conductors
The Art of Conducting 2012Tuesday, 11 September 2012The BBC Proms are steeped in traditions, many admirable, some arcane, the odd one ever so slightly maddening. In the short life of The Arts Desk - we turned three on Sunday, the day after the 2012 Proms season came to a close - another tradition has... Read more... |
The Art of Conducting 2011Saturday, 14 July 2012The greatest music festival of them is once more upon us. Throughout our extensive coverage of last year's BBC Proms, we featured the remarkable work of photographer Chris Christodoulou. We have asked Chris to select his favourite pictures of... Read more... |
Four Brits among 20 shortlisted for conducting competitionMonday, 25 June 2012Twenty young conductors have been shortlisted to compete in the Donatella Flick/London Symphony Orchestra Conducting Competition in late September. The top prize is a cash award of £15,000 and an attachment to the LSO as Assistant Conductor.The 20... Read more... |
Maestro at the Opera, BBC TwoSaturday, 05 May 2012Even in this age of desperate reality TV, you have to have doubts about any show that tries to convert “celebrities” into serious contenders in an alien field. Is it serious or a padded-out joke? To an extent we’ve been here, or close by, before.... Read more... |
Q&A Special: Arts Patron Donatella FlickTuesday, 17 April 2012![]() Donatella Flick, one of Britain's most important arts patrons, is furious. "Madness!" she cries in her lush Italian voice. "This is a country that was fantastic, and now there's a demolition going on, bit by bit!" We're sitting in Sir Winston... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Rome: Abbado, Shakespeare and Santa CeciliaSaturday, 26 November 2011Many of Italy's artistic institutions may have tottered or crumbled during the Berlusconi years, and the more capable new man in the Palazzo Chigi can only offer painful sticking plaster, yet one major orchestra has never sounded better. Of the two... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Conductor Stéphane DenèveThursday, 06 October 2011![]() He's just launched the last of seven phenomenally successful seasons as music director of a transfigured Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Subscriptions for the Edinburgh and Glasgow concerts have doubled, attendances soared, and Stéphane Denève is... Read more... |
What I'm Reading: Conductor Andrew LittonThursday, 15 September 2011![]() Newly knighted with the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit for his services to the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, American conductor and pianist Andrew Litton is a musician who believes in the nurturing of long-term orchestral relationships: eight years... Read more... |
My Summer Reading: Conductor Vladimir JurowskiTuesday, 30 August 2011![]() Born in Russia in 1972, the London Philharmonic Orchestra's principal conductor has galvanised the capital's music scene with some of the most thoughtful, groundbreaking and carefully prepared concert programmes today. His operatic credentials at... Read more... |
Why Ticciati will be great for GlyndebourneFriday, 08 July 2011![]() Robin the boy wonder, as he was somewhat patronisingly dubbed during his prodigious rise to conducting stardom, will make a bracing Batman for Glyndebourne Festival Opera when he takes over from current music director Vladimir Jurowski in January... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Conductor Neeme JärviSunday, 19 June 2011![]() Honour your senior master conductors: there aren't so many of them left now. Abbado and Haitink spring most readily to mind, but orchestral musicians may also nominate Neeme Järvi, who celebrated his 74th birthday last week. A passionate patriot and... Read more... |
Another Brit conductor makes lightning progressThursday, 26 May 2011![]() Anyone who's attended an Aurora Orchestra concert at Kings Place will know that twentysomething conductor Nicholas Collon - oddly, the birth date seems elusive - is a force to be reckoned with. When he speaks, he looks as if butter wouldn't melt,... Read more... |
