Friends are reporting the death today of Rohan de Saram, cellist of the trailblazing Arditti Quartet for quarter of a century, from 1979 to 2005. Rohan was 85. Born in Sheffield to Sri Lankan parents, […]
Spiros Rantos died in Brisbane on Friday. Obituary by Breandáin O’Shea. Born in Corfu in 1945, Rantos studied in Athens and, at 18, was offered a position at Linz Opera by its visiting chief conductor. […]
Starting out as assistant conductor to Antal Dorati in Minneapolis, Dr Robert Berglund founded the Minnesota Chorale and was Director of Music (1969-1995) at Mt. Olivet Lutheran Church, the largest Lutheran congregation in the United […]
The Amsterdam concert hall surprised its Sunday-morning soloist today with the award of a long-service medal. Ronald Brautigam had just finished the third Beethoven piano concerto with the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra when General manager Simon […]
From a brilliant FT column by mathematician Tim Harford: Mozart and Haydn were composing string quartets a quarter of a millennium ago, when the industrial revolution was in its infancy. Since then, the scale of […]
The Joachim violin competition has a rotten record in producing winners. Over 33 years, it has failed to deliver a world-conquering soloist. For several years, as we documented on slippedisc.com, the competition was dominated by […]
The jury, without revealing the proportions of their split, divided the first prize in Hanover last night between Angela Chan, 27, from Hong Kong and the 19-year-old Canadian Jacques Forestier. The Canadian came away with […]
Nordic Soundscapes: Sigfúsdóttir, Grieg, Sibelius Stephen Hough (piano); Johanna Eusanen (soprano); Tommi Hakala (baritone); YL Male Choir; Philharmonia Orchestra / Santtu-Mathias Rouvali (conductor). Royal Festival Hall, London, 26.09.2024 María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir Oceans (2018, London […]
Composer John Adams made this event of modern history the subject of his first opera. Premiered in 1987, this a mesmerising work in which the pulsations and repetitions typical of minimalism are combined with melodic […]
The Lightest Element Imagine you’re a Cambridge Doctoral candidate of surpassing brilliance. It’s 1925. You’ve made a scientific discovery that will turn the world of astronomy on its ear and you’ve written it up as […]