Features & Interviews
Bill Viola (1951-2024) - a personal tribute
Wednesday, 17 July 2024
The artist Bill Viola died, after a long illness, early in the morning of Friday 12 July. I had the privilege of getting to know him while making a documentary about his life and work in 2001-2003. He quickly became a friend, as did his wife Kira and his sons, Blake and and Andrei. He felt like a kind of brother, who’d grown up through the same changes that shook culture up in the 1960s and 70s. Although he was American, I felt that we spoke the same language.
First Person: trans opera singer Lucia Lucas on Tippett’s 'New Year' and her life in music
Tuesday, 16 July 2024
Until last week, Tippett’s New Year had not been staged since 1990, probably because it’s considered very hard to produce. I think it is generally harder than Britten. It’s also an ensemble piece; you need 10 people who are fairly accomplished in performing new works.
First Person: Katharina Kastening on directing...
Saturday, 06 July 2024
Peter Brook's reimagining of Bizet's Carmen condenses the scale of the original into a more intimate theatrical experience. The score has been...
theartsdesk Q&A: violinist and music director...
Monday, 01 July 2024
Lilac time in Oslo, a mini heatwave in June 2023, a dazzling Sunday morning the day after the darkness transfigured of Concert Theatre DSCH, the...
First Person: The Henschel Quartet at 30
Tuesday, 11 June 2024
We vividly remember the image of Martin Lovett, the cellist of the legendary Amadeus Quartet, bursting out laughing. He tells his favourite true...
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First Person: LIFT artistic director Kris Nelson on delivering the best of international theatre to the nation's capital
LIFT2024 promises a characteristically broad and bracing array of global performance |
Remembering conductor Andrew Davis (1944-2024)
Fellow conductors, singers, instrumentalists and administrators recall a true Mensch |
Extract: Pariah Genius by Iain Sinclair
A form-defying writer explores the troubled mindscape of a Soho photographer |
First Persons: composers Colin Alexander and Héloïse Werner on fantasy in guided improvisation
On five new works allowing an element of freedom in the performance |
First Person: Leeds Lieder Festival director and pianist Joseph Middleton on a beloved organisation back from the brink
Arts Council funding restored after the blow of 2023, new paths are being forged |
First Person: actor Paul Jesson on survival, strength, and the healing potential of art
Olivier Award-winner explains how Richard Nelson came to write a solo play for him |
First Person: author-turned-actor Lydia Higman on a play that foregrounds a slice of forgotten history
'Gunter' co-creator and historian connects a 1604 witch hit to the world today |
First person: playwright Paul Grellong on keeping pace with American politics
The author of 'Power of Sail' sets the scene for his play's UK premiere |
10 Questions for folk singer-songwriter Olivia Chaney - 'deeply personal songs that open out to the universal'
The Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter on 'Circus of Desire', her strongest album to date |
First Person: conductor Peter Whelan on coming full circle with the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra
From watching Handel's 'Israel in Egypt' on TV to conducting it |
theartsdesk in Strasbourg: crossing the frontiers
'Lohengrin' marks a remarkable singer's arrival on Planet Wagner |
First Person: Laurence Cummings on his 25th and final year as Musical Director of the London Handel Festival
A blockbuster month begins tomorrow, mixing starry casts with new talent |
First Person: violinist Tom Greed on breaking down barriers in the presentation of chamber music
Unscary Schoenberg is on the bill of enterprising young musicians' latest new-look event |
First Person: Ten Years On - Flamenco guitarist Paco Peña pays tribute to his friend, the late, great Paco de Lucía
On the 10th anniversary of his death, memories of the prodigious musician who broadened the reach of flamenco into jazz and beyond |
First Person: pioneering juggler Sean Gandini reflects on how the spirit of Pina Bausch has infiltrated his work
As Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch's 'Nelken' comes to Sadler’s Wells, a tribute from across the art forms |
First Person: contralto Hilary Summers on going beyond her baroque and contemporary comfort zones
On recording 'Circus Dinogad', a wacky collaboration with distinguished Dutch colleagues |
Best of 2023: Books
As the year draws to a close, we look back at the best books we opened |
Best of 2023: Classical music concerts
No drop in orchestral high standards, and youth shines again |
Best of 2023: Theatre
The National Theatre fielded hit after hit, and smaller venues scored as well |
Best of 2023: Film
Kicking off the top choices of the year, theartsdesk's film critics cast their net wide |
theartsdesk in Ravenna - Riccardo Muti passes on a lifetime's operatic wisdom
Three unforgettable evenings with the most experienced living exponent of Italian opera |
Powell and Pressburger: The Composers
Two musicians, both largely forgotten, gave the duo's films much of their power |
Powell and Pressburger: A Celtic storm brewing
The Archers stepped up their wartime campaign against materialism with the mystical Scottish romance 'I Know Where I'm Going!' |
First Person: novelist Pip Adam on the sound of injustice
Author Pip Adam describes how her time working in prisons and interest in the jurisprudence of noise gave life to her recent sci-fi novel, 'Audition' |
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