Michael Church – live roundup March 2025 Â Wigmore Hall: Roman Rabinovich 17 Nov; Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, 27 Nov; Nikolai Lugansky 8 Dec; Kit Armstrong 22 Dec; Danny Driver 2 Jan 2025; Alim Beise...Read More
LSO/Simon Rattle, Barbican As a deity whose acolytes believed he had pulled down the palace of traditional tonality, Arnold Schoenberg invited iconoclasm; the only surprise is that the response took ...Read More
There are two words – ‘weinte bitterlich’- in a recitative in Bach’s darkly dramatic Johannespassion when the Evangelist must negotiate his path alone through a frenzy of melodic and emotional...Read More
Recital round-up No 53 for International Piano Magazine – April 2019 Wigmore Hall: Kirill Gerstein, Feb 24; Garrick Ohlsson, Feb 27 Royal Festival Hall: Angela Hewitt, Feb 26 Barbican: Arcadi Volodo...Read More
Trifonov/LSO/Rattle, Barbican The Barbican is building a series of concerts round the young Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov, and his talent deserves the accolade. For his first outing he chose to pla...Read More
Verbier can still spring surprises, even at the venerable age of twenty-five. Marking that anniversary with a gala concert this summer, they corralled more musical celebrities on stage than had ever b...Read More
Coraline, Barbican From the composer of the viscerally-shocking Greek and the in-yer-face Anna Nicole, now comes a ‘family friendly’ opera: Coraline marks yet another twist in the creative progres...Read More
Evgeny Kissin, Barbican Now forty-seven, Evgeny Kissin is no longer music’s most miraculous child: he’s become a trim and stately middle-aged gent, and his pianism has matured commensurately. Itâ€...Read More
Dead Man Walking, Barbican, 20.2.18 First the back story. A nun named Sister Helen Prejean was asked to write to a convict on death row in Louisiana who was due to die for a double murder; she accompa...Read More
Genesis Suite, Barbican, 13.1.18 In 1943, as news of the Holocaust and the mass flight of refugees was coming through, a Jewish New York musician named Nat Shilkret had an idea for a musical re...Read More