Leeds International Piano Competition, 2018 When the redoubtable Fanny Waterman set up the Leeds Piano Competition in 1963, no one could have predicted its longevity, or the effect it would have on pi...Read More
The Last Prom 2018, Royal Albert Hall The Proms always go out on a high, if you discount the last one whose interest is political rather than musical. In Prom 72, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra...Read More
BBC Young Musician 40th Anniversary, Royal Albert Hall With Brexit threatening to unpick all the things which make life worth living in Britain, it behoves us to count our spoons (as the old saying go...Read More
Jacob Collier and Friends, Royal Albert Hall It goes without saying that 24-year-old Jacob Collier is a phenomenon. There’s no instrument he can’t play, and he sometimes plays several at once. He ...Read More
The Skating Rink, Garsington Opera at Wormsley On paper The Skating Rink had a lot going for it. A distinguished cast, and in Stewart Laing an experienced director-designer. A composer, David Sawer, w...Read More
Highgate Choral Society – a musical community like no other The reading was to take place in a rough-and-ready little theatre under a Waterloo railway arch. The title of the play was Short Memory, a...Read More
Don Giovanni, Royal Opera House, London Some revivals save shows, others only serve to highlight their inherent weaknesses. Richard Jones’s replacement for John Copley’s much-loved Covent Garden B...Read More
Falstaff, Garsington Opera at Wormsley In three weeks’ time the Royal Opera will revive its version of Falstaff which, with Bryn Terfel in the title role, will doubtless sell out. But in Garsingtonâ...Read More
Mamzer Bastard, Hackney Empire, London The term mamzer denotes someone who bears the stigma of having been born out of a forbidden relationship, as defined by Jewish religious law: this new opera by N...Read More