Buzz
Peter Culshaw
The Big Picture has a collection of some extraordinary photos of the Winter Olympics here. Below pic credit: Martin Bureau/AFP/Getty ImagesMeanwhile, the New York Times has posted a fascinating video piece (below) about Olympic signage and the designs of the pictograms used in differerent sports. From the Berlin Olympics of 1936 via the psychedelic design of the 1968 Mexico Olympics to London 2012. The Munich, Beijing and Athens Olympics all are rated highly for design. London's for 2012 aren't in the medals: "they look as if a child has done them. Primitive, perhaps - but not in a good way."
Veronica Lee
Bird’s Eye View 2010 - a festival celebrating women filmmakers - kicks off this Thursday at various venues around London. The sixth Bird's Eye View festival, which continues until 12 March, comes at a particularly auspicious time for female filmmakers as Kathryn Bigelow, only the fourth woman to be nominated for an Academy Award, is now the bookies’ favourite to win best director for The Hurt Locker at this Sunday’s ceremony in Los Angeles.The festival will be showing features, short films and documentaries, and there will also be workshops. Among the highlights are Drew Barrymore’s Read more ...
Matt Wolf
What happens when you show up but your voice doesn't? That scenario - any performer's worst nightmare - was borne out Sunday night at the New Players Theatre, where Broadway star Stephanie J Block cancelled the second of two back-to-back concert performances with 15 minutes to go before her 8.30 pm set was due to start.That will have come as major bad news for Block's rabid fanbase as befits a Broadway alumna of the musicals The Boy from Oz, Nine to Five, and The Pirate Queen who is nonetheless best-known for appearing on Broadway and on tour in America as the green-skinned Elphaba in the Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
Our ongoing series celebrating musicians’ birthdays. This week’s include Lou Reed, in action in a stupendous version of "Venus in Furs" with the Velvet Underground, Chopin played by the wonderful Martha Argerich, archive footage of Miriam Makeba, Brian Jones and bottle-neck blues maestro, Furry Lewis. Videos below.2 March 1942: Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, performing "Venus in Furs". Definitive proof that, contrary to speculation elsewhere on the site, you don't need more than three chords to make great music?
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Here' s Lou being contrary as ever, and Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
The blogs are alive with the sound of Thom Yorke of Radiohead's new band, which he told us today had the name Atoms For Peace. "It seemed bleedin' obvious," said Yorke of the name on the Radiohead website Dead Air Space. Nerdy, pacifist, retro, ironical: the name ticks all the boxes. An antique phrase of "super-group", once used to describe bands like Blind Faith, has been dusted down to describe the band which includes Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, Beck drummer Joey Waronker, bassist Flea and percussionist Mauro Refesco. "Atoms For Peace" was also a song on Yorke's solo record, The Read more ...
Jasper Rees
It could so easily have been just another bit of God-slot box-ticking. But The Bible: A History, in which Channel 4 has invited guest presenters to mull over some aspect of the Good Book, has been exciting a lot of comment from viewers. Summoning Gerry Adams to present a film about the life of Christ won't have done anything to dampen audience ardour. Channel 4 have responded by organising a public discussion. It takes place at the British Library next week on Wednesday 3 March at 6.30pm. Roger Bolton chairs, and the panel consists of three of The Bible's presenters - historian Tom Holland, Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Busking is a broad church. From the dipsomaniac tin-whistler to the music college prodigy to the factory-model Dylanologist, pavements and pedestrian tunnels echo and thrum to freelance musical output of every stripe. The genuinely world-class performer tends to pass the cap around a little less often. Precedent, however, did not deter Håkan Hardenberger, one of the two or three most eminent trumpeters in the world, from blowing a note or two this week on the streets of Manchester. It's presumed that the Swedish soloist is not short of a bob or two. But on Saturday night he performs with the Read more ...
David Nice
New York's Metropolitan Opera House firmly believes it's the centre of the universe. From a London perspective, it's not, but it does boast most of the big stars, and supremo Peter Gelb seems to be modernising a creaking rep, phasing out a number of well-loved productions to groans from diehard traditionalists and making sure the new shows reach a large audience by virtue of the hugely popular HD live screenings.So in cinemas all round the world, you'll be able to catch the start of visual genius Robert Lepage's Wagner Ring cycle, ushering out the hideous old Otto Schenk production with a new Read more ...
aleks.sierz
A performance of the current London revival of Philip Ridley’s play Mercury Fur was almost stopped by a police raid. Police were ready to storm the stage last night following a 999 call made by a distressed resident living next door to Theatre Delicatessen’s latest pop-up theatre space, who believed that the production’s violent scenes in a disused office block were being played out for real. Only the quick thinking of actors waiting off stage, and the intervention of Theatre Delicatessen’s producer, prevented the police bringing the performance to an abrupt end. Featuring child-killings, Read more ...
Ismene Brown
In a shock that will deeply upset US and UK ballet, leading young British choreographer Christopher Wheeldon has abandoned his own company, Morphoses, which he set up in the US less than three years ago as a rare example of a choreographer-led ballet troupe. His former executive director has pledged to continue the company under a series of annual guest curators from different artistic disciplines.The New York Times reports that Royal Ballet-trained Wheeldon resigned on 18 February after continuing rows between him and his executive director Lourdes Lopez. Lopez claimed Wheeldon could not Read more ...
theartsdesk
The Royal Opera House announced today that Plácido Domingo is withdrawing from next month's production of Tamerlano at Covent Garden. Domingo, who turned 69 in January, was due to sing the role of Bajazet in Handel's opera over seven performances between 5 and 20 March. But he has been suffering from lower abdominal pain while performing in Tokyo, and has returned to New York for preventive surgery. The hope is that he will be back performing in six weeks. The American tenor Kurt Streit, who was already going to sing the role of Bajazet on 13 and 17 March, is now taking over the entire run. Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Today, months of speculation end with the announcement that Richard Thompson is to curate the Meltdown 2010 festival at the Southbank Centre.Thompson, considered a national treasure in some circles, and an old folkie in others, frequently tours a repertoire of cover songs stretching a thousand years - from "Summer is Icumen in" to Britney's "Oops! I Did it Again." He’s a Sufi Muslim living in LA and writing about the everyday dramas of the Home Counties. He’s been in Fairport Convention, played as a husband and wife folk act, been acclaimed as an acoustic balladeer and rocked festivals Read more ...