‘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 ...
‘An evening of such delight’ 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, ...
‘Everything feels skin deep’ 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 ...
‘Beautiful music, beautiful sentiment, and at times beautiful animation’ 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 ...
‘Looking at the works of Russian composers carefully’ 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 ...
‘What Blackbird has is THE voice’ 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 ...