Features
David Nice
No-one can easily replace Mark Wigglesworth as Music Director of English National Opera: ask any of the musicians working there and you'll find they're all heartbroken. That said, they could not have chosen a nicer man or a better all-round musician than Martyn Brabbins.In the UK we know him best for his concert work and especially for his espousal of the unfamiliar, from the debateably terrible Havergal Brian "Gothic" Symphony - proof of Brabbins' capability in mustering the hugest possible forces - to a re-evaluation of Tippett's Second Symphony as an absolute masterpiece. In opera, not so Read more ...
Marcus Davey
We've got a lot to celebrate in 2016: 50 years since the Roundhouse became an arts centre and 10 years of transforming young lives through creativity. In celebration of this momentous year we embarked on a journey of discovery to uncover the stories from train-enthusiast accounts of our humble beginnings to real-life high-wire love stories, from week-long raves in the 1990s to politically-charged spoken word in the 2000s. So many incredible stories have emerged from the walls of this beautiful building.In the 1960s freedom of expression and liberation had arrived in London. Skirts were Read more ...
Vladimir Shcherban
On 10 October 2016, World Mental Health Day, the team of Belarus Free Theatre came back together to start the final stages of production for Tomorrow I Was Always a Lion, a new theatre show based on Arnhild Lauveng’s autobiographical book. Arnhild Lauveng is a Norwegian writer and practicing psychologist. In the book she tells the story of her own recovery from the incurable condition of schizophrenia.Every production created by Belarus Free Theatre is dedicated to those people who challenge themselves and the circumstances they are living in. The story of BFT itself is a story of overcoming Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Agnes Obel’s new album Citizen of Glass is released next week. Conceptually underpinned by a fascination with the German idea of the gläserner menschen or gläserner bürger – the glass citizen – its ten compositions examine privacy, the nature of what is hidden, why it is concealed and question how much self-exposure is needed, whether in day-to-day life or as fuel for an artist. The glass citizen is one for whom everything is apparent.Discussing the album, the Berlin-based Danish singer-songwriter (born 1980) revealed its conception and inspirations, and also explained the ideas behind many Read more ...
mark.kidel
Dont Look Back is the Ur-rockumentary, the template for hundreds of hand-held rock tour films, a source of inspiration as well as a model to aspire to.When director DA Pennebaker went on the road with Bob Dylan as he played a number of English gigs in 1965, he was intending to make a concert film. The backstage, limo and hotel room material was imagined as filler. But something unexpected happened: Dylan and his entourage, not least his constant companion road manager Bob Neuwirth, realised very soon that the performance didn’t end as the protest singer stepped out of the spotlight, high on Read more ...
Nico Muhly
Writing for two pianos is something that – until last year – I had not attempted. I was contacted by Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen, two pianists who have performed as a duo for many years, asking me to compose a duet for them to perform at the inaugural London Piano Festival. I met Charles back in 2014 when he performed my pieces A Hudson Cycle and Fast Stuff in New York. Time constraints led me to restructure and rewrite an existing piece in my portfolio, Fast Cycles, which I wrote for the late John Scott. Writing for two pianos was easy, as I know a Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
We’re in Gdańsk for the launch of the I, Culture Orchestra (sounds like an Apple product, someone points out). The new outfit has Sir Neville Marriner as guest conductor, at 87, still on sparkling form. The orchestra has brought together young musicians from across Eastern Europe “to encourage better cultural understanding” between Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. New music specialist Pavel Kotla is the artistic director and co-conductor (pictured below, with Sir Neville) – he has championed works by the likes of Charlotte Bray and Ian Vine as part Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
Helaine Blumenfeld was living in Paris in the 1960s when she received an invitation from the Russian-born sculptor Ossip Zadkine to attend one of his salons. Zadkine had emigrated to Paris at the beginning of the century, evolving a style influenced first by Cubism and then African art. His most celebrated sculpture The Destroyed City (Rotterdam) had drawn comparisons with Picasso’s Guernica, while his social circle had included Henry Miller, Picasso, Brancusi and Modigliani. So when he invited the then unknown Blumenfeld over after seeing her sculptures in the atelier where he had been Read more ...
Ed Vaizey
A couple of weeks ago, I held a debate in Parliament in which I called for the government to increase funding for the arts, museums and heritage. The Chancellor’s autumn statement, less than two months away, will be when I will know if my campaign has succeeded.For my whole six years as culture minister, from 2010 until the summer of 2016, funding was the biggest issue for debate. In 2010, big headline cuts drew the wrath of the sector. By 2015, I had persuaded the then Chancellor George Osborne to a standstill settlement. Almost better were the warm words he used about the importance of Read more ...
mark.kidel
When the French painter Fabienne Verdier told me she’d been invited to explore the relationship between painting and music at the world-famous Juilliard School in New York, I knew straight away that this unusual residency should be documented.Fabienne is an adventurer. In her early 20s, she had courageously embarked on a journey of discovery. She was one of the very first French art students to go on an exchange programme to China, only a few years after the end of the Cultural Revolution. She had a really difficult time there, as she looked for a traditional calligrapher with whom she could Read more ...
Steven Isserlis
All musicians have particular musical passions, composers, styles or genres to which they are irresistibly drawn. I have many – almost too many at times; but among the most enduring is my love for the music, writing and personality of Robert Schumann. Another important aspect of my musical life – another passion, in fact - is the work I get to do with young musicians.Writing (co-writing) this book has given me an opportunity to combine these passions/pleasures, by taking Schumann’s own invaluable advice for the young musicians of his day, and updating it in order to render it more accessible Read more ...
David Kettle
It’s just a short trip down the A1 from Edinburgh. But East Lothian – with its big skies, wide-open spaces, empty beaches and seemingly inexhaustable supply of quaint, historic villages – feels like a long, long way from the Scottish capital. Especially from the heaving, hectic Edinburgh of the August festivals season – which East Lothian’s Lammermuir Festival follows by just a couple of weeks, managing to maintain the momentum of artistic endeavour, but also providing a far more reflective, considered antidote.The East Lothian festival takes its name from the surprisingly wild Lammermuir Read more ...