Barbican
Kiss Me, Kate, Barbican review - an entertaining, high-octane Cole Porter revivalThursday, 20 June 2024
Lincoln Center’s Bartlett Sher is back in town to direct the Barbican’s latest summer blockbuster, Cole Porter’s classic Kiss Me, Kate. It’s an energetic, largely intelligent production of what is at base a screwball comedy with great songs. ... Read more... |
Bach's Mass in B Minor, Collegium Vocale Gent, Herreweghe, Barbican - masterful subtlety proves more intriguing than compellingSaturday, 15 June 2024
There’s a masterful subtlety to Philippe Herreweghe’s interpretation of Bach’s last great choral work – it shuns blazing transcendence for a sense of serene contemplation that reveals every angle of the mass’s geometrical perfection. Listening to... Read more... |
Travels Over Feeling: The Music of Arthur Russell, Barbican review - a sublime evening undercut by tonal shiftsMonday, 27 May 2024
Last night’s Travels Over Feeling: The Music of Arthur Russell (a concert in part accompanying the recent publication of a book about his life by Richard King) was a brilliant way to honour the legacy of a fascinating, challenging, and sublime... Read more... |
Coote, LSO, Tilson Thomas, Barbican review - the triumph of lifeTuesday, 14 May 2024
Programme notes for Mahler’s monumental symphonies will often blithely chat about the works’ epic struggle between life and death, creation and destruction, joy and dread. In a comfy hall with a slick orchestra and a polished maestro, all of that... Read more... |
Britten Sinfonia, The Marian Consort, Milton Court review - a journey around turbulent spirit GesualdoSunday, 12 May 2024
Gesualdo was, in the words of New Yorker critic Alex Ross – “irrefutably badass”, a double murderer, sado-masochist and black magic enthusiast who also found time to write music that was – according to some – centuries ahead of its time. He was the... Read more... |
Guildhall School Gold Medal 2024, Barbican review - quirky-wonderful programme ending in an awardThursday, 02 May 2024
While the Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra were performing Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie – weirdly, despite its size and difficulty, a repertoire staple – over at the Royal Festival Hall, their Guildhall School counterparts presented a... Read more... |
Stephen review - a breathtakingly good first feature by a multi-media artistWednesday, 24 April 2024
Stephen is the first feature film by multi-media artist Melanie Manchot and it’s the best debut film I’ve seen since Steve McQueen’s Hunger. It’s gripping from the first frame to the last; the tension rarely lets up as we watch the main character... Read more... |
Watts, BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Bignamini, Barbican review - blazing French masterpiecesSaturday, 20 April 2024
Anyone who’d booked to hear soprano Sally Matthews or to witness the rapid progress of conductor Daniele Rustioni – the initial draw for me – could not have been disappointed in their late-stage replacements. Elizabeth Watts is as much of a national... Read more... |
First Persons: composers Colin Alexander and Héloïse Werner on fantasy in guided improvisationWednesday, 17 April 2024
For tonight’s performance at Milton Court, the nuanced and delicate tones of strings, voices, harmonium and chamber organ will merge and mingle together to tell tales of a rain-speckled landscape, luck and misfortune, forgotten valour, daily... Read more... |
Daphnis et Chloé, Tenebrae, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - lighting up Ravel’s ‘choreographic symphony’Thursday, 11 April 2024
Antonio Pappano fervently believes that talking about music is a vital part of his communicative art, and nobody does it better. Given that the London Symphony Orchestra's enterprising Half Six Fix format is scheduled for an hour each time, and that... Read more... |
Goldscheider, Spence, Britten Sinfonia, Milton Court review - heroic evening songs and a jolly horn rambleWednesday, 10 April 2024
Milton Court, like its parent Barbican Hall, disconcertingly inflates the sound of larger ensembles and voices. Had there been a conductor for all four pieces in the Britten Sinfonia’s programme - Michael Papadopoulos was there for the two most... Read more... |
Gilliver, LSO, Roth, Barbican review - the future is brightMonday, 08 April 2024
It’s hard to know which aspect of this adventure to praise the most. Perhaps the fact that of the four recent works originally programmed, the two freshest were by young beneficiaries of the LSO Panufnik Composers Scheme. There was also the pleasure... Read more... |
