Features & Interviews
Not-quite-solitude on the 34th floor: violinist Maxine Kwok on the short film 'Rising'
Thursday, 03 December 2020
2020: a year that at some point felt like the end of live performance for the world of the performing arts, certainly for the foreseeable future. Artists spent months without any form of collaboration, leading to a serious lack of motivation due to the decimation of performance opportunities.
First Person: Avi Avital on 'Art of the Mandolin'
Saturday, 28 November 2020
The mandolin is an instrument everybody has heard of without necessarily knowing much about it. Its history has been written by lovers of the instrument, often amateur players who are drawn to its approachable and appealing character, integrating it into their own lives, and in turn popularising it throughout the world.
‘Our whole industry is supported by vulnerable...
Monday, 23 November 2020
I am not the first to say this, and I won’t be the last, but what a strange year 2020 has become! I am learning afresh what it is to be both a singer...
First Person: Paul Bullock on making BBC Young...
Saturday, 21 November 2020
Producing music programmes for TV with live performance during the past few months has not been without its challenges, but somehow doing so right...
Book extract: Nativity by Jean Frémon, with...
Monday, 16 November 2020
How should one paint the baby Jesus? This deceptively innocent question runs the length of Jean Frémon's Nativity, a fictional work that takes as its...
First Person: horn player Alec Frank-Gemmill on authenticity and enlightenment in lockdown
Treading a fine line in Brahms between historical evidence and creative freedom |
First Person: Jessica Duchen on writing about Beethoven's Immortal Beloved
Why her novel 'Immortal' became more seismic, and more relevant, than she expected |
'Josquin has defined our career': The Tallis Scholars’ Peter Phillips on the end of a major recording project
Celebrating an epic on the eve of the Renaissance Mass master’s 500th anniversary |
First Person: Cellist Alban Gerhardt on why concert-hall life must go on
The return to lockdown of German musical institutions must not happen here |
Filmmaker Bassam Tariq: 'Great cinema doesn't need to be perfect - embrace the imperfections'
Director of 'Mogul Mowgli' discusses taking risks, and the differences between the British- and American-Asian experience |
First Person: harpsichordist Chad Kelly on reimagining Bach's Goldberg Variations
The background to what promises to be a vibrant new performance by Brecon Baroque |
The Secret History of My Library: Essay by Daniel Saldaña París
The eminent Mexican novelist on books and their ghosts |
First Person: composer Brian Elias on the Music@Malling Festival's retrospective of his works
Fifty years of vibrantly consistent music celebrated in rural Kent |
First Person: tenor Nicky Spence on working with Blackheath locals on screen Stravinsky
'The Rake's Progress' distilled and introduced by its star and community opera patron |
Book extract: Snake by Erica Wright
Short essays on a slippery object of fear, fascination and misunderstanding |
First Person: Gregory Batsleer on choirs for the 21st century
The conductor considers the future for choral music |
First Person: pianist Danny Driver on teaching online and the importance of music education
The challenges of top-level music lessons during the pandemic |
Eavesdropping on Rattle, the LSO and Bartók’s Bluebeard
Ahead of the London Symphony Orchestra’s streaming next month, a privileged preview |
First Person: Artistic Director John Gilhooly on an inclusive and diverse Wigmore Hall
The London venue which kept artists afloat during lockdown reopens tomorrow |
Singer-songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter: 'I wanted to do something. I wanted to be useful in some way'
On creating her 'Songs from Home' in a time of crisis, depression and musical empathy |
'Masses of performers are still grounded': pianist Sophia Rahman on a UK music scene in crisis
Falling through the cracks in the benefit system, many musicians are giving up |
Directors Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui: 'The disability community is the world community'
Interview with the men behind Netflix's new Paralympic documentary 'Rising Phoenix' |
Theatre Unlocked 4: Shows in concert and a contemporary classic comes to TV
A New York duo celebrates Sir Noël; Samuel Beckett bewitches and bewilders once again |
A masked elegy: portraits of string players at the Fidelio Orchestra Café
Young talent captured by Nick Rutter during sessions for Strauss's 'Metamorphosen' |
Theatre Unlocked 3: Signs of activity after a long siesta
Theatre comes to life, albeit gently, and some familiar names crop up online |
'Rehearsing Beethoven with Barenboim felt like an historical moment': Vienna Philharmonic trombonist Kelton Koch on a new normal
As the Salzburg Festival flourishes, a Texan in Austria welcomes a musical rebirth |
First Person: Antonia Bain on directing a short kitchen opera for film
Scottish Opera's digital content producer on making 'The Narcissistic Fish' |
Theatre Unlocked 2: A starry premiere and musical revival alongside Greek tragedy where it began
Empty playhouses caught on camera and an online 'Merchant' complete a typically varied week of theatrical fare |
'She was Paris': RIP Zizi Jeanmaire (1924-2020)
Ballet or cabaret, Zizi's passion was for performance - preferably with her husband |
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