sun 10/12/2023

Features & Interviews

First Person: Natalia Franklin Pierce, Executive Director of Nonclassical, on 'creating a sense of belonging'

Natalia Franklin Pierce

Despite my double-barrelled surname (my parents weren't married when I was born – so I was given both their names), a career within contemporary classical music definitely wasn't on the cards for me as a child. My Dad was a self-made man from a North London council estate, and while my parents loved music, classical music didn’t feature much and they regretted not being able to play any instruments.

Powell and Pressburger: In Prospero's Room

Nick Hasted

There’s a thread of bright magic running through British cinema, from Powell and Pressburger through Nic Roeg, Derek Jarman and Lynne Ramsay, and it’s wrapped around Jarman’s last home like fisherman’s rope.

Powell and Pressburger: the glueman cometh

Graham Fuller

The shop assistant turned World War Two Land Army girl Alison Smith, clad in a summer dress on the sabbath, steps through a glade onto a hilltop...

theartsdesk at Wexford Festival Opera - four...

David Nice

Imagine a Glyndebourne season where all those promising young singers in the chorus get to be principals in a series of fringe operas. At Wexford,...

Powell and Pressburger: Spy masters

Demetrios Matheou

Alfred Hitchcock and Michael Powell are, almost certainly, Britain’s greatest directors. Hitchcock was slightly older, and entered the film business...

Powell and Pressburger: Battleships and Byron

Hugh Barnes

The 1950s war films 'The Battle of the River Plate' and 'Ill Met By Moonlight' turned a clapped-out genre into art

theartsdesk in Ukraine - Stankovych's 'Psalms of War' at the Lviv National Opera

Ed Vulliamy

A powerful new work written in blood from the inside

Michael Powell interview - 'I had no idea that critics were so innocent'

Saskia Baron

In an interview Powell gave to City Limits in 1986, he discussed the furore over his misunderstood masterpiece 'Peeping Tom' and his wrangles with David O Selznick

theartsdesk at Salzburg Jazz & the City Festival - perfection in free venues

Sebastian Scotney

The ideal setting for cleverly programmed European jazz

Martin Scorsese's 'Mean Streets' - a triumph of personal filmmaking

Demetrios Matheou

Martin Scorsese’s breakthrough film celebrates its 50th anniversary this month

Powell and Pressburger's 'The Red Shoes' - art and nothing but

Hugh Barnes

The indelible ballet classic was the Archers' first attempt at a 'composed' film

They had a good war: Powell and Pressburger's no-nonsense heroines

Helen Hawkins

In the Archers' 1940s classics women are frequently indomitable opponents

'Glorious, isn't it?' Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's Subversive Cinema

Graham Fuller

theartsdesk opens a series timed to the BFI's Powell and Pressburger season

London Film Festival 2023 - Scorsese on Scorsese

Nick Hasted

The master looks back from 'Mean Streets' to 'Flower Moon', live in London

First Person: Pulitzer Prize winning composer David Lang on the original Jewish love story

David Lang

Music, poetry and movement combine in 'Song of Songs', now running at the Barbican

Reckoning with the Jimmy Savile legacy - Steve Coogan stars in BBC One's four-part 'factual drama'

Adam Sweeting

Is Savile's career of evil suitable for prime-time entertainment?

First Person: Director Sir David Pountney on creating a new 'Masque of Might' from the music of Purcell

Sir David Pountney

Launching Opera North’s Green Season with a climate sceptic as villain

First Person: conductor Edward Gardner on some of his questions and obsessions about Mahler's 'Resurrection' Symphony

Edward Gardner

On music that can be 'universal and personal, fragile and grand, all at the same time'

First Person: 'America's sweetheart organist' Carol Williams on running the musical gamut

Carol Williams

A born entertainer about to surprise London audiences discusses her happy life

Side By Side Ukrainian Film Festival, Curzon Soho - cameras of courage and resistance

Hugh Barnes

The festival shows war-torn Ukraine in turmoil but unbowed

First Person: the Bayerisches Staatsorchester's Managing Director Guido Gärtner on its 500th anniversary

Guido Gärtner

Reflections as the Bavarians give two Barbican concerts under Vladimir Jurowski

First Person: mezzo Stephanie Wake-Edwards on open dialogue and shared goals in the new show 'FEAST'

Stephanie Wake-Edwards

On class, identity and the joy of true collaboration

theartsdesk at the Pärnu Music Festival 2023 - small seaside town, biggest roster of top players

David Nice

Every musician's a star in Paavo Järvi's superband Estonian Festival Orchestra

theartsdesk at the Voces8 Summer School - musical oasis offers opportunities for all

Bernard Hughes

Welcoming environment aids celebration of vocal music in all its forms

'The music business was created for people like me who are not criminal enough to go to jail, and not mad enough to go to the nuthouse'. Sinéad O'Connor, 1966-2023

Peter Culshaw

An interview with the great singer in 2013 in which she discusses her new album, God, pharmacology and Bob Dylan

Appraising Billie Holiday's 'Fine and Mellow' - anatomy of a jazz masterpiece

Tony Staveacre

The making of a thrilling document about jazz

First Person: tenor Elgan Llŷr Thomas on recording a queer-themed album

Elgan Llŷr Thomas

Collaborating with Iain Burnside on Britten, Tippett, Gipps, Browne - and the author

First Person: composer Lukas Ligeti on how his father György inspired a new approach

Lukas Ligeti

As the Aldeburgh Festival celebrates Ligeti Senior's 100th anniversary, his son reflects

First Person: playwright Tom Fowler on allowing room for 'Hope'

Tom Fowler

The Royal Court playwright discusses the influences on his newly acclaimed play

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