every ballet. Balanchine grew up in a borderless theatre country... Read more... |
