Buzz
igor.toronyilalic
Before Covent Garden's performance of Manon the other day, I had always presumed I'd rather have my eyes out than listen to an entire opera by Massenet. How wrong I was. This Saturday I hope to be proved wrong again, when my colleague on theartsdesk David Nice will attempt to open my ears to another great French worshipper of the pretty in music, the first true master of ballet music before Tchaikovsky, Léo Delibes - whose music I've been even more studious in avoiding.David has spent the last three weeks listening to different versions of the complete ballet of Coppélia for this week's Read more ...
josh.spero
Last night, I went to a concert by an orchestra which can wholeheartedly say that the steep cuts coming to the budget of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport won't affect it at all - because it receives no Government money, despite being one of London's most promising orchestras. The Young Musicians Symphony Orchestra exists to let talented young flautists and cellists and the rest get a bite at the biggest cherries - the key orchestral repertoire - which they wouldn't normally be able to access in their quartets and chamber groups. There are also masterclasses for the musicians and the Read more ...
josh.spero
This time, the hype was perhaps deserved: Christie's did have a claim to be putting on, last night, the sale of the century.The Impressionist and Modern works were of a distinctly high calibre: Picasso's high Blue Period Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto, a moody but perceptive masterpiece; a Nymphéas by Monet verging on the abstract, with subtle fields of colour; and a clutch of 10-million-pounders, including another Picasso, a Van Gogh and a Klimt. So how can a record-breaking sale total of £153m be a disappointment? First, the Monet didn't sell, reaching £29.4m before it was withdrawn Read more ...
miss.kittykowalski
Miss Kitty Kowalski is the stage name of a writer on The Arts Desk - read her earlier diaries here and hereCheck out theartsdesk’s guide to UK Festivals 2010
joe.muggs
A couple of very different publications have lately had me thinking about those 21st-century inescapables: death and celebrity. A new magazine called Eulogy hits the news stands for the first time today. It is an attempt – one that is on first sight slightly barmy, but in actual fact may be quite brave – to create a mature and engaged public discourse about death. Death, their reasoning goes, happens all the time, affects everyone, and makes us think about the deeper things in life that otherwise get obscured by banal minutiae – so why not bring it out into everyday discussion and acknowledge Read more ...
joe.muggs
Today Rinse FM, London's leading pirate radio station, announced it has been granted a legal broadcast licence after 16 years of illicit transmissions. It's almost impossible to overstate how potentially momentous this event is for the UK's most vibrant and promising music scenes, and what opportunities it presents for artists, personalities and record labels ranging from the deep and experimental to the most flagrantly commercial. From the rumbustuous, teen-friendly fun of Scratcha's breakfast show to the experimental electronic jazz and funk of Alex Nut at Saturday lunchtime to various hard Read more ...
miss.kittykowalski
Well, folks, only 10 days to go til The Strumpettes hit Glastonbury and let me tell ya, we’re gettin’ a little hot under the collar. It turns out this ain’t some big practical joke that Velma cooked up to give us all a fit o' the vapours. We’re goin’. Next week. And this little Strumpette is quakin’ in her boots.Now, you might think that three brazen broads like us shouldn’t be fazed by some little ol' festival. After all, we're no strangers to notoriety and we strut about that stage as if we owned it. But I’ll let ya into a little secret: not a single one of us is a trained musician. The Read more ...
Jasper Rees
The wind instrument in everyone's ears at the moment is the vuvuzela (pictured) a South African horn which comes in various lengths and pitches but is of unvarying volume: very loud. You'll be hearing a lot more of it during the World Cup, as it is the noise-polluter of choice for fans of Bafana-Bafana, the South African football team. If you're after a more euphonious blast of wind, however, there is an alternative. Early last year I sat in thunderous proximity to the LSO Brass Ensemble as they performed the iconically scary "Dance of the Knights" theme from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. Read more ...
Ismene Brown
A new male star will be leading the Royal Ballet next season - a prodigious in-house talent of just 20. Sergei Polunin, Ukrainian-born and Royal Ballet School-trained, has been elevated to top rank in the Royal Ballet’s end-of-year promotions after just two years in the company. His rapid ascent to the top has not been unexpected as he has been constantly marked out with warm reviews for his combination of aristocratic style and darkly dramatic aura.The other new male principal next season is to be Nehemiah Kish, 27, an American-born principal with both the Royal Danish and National Canadian Read more ...
Ismene Brown
Visa red tape has dashed English National Ballet’s plans to open its gigantic arena Swan Lake with the scheduled Russian star Polina Semionova. The 26-year-old ballerina from Berlin Ballet was much acclaimed on her debut with ENB in the production six years ago, and her return was expected to make a big splash for ENB’s summer blockbuster, marking the company’s 60th anniversary. But as the swans flock into the Kensington arena, Ms Semionova will still be in the air flying in from Berlin.ENB’s own beauteous Daria Klimentova will lead the swans tonight instead, partnered by another much- Read more ...
miss.kittykowalski
theartsdesk has an insider at Glastonbury this year - one of our writers is performing in the festival. Here we present the diary of Miss Kitty Kowalski, ukulele diva, and her cohorts in The Strumpettes."Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce The Strumpettes - three gals, three ukes, all the best tunes from the Twenties, Thirties, Forties and Fifties sung in perfect three-part harmony. Imagine The Andrews Sisters crossed with Rita Hayworth and a little George Formby, and you’re gettin' pretty close."We've been kickin' around the London cabaret scene for about a year now, after driftin' Read more ...
Jasper Rees
A man who recently boasted of having read little but Latin and Greek for the past 25 years might not, you'd think, be the most active tweeter. But the Mayor of London has just used Twitter to ask his followers - that's 80,595 of them - to contribute to London's cultural strategy as the Olympics bear down on us. The full message is as follows: "What's important to you about arts and culture as we head to 2012? Want to hear from you!" And then there's a bit.ly link.There's a link to the London Government website where, with rather more than 140 characters to play with, Boris Johnson says as Read more ...