SOGHOMON SOGHOMONIAN was born in 1869 in Kütahya, an Armenian Christian enclave whose inhabitants suffered systematic oppression under the Ottoman yoke. Even those Armenians who could speak their anc...Read More
On Saturday 2 October, Radio 3’s Music Matters carried an item in which Tom Service and I discussed, with musical examples, the central argument of my new book Musics Lost and Found: Song Collectors...Read More
Is folk music dying? In my new book I suggest that it is, at least in Europe and North America, thanks to the globalisation, urbanisation, and industrialisation which is now eroding the world...Read More
Figure St John Passion St Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield In medieval times, miracles were often ascribed to the healing power of the priory at St Bartholomew the Great, London’s oldest parish chu...Read More
Yellow Star – Red Star By Agnes Kaposi with László Csősz i2i Publishing £16.95 300pp Agnes Kaposi begins her autobiography with a disarmingly simple statement. ‘I should have had a good start ...Read More
I have just watched John Barber’s youth opera The Selfish Giant at Garsington. And I can’t remember when I last heard a new opera – for any age-group – which gave me such unalloyed pleasur...Read More
I Solomon, Great Hall, Bart’s Hospital Quatuor pour la fin du temps, St Paul’s Cathedral New Dark Age, Royal Opera House, London With the whole world of classical music engaged in streaming, l...Read More
Live Prom 1, BBC2 From the Independent, 29.8.2020 “We’re in for ninety minutes of heaven, in this Mecca of live music!” This is the first night of the Live Proms, and Katie Derham is in Radio 3 ...Read More
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
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