classical

A friend came back fro  KOKO last night, enthusing about a gig by cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and his pianist sister, Isata. There were 800 young people crowding out the venue, having a really good time. […]

From our Finland correspondent: Sibelius wrote many songs including ‘Was it a Dream?’ and ‘The girl returned from meeting her lover’ for the soprano Ida Ekman who, on several accounts, he considered as the only […]

Cellist Josep Castanyer Alonso of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra has issued a video of himself playing the Maria Carey hit in the style of six composers. Josep samples Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and […]

From Pianist magazine: … Steinway artist Lang Lang performed a selection of his favourite Disney songs during an intimate concert at Ladbroke Hall London. For more than a century, Steinway has captivated global audiences and […]

Marshall Brickman played banjo in Moscow and gave Bob Dylan his first roof in New York before he met Woody Allen, who changed his life. ‘: Woody Allen. ‘I would stand at the back of […]

Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner of the CDU is not hardening his plan to cut 12 percent from the city’s art spend. He says: ‘I think we have to get away from the mentality of ‘we […]

We have been reminded of the BBC’s 1983 super-slow mini-series on the domestic life of Richard Wagner. The composer was played by Richard Burton, Cosima by Vanessa Redgrave. It gets worse as you go down […]

Six and a half years after the tumultuous departure of Gianandrea Noseda, the Teatro Regio in Turin has finally appointed another music director. He is Andrea Battistoni, 37, a versatile musician from Verona. He is […]

From my monthly essay in the new issue of The Critic magazine: I remember well the day the symphony died. It was August 1975, and I was sitting in a television newsroom when the teleprinter […]

Meet Speranza Scappucci, who becomes principal guest at the Royal Opera next September. She’s getting to know the orchestra on Puccini anniversary weekend. Speranza Scappucci, 51, made her debut at the house two years ago […]