Barbican Hall We the assembled shuffle in our finery, clothes dancing with embroidered jasmine and cherry blossom. We wait, breath baited for the glowing diamond of classical music: Lang Lang, unassuming in black with a shock of dark hair, pacing on stage to weave the piano magic we have heard so much about. Starting playing at 3 this man is ...
Barbican Hall The evening has a sense of celebration, of newly minted and upcoming grandeur. Jakub Hrůša’s face is one we will gladly get used to as he takes up his post as musical director of the Royal Opera House. Tonight, he leads the BBC Symphony Orchestra, weaving fellow Czech composer Pavel Haas’s tumbling emotions with Beethoven’s youthful exuberance and ...
Barbican Hall As a confirmed Londoner, my experience of British wildlife is pretty drab, with flashes of bushy vermilion tails disappearing into my bins. Elsewhere on these storied Isles, I admit to wonder, but rarely is it the focus of the nature industry’s fisheyed lens. The BBC series, headed by our lord and saviour Sir Attenborough, has other talents present ...
National Changgeuk Company of Korea Barbican Centre Although the traditional Korean art form of Changgeuk, Shakespeare’s King Lear and the Barbican all seem rather randomly thrown together, it’s a delicious concoction that has been brewing for longer than you might have expected. What a way to kick of the 11th year of the K-Music Festival! Now a little (and skin deep) ...
Clod Ensemble & Nu Civilisation Orchestra Barbican Centre Mea culpa, mea culpa, this review will be part apology, part whinge and hopefully just a little amusing. Picture this, a rushed theatre critic, invited by a trusted PR person to his favourite venue, quickly skims the show’s blurb, sees jazz, dance and a transformed space. Scuttles down on the day in ...
Small Beer Brew Co. Full-time country music fan, and a part-time alcoholic, the two have always been a match made in heaven for me. But Phoebe Stringer productions prove that the genre has more to it, much much more. I will explain. Picture the scene: an industrial estate, a clear autumn night, a brewery that specifies in low gluten, calorie ...
Barbican The Pit Climate change is all the rage right now.. or at least it certainly is raging… Theatre is especially leading the charge while the thing that mainly pollutes, oil, or methane leaks in Turkmenistan for example are sadly lagging behind. Enter into this frantic scrabble of conscious shows “nature songwriter” Erland Cooper and friends. Now I reviewed Cooper ...
Barbican Hall The world is melting as you may have heard, and with those of us of reading age slowly racing towards senility, the children are our only hope. With climate despair rampant it is important to remind young people of the choice and hope inherent in their future. What better way to do that than with live art and music? The arch ...
Barbican Hall Culture and conflict: ever dancing an uneasy waltz. Yet a cleverly comprised program can celebrate the best of a composer while also placing them in the wider geographic and historic concept. Contextualise contextualise contextualise… ….and doesn’t that sound fun? Helpfully the music, along with being informative happens to also be divine. Are you ready to explore legendary composer ...
Barbican hall Preferring to paddle in the bluer side of the musical pool, the bubbling Jazz jacuzzi of this metaphor always intimidated me. An artificial aura of “cool” rippling out from its denizens. Although Lady Blackbird supported by DoomCannon hasn’t completely changed my mind on that front, they has pried open my reluctant eyes somewhat. EFG London jazz festival produced by Serious ...