mon 02/12/2024

Barbican

Perianes, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Payare, Barbican review - elegance and drama but not enough bite

When the Venezuelan Rafael Payare was appointed as conductor of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (OSM) two years ago, his first action was to blast his way through a French Berlitz course. A graduate of the El Sistema music-teaching project –...

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Andrej Power, LSO, Mäkelä, Barbican review - singing, shrieking rites of darkness and light

Out of innumerable Rite of Springs in half a century of concert-going, I’ll stick my neck out and say this was the most ferocious in execution, the richest in sound. Others may have wanted a faster, lighter Rite. But the two things that make every...

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The Buddha of Suburbia, Barbican Theatre review - farcical fun, but what about the issues?

Hanif Kureishi’s 1990 novel The Buddha of Suburbia begins like this: “My name is Karim Amir, and I am an Englishman born and bred, almost”. Almost. Yes, that's good. We are in 1970s south-east London, and this immediately introduces, despite its...

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Kanneh-Mason, Sinfonia of London, Wilson, Barbican review - taking the roof off the Barbican

A programme of less-loved siblings – Shostakovich’s gnarly Second Cello Concerto and Rachmaninov’s “not-the-Second” Symphony No. 1 – gave John Wilson and his Sinfonia of London the chance to do what they do best: force an audience to take a second...

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Lear, Barbican Theatre review - a very stormy saga, Korean-style

What do the cult TV show Squid Game and National Changgeuk Company of Korea’s Lear have in common? Oddly, a K-Pop producer, Jung Jae-il, who has created additional music for Lear.Korean opera traditionally tells its stories via a hybrid blend of...

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BBC Singers, BBCSO, Jeannin, Barbican review - from stormy weather to blue skies

“Bold, ambitious, and good for the sector.” So said Charlotte Moore, the BBC chief content officer, who currently earns £468,000, in March last year as she defended plans to close the BBC Singers as part of a package of swingeing musical cuts masked...

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Wang, Lapwood, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - grace and power from two keyboard heroines

It takes stiff competition to outshine Yuja Wang, who last night at the Barbican complemented her spangled silver sheath with a disconcerting pair of shades. But the super-heroine pianist, who played Rachmaninov’s First Piano Concerto, turned out to...

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Frang, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - a concerto performance to treasure

Hauntings, memories, echoes: Antonio Pappano has started his official tenure as chief conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra by looking back in time. Wednesday’s season opener gave us a MacMillan premiere “haunted by earlier musical spirits and...

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LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - singular adventures for a new era

Somehow those of us required to translate the musical experience into words look for the moments which defeat us. One such was the extraordinary sound of muted first violins and cellos at the start of the second movement in Sibelius’s First Symphony...

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Madeleine Peyroux, Barbican review - a transport of delight

You can take the woman out of the Left Bank, but you can’t take the Left Bank out of the woman. Madeleine Peyroux would be perfectly at home in a boîte in the Latin Quarter, or perhaps Montparnasse. Alas, we were in the sadly unromantic surrounds of...

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Orlando, Academy of Ancient Music, Cummings, Barbican review - madly beautiful

The Academy of Ancient Music, which celebrates its “golden anniversary” this season, got going just as Handel’s operas began to leave the library at last and reclaim the stage. There they continue to flourish, dazzle and move – which makes any...

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Francis Alÿs: Ricochets, Barbican review - fun for the kids, yet I was moved to tears

Belgian artist, Francis Alÿs has filled the Barbican Art Gallery with films of children playing games the world over. Many of them are familiar; they’re playing five stones in Nepal (pictured below left), conkers in London, stone skimming in Morocco...

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