Features & Interviews
First Person: Natalia Franklin Pierce, Executive Director of Nonclassical, on 'creating a sense of belonging'
Monday, 04 December 2023
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
Saturday, 02 December 2023
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
Saturday, 11 November 2023
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...
Wednesday, 08 November 2023
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
Tuesday, 31 October 2023
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
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
A powerful new work written in blood from the inside |
Michael Powell interview - 'I had no idea that critics were so innocent'
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
The ideal setting for cleverly programmed European jazz |
Martin Scorsese's 'Mean Streets' - a triumph of personal filmmaking
Martin Scorsese’s breakthrough film celebrates its 50th anniversary this month |
Powell and Pressburger's 'The Red Shoes' - art and nothing but
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
In the Archers' 1940s classics women are frequently indomitable opponents |
'Glorious, isn't it?' Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's Subversive Cinema
theartsdesk opens a series timed to the BFI's Powell and Pressburger season |
London Film Festival 2023 - Scorsese on Scorsese
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
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'
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
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
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
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
The festival shows war-torn Ukraine in turmoil but unbowed |
First Person: the Bayerisches Staatsorchester's Managing Director Guido Gärtner on its 500th anniversary
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'
On class, identity and the joy of true collaboration |
theartsdesk at the Pärnu Music Festival 2023 - small seaside town, biggest roster of top players
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
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
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
The making of a thrilling document about jazz |
First Person: tenor Elgan Llŷr Thomas on recording a queer-themed album
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
As the Aldeburgh Festival celebrates Ligeti Senior's 100th anniversary, his son reflects |
First Person: playwright Tom Fowler on allowing room for 'Hope'
The Royal Court playwright discusses the influences on his newly acclaimed play |
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