Transit Festival Review
Leuven’s Transit Festival came to a close last night with Jessie Marino’s bewilderingly Nice Guys Win Twice. Blurring the line between music, theatre and visual art one was left impressed by the means, even…
Stockhausen Weekend at De Bijloke Puur Muziek, Ghent
A few thoughts from the first night of a Stockhausen weekend held at De Bijloke in Ghent, which I had the pleasure of attending on Friday. We were presented with one of…
Tête à Tête Opera Festival. Review of Opening Nights.
The cast of Pterodactyls of Ptexas taking a bow. My arrival at the first night of Tête à Tête coincided with a pop-up performance of Samuel Bordoli’s Belongings, a work first performed on the Caledonian…
Review: BBC National Orchestra of Wales Foundations Concert 1
It was splendid to see the BBC National Orchestra of Wales dedicate the first of their Welsh Foundations Concerts to the memory of Peter Reynolds, composer and biographer to this…
Grace Williams: Missa Cambrensis Review
In my teens I spent many a happy hour digging around in the Welsh Music Information Centre, a repository for scores and recordings of mostly recently written music from the…
Konzerthaus, Freiburg and Gare du Nord, Basel
Another couple of interesting concerts here in Basel. I say in Basel, but the first was actually in Germany. One of the curiosities of this city is that its suburbs…
Arcomis International Brass Event Review
‘The trumpet does no more stun you by its loudness, than a whisper teases you by its provoking inaudibility.’ So it proved this weekend at Arcomis’s extraordinary International Brass Event in Cardiff. This is,…
Peter Eötvös Total Immersion Day. The Barbican, 14th May 2011
14th May saw the latest in the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s ‘Total Immersion’ days, this time dedicated to the music of Hungarian composer and conductor, Peter Eötvös. As usual on these…
Unsuk Chin, Total Immersion (Barbican, 9th April)
I was lucky enough to get hold of the Unsuk Chin Total Immersion day before it disappeared from BBC iPlayer this weekend. Four of her pieces from the event were…