Barbican centre Two prestigious talents brought together for an evening dedicated to love of the Violin. Four composers exhibit their different visions for the instrument as Maxim Vengerov’s fingers dance along the strings and Simon Trpčeski’s glide along the keys. The crowd pulled in by the amassed talent is predictability large, and the muffled (masks) chatter feels comforting after the ...
‘Long live the queen of folk!’ As a light rain pitter-patters outside, the Barbican hall is filled with an older (yet trendy) crowd for a celebration of the grand dame of British folk music, Shirley Collins. We are reminded of the genre’s unique place in our history, and of its soft, sad, and sweet ability to capture the experience of ...
Live from the Barbican A little late and flustered I bumbled into a full (yet distanced) Barbican Hall, settling in just as Kate Stables (we assume the eponymous Kit) and the band arrive on stage. Surrounded by a younger, slightly hairier audience I am indoctrinated into the soft-cult-like experience of a This is Kit gig. Being featured heavily on BBC Radio ...
‘I’m now a full-blown Weller wannabe’ Looking every inch ‘The Modfather’, Paul Weller, standing in the Barbican’s echoey foyer, introduces us to an evening of himself. Weller, who shot to fame with bands The Jam and The Style Council before shining as a solo artist, looks as cool as ever, with impossibly straight white hair cropped brutally at his shoulders. ...
‘Poignant journey from misery to hope’ So, we are back again, and when I say we, I mean me, alone in my living room, puppy on lap, ready to delve into the later works of Austrian composer Gustav Mahler. Considering that these movements were written just after the tragic death of his young daughter and two years before his own ...
“Jazz’s untamed spirit resonates in 2020” Dipping my toes gingerly into the daunting world of jazz, I felt safe in the hands of Shabaka Hutchings and the Britten Sinfonia as they guide me through three pieces picked, in Hutchings’ own words, because they have “the energy of jazz”. Hutchings himself welcomes us to the concert, smiling as he emerges out ...
‘A concert for the modern world’ Trapped in the flat once again, the family unit settles down for possibly the classiest home cultural event you could imagine. The BBC Symphony Orchestra (SO) daaaarling. Pass the brie and crackers will you? What follows is a stormy event of clashing composers, political opera and divine music. Being the first completely live-streamed performance ...
Barbican Centre ‘An evening drenched in nostalgia’ Recently many of us have been lucky enough to sample the joys of restaurants and theatre, albeit tentatively. But the last bastion of normality has alluded us: the gig. Thanks to the Barbican’s brilliant Live from the Barbican – 12 shows, 12 hours, a shed-load of talent – we can return triumphant to this hallowed ...
‘A rare and wild talent’ An image that stays with me long into October’s biting night is Erland Cooper holding aloft an old-fashioned recording machine, with the hypnotic call of curlews blasting forth into the sparsely filled hall of the Barbican. Utter transportation occurred, shipping us out to the windswept islands of Orkney, Cooper’s home. The talented composer, pianist and ...
Traditional Irish dancing; the springing, the fiddling, the stiff upper bodies, and stony faces. As someone who knows very little about this cultural phenomenon, I jumped at the chance to watch Colin Dunne exploring Tommy Potts’s (one of Ireland’s cult fiddle players and composers) music. What I hoped for was a show that explained both his history and the roots ...