“Two performers at the very pinnacle of their game” “Encore” is the better-bred version of screeching “one more song” while drunk at a concert. Yet to be treated by the “greatest living string player” Maxim Vengerov and the piano spectacular Polina Osetinskaya to four of them seems to be sheer gluttony. It’s a chance to throw a curveball, a break ...
“I’m ready to weep” BBC Symphony Orchestra At the tail end of the Barbican’s Fragile Earth season, we are presented with an idealised vision of America’s past and a stark warning about its (and the world’s) future if the climate crisis is not averted. Aaron Copland wrote three ballets between 1938 and 1944. The final one was for the modern ...
‘Reimaging classic songs for the modern age in debut album this non-audition choir has one mission – revolutionise a tragically dying art for the modern age’ Igrew up in Devon with a mother who imbued me with a love of the sea – at night, I was lulled to sleep with songs of drowned fishermen and forlorn sailors. However, the ...
‘Reviving the legend nicely’ I normally avoid tribute acts, grouping them in the same class as magic shows and children’s theatre. Fine for some, but simply not for me. Amy Winehouse, however, is very much a slice of moi, and the 14th of September is a pretty big date in her legacy-what would have been her 42nd birthday. So, it ...
‘Prefect addition to the glowing riot of culture and glitter that is Pride’ Right, I’ll hold up my red-nailed hands. This review is shamefully late, but your reviewer is but a simple homosexual. A man hopefully a little unlike you, considering all the effort I put into rampant individuality-but a human nevertheless. Drinking, overindulging, struggling through the subsequent Pride bacchanal, ...
‘swelling and quietly mournful’ 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 ...
‘Introducing both Hrůša and Biss, an utterly blissful experience from start to finish.’ 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 ...
‘Leaving a warm feeling’ 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 ...
‘Stormy, drenched in polluted water and blood’ National Changgeuk Company of Korea 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 ...
‘Like with any fantasy, reality has a habit of creeping in through the cracks’ Clod Ensemble & Nu Civilisation Orchestra 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 ...