The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester The Bridgewater Hall in Manchester is celebrating its 30th birthday! The opening concert was on 11 September 1996 and the hall has just announced a celebratory 2026/27 season. Manchester’s historic concert […]
Back in the late 1990s one of the origins for ideas for new musical works was the moment during mass when I tuned the homily out and my mind went into a sort of free […]
Verdi: La traviata – Christian Joel, Isobel Hughes, Ted Day – St Paul’s Opera (Photo: Julian Guidera) Verdi: La traviata; Lizzie Ryder, Christian Joel, Owain Gwynfryn, director: Edwina Strobl, music director: Adrian Salinero, St Paul’s […]
Irish-French composer Augusta Holmès’s Au bois dormant from Paysages d’Amour is an uplifting song, full of joys the love-drunk lovers, and was recorded by tenor Thomas Elwin and pianist Lana Bode on the 2025 album […]
Bizet’s perennially popular opera Carmen, a work capable of multiple reinventions, is popping up in two UK regional productions. Northern Ireland Opera has announced cast and creatives for its first-ever production of Carmen which debuts at Belfast’s Grand […]
This is surely Sir Antonio Pappano’s “Wagner period”: his recent Siegfried, the latest instrument of an ongoing Ring at RBO revealed, to my ears at least, his finest Wanger to date. He has, of course, […]
This is not he first specifically Haitink Bruckner 7 on Classical Explorer: we did a short post on a DVD of a Vienna performance here. There is something about the gorgeous warmth of found of […]
CBSO at New Street Station as part of CBSO in the City, 2024 (Photo: Hannah Fathers) As part of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO)’s 2026 CBSO in the City festival (27 to 31 […]
Meredith Monk Stringsongs: IV. “Phantom Strings” (2004) Clarice Assad Sonic Landscapes: I. “Continuum” (2002) Meredith Monk Backlight (2015) Cassie Kinoshi ARTEFACT/AUTOMATON (2026, World Premiere) Cassandra Miller Perfect Offering (2021) Manchester Collective; Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, […]
That’s not necessarily a biblical quote coming from me (hardly!), but a phrase which is nonetheless apropos in this context. In my review of Trio Wanderer’s “Art Nouveau” collection of French chamber music, I loved […]
