Features
Matt Wolf
As lockdown continues, so does the ability of the theatre community to find new ways to tantalise and entertain. The urge to create and perform surely isn't going to be reined-in by a virus, which explains the explosion of creatives lending their gifts to song cycles, readings, or even the odd quiz night. At the same time, venues and theatre companies the world over continue to unlock cupboards full of goodies, almost too many to absorb. Below are five events worth tending to during the week ahead: some will linger online for a while, others are here and gone again in the blink of an eyelid Read more ...
Liz Thomson
Last Sunday evening I was making lentil soup (words I never thought I’d type) when Radio 4’s discussion of wealth, or lack thereof, gave way to a profile of Dame Vera Lynn. She was “trending”, her NHS fundraising duet with Katherine Jenkins of “We’ll Meet Again” having hit number one on iTunes. A mash-up of the song, in aid of West End artists, is to follow.I resisted the urge to switch stations and listened as presenter Mark Coles chatted to friends and family, including daughter Virginia, who revealed that her mother is often trilling away (in tune) at 11.30 at night as she gets ready for Read more ...
Stephen Maddock
This year was supposed to be so very different. For the best part of the last decade we have been planning a series of major events to take place in 2020 to mark the centenary of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Having often commented on how remarkable it was that this institution should have been started by civic leaders in the wake of the First World War and the Spanish flu pandemic, the last thing I expected was that the worst pandemic since then would wipe out most of our centenary activities.In fact, it could have been even worse for us. The first of our five planned overseas Read more ...
Florence Hallett
As the art world adjusts to our new reality, social media has allowed galleries and museums to remain open in spirit at least. Tate has kept up a stream of pictures, films and activities for children, while the often brilliant Royal Academy twitter account dispenses a daily dose of silliness via #radailydoodle. What might have been a fun but shortlived corona-craze for dressing up as works of art has only become more refined, with particularly impressive contributions by National Gallery staff, whose head of press has the Lady with the Ermine and Girl with a Pearl Earring (pictured below) Read more ...
Matt Wolf
The lockdown has been extended, but here's the good news: each week whereby we are shut inside seems to bring with it ever-enticing arrays of theatre from across the spectrum, from online cabarets to freshly conceived podcasts and all manner of archival offerings of tites both familiar and not. Below is an unscientific sampling of items of interest to look out for either at the moment or during the week ahead. Some theatres change over programming on Mondays or even midweek, so if the current link you have to hand seems to be to something else, hold fire and the title in question should be Read more ...
Rob Adediran
Our brains are hardwired to respond to crisis by fleeing or fighting. Crisis creates fear and fear demands action so we protect ourselves by running from danger or battling against it. You can see these instinctive responses in the language of the moment where the coronavirus is described as an invisible enemy that must be defeated, and in our actions as we move away from one another to maintain a crucial social distance to protect ourselves and others.In the arts, too, organisations are shoring up their defences to reduce risk and attempting to outrun disaster. These are understandable and Read more ...
David Nice
Wagner's final drama, of learning, suffering and redemption through compassion, is second only to Bach's Passions at this time of year, and seems likely to strike a special note in the present crisis. Opera companies around the world, making much in their archives free to view right now, have served up the natural seasonal choice, and they have: there are at least nine choices right now, and they come from the expected centres of excellence including Berlin, Vienna, Munich, New York. Since it's unlikely that most of you would have the time or the patience for more than a few, and since the Read more ...
Joe Boyd
When it comes to making records, I love deadlines. Embarking on an open-ended project, particularly with the infinite number of overdubs made possible by ProTools, is my idea of hell. Back in the Nineties, I once spent an afternoon combining vocal takes line-by-line into a master track for one song. That’s when I started to think writing books might be a better way to make a living.But, having just four days in a studio with a quartet of world-class musicians, an engineer who loves moving microphones around in a single space to achieve the perfect sonic blend (Jerry Boys, with whom I’ve been Read more ...
Steven Osborne
How fast the world can change. What seemed unimaginable just weeks ago, the effective shuttering of our societies, is now a reality in many countries for at least weeks and quite possibly several months to come. I hope for the health and security of all of you reading this. I’m not going to reflect on our situation at any length as I’m sure many of you have read far more on the subject than is good for you - I certainly have! - but rather I want to talk about an idea that came to me a few days ago that gave me a lot of pleasure.As I reflected on months at home without concerts and thought Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
“Jazz people,” one commentator has written this week “are amongst the most adaptable of our species as life mirrors art and we improvise our way through – we're uniquely qualified to weather the storm.” There has indeed been a worldwide flurry of adaptability and creativity. The list below is a selection of seven initiatives to adapt and to bring people closer to the music which have caught my eye since lockdown began.Of course it’s not all about music. The real world, the politics, the unfolding story of the pandemic are omni-present. And there is already sadness and tragedy as Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
No composer since Stravinsky has defined his age as comprehensively as Krzysztof Penderecki, who died on Sunday aged 86. Initially an uncompromising modernist, Penderecki was one of the composers who put Poland at the forefront of the musical avant-garde in the late 1950s. His music later changed, eventually moving to an unashamedly expressive neo-Romantic style in the 1980s. At a time when modernism was declining in some quarters, but defended elsewhere, the reactions to Penderecki’s move cast those divisions into sharp relief. But the grand and increasingly civic style of his music in later Read more ...
Liz Thomson
We’ve all spent time considering our desert island discs, which is of course why the programme Roy Plomley devised one winter’s night in 1942 is still thriving. The choices are perhaps less favourites than music that takes you back to a specific moment in time, that reminds you of someone, or something, special. “Favourites” are almost necessarily changeable. I prefer to think of music – a track, an album – that has in some way changed my life. Clichéd maybe, yet I suspect that most of us for whom music is a central part of life, not mere wallpaper, could come up with a little list of Read more ...