February 9, 2025
Athens, GR 7 C
Expand search form
Blog

Last night at Yuja’s…

Last night at Yuja’s…

Music editor Ariane Todes was blown away:

 

Yuja Wang coaxing and thrashing the life out of piano music from Bach to Berio for more than an hour non-stop in a magical photographic box flitted about with the inside of David Hockney’s exquisite imagination was one of the most exciting artistic experiences – musical or visual – I’ve had in a long time.
Each piece timed and coloured to match his mood, each visual fantasy completely different, whether a Bach Cantata illustrated by an Yves Klein-blue stained-glass church window (the beauty and reverence utterly poleaxed me); Rachmaninoff setting off the vastness of the Grand Canyon; or Prokofiev illuminating driving rain and the energy of nature renewing itself.
And then there were the pieces where Yuja herself was the image, her face or hands filling the entire wall, glancing up self-consciously at first, but by the end triumphant and relieved (her teddy-horse hidden in the piano for emotional support). I have never seen the sheer effort and energy of music performance captured so viscerally – in one Busby Berkeley style section, filming her fingers from above, double vision, you could barely see her fingers for blur.
I’m fairly cynical about immersive art shows that cash in on dead painters but when the artist is Hockney, who even at the age of 87 is more curious and innovative than most creators, and when he is as involved as much as I presume he was – he was in the audience – I think it’s an absolute game changer for multimedia projects. They’ve set the bar very high. I was standing in the gallery for £20, which was fine. I’m very glad I went, and very glad that I live in a world that has Hockney in it.

The post Last night at Yuja’s… appeared first on Slippedisc.

Previous Article

How did Happy Birthday get into Marriage of Figaro?

Next Article

Label news: DG to record complete orchestral Schoenberg

You might be interested in …

Pappano's Rimsky and Mussorgsky

Pappano’s Rimsky and Mussorgsky

For the 2024/25 season, Sir Antonio Pappano ceded his position at the orchestra of Santa Cecilia in Rome to Daniel Harding; Pappano remains Conductor Emeritus. This is the finest modern Sheherazade: I remember being umbilically […]

Conductor steps down in Birmingham

Conductor steps down in Birmingham

Philip Ellis, conductor of Birmingham Royal Ballet, is stepping down in Marech after 35 years. He has conducted the Royal Ballet Sinfonia more than two thousand times. The post Conductor steps down in Birmingham appeared […]

A woman staged an opera in America in 1935

Job vacancy at English National Opera

ENO, which is shedding its orchestra in the move away from London, is advertising for an oerchestra manager. Should be an interesting job. The English National Opera (ENO) is inviting applications for the role of […]