Reviews
Not many festivals in the world can pride themselves on hosting the Berlin Philharmonic on two successive nights. Needless to say there was a buzz in the air as the capacity audience anticipated the two very different programmes. As the current music director of the Bavarian State Opera, the young
Reviews
Georges Bizet’s most famous work is the opera Carmen a contemporary tale of French verismo replete with on-stage cigarette- girls, Spanish dances, bull fights and on-stage stabbing. Its popularity has far out stripped that of its ten year’s previous story set in ancient times on the island of
Reviews
A magnificent show of Tchaikovsky’s dramatic tragedy was performed for the sixth time on 25th August to an appreciative audience. The opera by Tchaikovsky has a libretto by his brother Modest based on a novel by Alexander Puchkin. The premiere took place in 1890 in St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky
Travel Diaries
October-November 2017 How on earth am I going to get the funds to go to a music competition in Wales, I mused? A fourth of my choir cannot even afford the modest choir fees that I charge. Was it too wild an idea? Dare I tell the kids? Do I
Reviews
Last night I attended the first performance of my week in Salzburg during the conclusion of the Summer Festival. It was the sixth performance of Mozart’s last opera the Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte). Billed initially by Mozart as a “German opera” it was also described as “grand opera”. Its
Reviews
I made it my business to explore the music of my contemporary George Benjamin in recent months, and was wondrously struck by the wealth and richness of his creative output, most especially in the outpouring of recent works. He is without question one of the most successful and accomplished composer
Reviews
Scottish Chamber Orchestra/Robin Ticciati Johannes Brahms: Symphonies 1-4 18 and 19 August 2018 Usher Hall, Edinburgh Edinburgh International Festival Listening to Brahms’ complete symphony cycle is a tremendous emotional journey, and there could have been nobody better than Robin Ticciati and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra at the Edinburgh International
News
The first edition of the national singing competition, Voices of India, will take place at the National Centre for Performing Arts (Experimental Theatre) of Mumbai on 28th August 2018 at 1:30 pm (semi-final) and 29th August 2018 at 2:00 pm (finale). The competition benefits from the expertise of
Music Education
Next month, the Symphony Orchestra of India will begin its Autumn 2018 Season with compositions from some of the greatest masters. Sandipan Das breaks down the programme. Prokofiev (1891-1953) Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major (1944) Prokofiev wrote this during the war years and it is his first symphony written
Reviews
London Symphony Orchestra/Simon Rattle Leonard Bernstein: Symphony No. 2 ‘The Age of Anxiety’ Antonin Dvořák: Slavonic Dances op. 72 Leoš Janáček: Sinfonietta Krystian Zimerman, Piano 10 August 2018 Usher Hall, Edinburgh Edinburgh International Festival When I first heard three years ago that Simon Rattle was to take over the
Reviews
Those of us present at Mumbai’s century-old Opera House between 1-3 August were lucky enough to be treated to a really delightful evening. The opera house, built in the early 20th century in Indo-European Neo-Baroque architecture, lay unused for twenty three years from 1993 to 2016. It was formally
Travel Diaries
We were performing the last song for the evening to a packed hall at St. Mary’s Church in Haddington (Scotland). The emotion had built through the concert, and peaked with this particular song. Some swayed gently in their seats, a couple brushed stray tears away, and many had locked