Classical Features
First Person: young composer Nicola Perikhanyan on a new immersive reality experience at London WallWednesday, 22 December 2021
There's something really moving about standing in the centre of London Wall's Roman ruins and looking up at the city that has grown around it. Thinking about our past, present and future simultaneously. More than 2000 years have passed since the Romans created our city, and while much has changed there's still so much consistency in how our society exists, both the beauty and the flaws. Read more... |
First Person: composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad on a musical love letter to the natural worldWednesday, 24 November 2021
In the darkness my dreams are interrupted I see the blackbird in my mind and the whirring of my brain begins Read more... |
First Person: composer Conor Mitchell on challenging religious orthodoxy from a queer perspective in MASSWednesday, 17 November 2021
A mass, in its simplest form, is the order of prayers that are said in a religious service. It is standardised and has been for centuries, in order to create a theatrical journey that takes us through a service. Composers have always been drawn to the mass as a structure because it has an inherent drama. It draws on themes of rebirth, change, redemption. Read more... |
Judith van Driel of the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam: 'the more we played Brahms, the more freedom we found'Saturday, 13 November 2021
In every life there are moments of great significance. Experiences that stick with us and define our own personal story. Read more... |
'Everyone who played for him always gave their very best': remembering Bernard Haitink (1929-2021)Tuesday, 02 November 2021
Few musicians get to stage-manage a dignified departure from the world. Read more... |
First Person: ethnomusicologist Shumaila Hemani on global musical traditions and Concert for AfghanistanFriday, 22 October 2021
In early 2020, the year that soon saw COVID-19 lockdown, I served on the music faculty for Semester at Sea, Spring 2020 voyage, where I taught self-designed courses on global music cultures as well as a course called Soundscapes. Read more... |
First Person: pianist Filippo Gorini on head, heart and the contemporary in Bach's 'The Art of Fugue'Saturday, 11 September 2021
A past work of art either still speaks to us in the present, or it is dead. To try and understand a masterpiece, we tend to look at its past: we study it, analyse it, read biographies of the artist behind it and chronicles of its historical background. But it is even more interesting to see what happened to the work after it was finished. What did it mean to the following generations, and, more critically, what does it mean to us today? Read more... |
Through hoops and hurdles to sheer joy: BBC Proms Director David Pickard on a season like no otherFriday, 10 September 2021
As anyone who has been trying to steer an arts organisation through the pandemic will tell you, the greatest challenge has been uncertainty; learning to live with the unknown and the unexpected. Read more... |
First Person: composer Joseph Phibbs on rescoring BrittenTuesday, 24 August 2021
The music Britten composed in his twenties occupies a special place in his output. Even among his detractors there are some who begrudgingly concede that this early period is somehow different: fresher, more extroverted and daring, perhaps less driven by serving a purpose (or “being useful”, in the composer’s words). Read more... |
First Person: theartsdesk writer Bernard Hughes on composing for the BBC PromsThursday, 19 August 2021
For many years, first as a punter then latterly as a reviewer, I have sat in the section of the Royal Albert Hall stalls near stage right, under the BBC Radio broadcast box, knowing that that is where they sit the composers being premiered at the Proms. Read more... |
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