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Category: Features

Rule Britannia: a storm in a teacup, capitalised on by Johnson and the Mail

Posted on August 26, 2020August 29, 2020 by Michael Church
Rule Britannia – and how the Tory media have capitalised on it By Michael Church From the Independent, 26.8.20 You couldn’t make it up. First the chronology. On Sunday, in what seemed like a k... Read More

John Gilhooly’s Wigmore leads the charge

Posted on August 8, 2020August 8, 2020 by Michael Church
It’s no surprise that classical music should come last in the government’s list of priorities for resuscitation. It’s also no surprise that John Gilhooly, boss of the Wigmore Hall, should be the... Read More

Classical music: the Proms, and the state we’re in

Posted on July 6, 2020July 17, 2020 by Michael Church
Classical music in crisis, and the Proms By Michael Church   Whither live classical music? When the lockdown was enforced, all concerts were cancelled for the foreseeable future, and musical life... Read More

By a beach in Latvia…

Posted on August 22, 2019August 28, 2019 by Michael Church
Latvia may occupy a large territory, but its population of 1.7 million would fit into a small corner of London, and its road to independence has been long and hard. It endured centuries of Swedish, Po... Read More

Phage medicine – at last the BBC and the press wake up

Posted on May 9, 2019May 13, 2019 by Michael Church
‘Why haven’t we heard about phages before?’ asked Evan Davis brightly on the ‘PM’ programme on May 2. He was referring to the ‘new’ miracle cure which had jus... Read More

In praise of the BBC Young Musician scheme

Posted on July 20, 2018July 22, 2018 by Michael Church
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

In praise of Highgate Choral Society

Posted on July 2, 2018July 3, 2018 by Michael Church
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

Aimard’s Ligeti

Posted on May 13, 2018May 23, 2018 by Michael Church
Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s performance of eighteen Ligeti Etudes at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on May 12 – faster than ever, and negotiating without missing a beat the collapse of several loos... Read More

Chineke! ushers in a triumphant makeover for the Queen Elizabeth Hall

Posted on April 10, 2018June 7, 2018 by Michael Church
Chineke! Queen Elizabeth Hall   Over the last half-century the outbuildings of the Royal Festival Hall have been threatened with one grandiose makeover after another: people have always been ambi... Read More

The world according to Barrie Kosky

Posted on February 4, 2018February 5, 2018 by Michael Church
  Opera moves with the times: it’s no surprise that a Carmen in tune with the #metoo movement should open in Florence, with the exasperated heroine shooting her jealous lover dead. But that’s... Read More
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