First Person

First Person: violinist and animateur Bjarte Eike on filming the celebrated Alehouse Sessions

Tuesday, 16 May 2023

BBC Four is broadcasting our Alehouse Sessions which filmmaker Dominic Best filmed in Battersea Arts Centre one snowy night in December. I know it feels very unlikely that we, the Barokksolistene, a Scandi group of baroque specialists, have made a...

First Person: young composer Chris Brooke on his fanfare for the Coronation Bandstand Project

Friday, 05 May 2023

Having started my musical journey with the clarinet at the age of seven, I’ve enjoyed 12 years of making music since, playing in recitals and concerts both as a soloist and in an array of local ensembles. I have always had an interest in writing...

First Person: playwright Joe White on how he came to write his Hampstead Theatre hit

Friday, 07 April 2023

Before I knew – or realised – I wanted to write about alcoholism in my play Blackout Songs (premiered last autumn at the Hampstead Downstairs and moving this weekend to the mainstage), I wanted to write about love and memory...

First Person: Donatella Flick on why the conducting competition in her name is needed more than ever

Thursday, 23 March 2023

What are the qualities that make a great conductor? It’s something that has been debated for years, brought into focus recently not least because of Cate Blanchett’s award-winning performance as fictional maestra Lydia Tár. Despite what you may...

First Person: Anna Clyne on composing collaborations, not battles, in her latest concertos

Wednesday, 22 March 2023

Collaboration fuels a lot of my music – I love the interaction that takes me outside of my natural tendencies – it’s a source of inspiration and an opportunity to see my own music and creative process through a different lens.This past season I had...

First Person: conductor Harry Bicket on filming the complete Handel for The English Concert's big new project

Tuesday, 28 February 2023

Of the many questions we asked ourselves during lockdown, I suspect that many of us looked at our lives and professions and asked, “Why?”.Perhaps a period of forced introspection is a positive thing if it helps clarify what is truly important and...

First Person: Kings Place Artistic and Executive Director Helen Wallace on a year of 'Sound Unwrapped'

Saturday, 21 January 2023

2023 is surely the year the performing arts reach peak "immersive", a word endangered by its own ubiquity. From Punchdrunk’s Burnt City to Danny Boyle’s The Matrix we are promised a swallowing-up by art. Kings Cross is the location for two visual...

First Person: soprano Soraya Mafi on why Glyndebourne's tour cancellation is disastrous

Friday, 20 January 2023

Anyone concerned about making the arts accessible regardless of where they live should be concerned by the recent announcement from Glyndebourne that it’s having to cease touring across England.That painful decision, and Welsh National Opera’s...

First Person: conductor Leo Hussain on why we still need English National Opera in London

Wednesday, 16 November 2022

I still remember vividly my first encounter with ENO. I was taken, as a nine-year-old boy, on a school trip to see a performance of Peter Grimes. And I was hooked. I pestered my parents to take me back several times to that same production. I can...

First Persons: co-music directors Jasdeep Singh Degun and Laurence Cummings on their new Opera North 'Orpheus'

Friday, 14 October 2022

We believe that with Orpheus, we are creating something which will invite audiences to rethink what opera can and should be. Inspired by Monteverdi’s 1607 work L’Orfeo, it grew out of Opera North’s long-standing relationship with South Asian Arts-uk...

'Serving the community means representing the narratives of our time': Elena Dubinets on her responsibilities as the LPO's Artistic Director

Thursday, 29 September 2022

Just as I was moving from the US to the UK to begin working as the Artistic Director of the London Philharmonic Orchestra last summer, the orchestra was emerging from the COVID-19 period and our audiences began coming back. During the course of the...

First Person: violinist and music director Bjarte Eike on bringing the Playhouse to his 'Alehouse Sessions'

Thursday, 22 September 2022

History first. The 17th century London of Oliver Cromwell and its puritanical quest to curb all creativity – banning music, closing down theatres, restricting alcohol and all the rest – provided an incredible backdrop for Barokksolistene’s project...

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