mon 22/09/2025

David Nice

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Bio
The classical music and opera editor of theartsdesk, David writes, lectures and broadcasts on music. A former music critic for The Guardian and The Sunday Correspondent, he has made regular appearances on BBC Radio 3, not least in the long-running series Building a Library. He has written short studies on Elgar, Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky and the history of opera, and is currently working on the second volume of his Prokofiev biography for Yale University Press. He runs two Zoom lecture series, Opera in Depth on Mondays and a symphonies course on Thursdays.

Articles By David Nice

Duval, Isserlis, Beatson, Fidelio Cafe review - in seventh heaven with the greats

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Prom 42, Lisiecki, BBC Scottish SO, Dausgaard review - concerto partnership made in heaven

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theartsdesk at the Kilkenny Arts Festival 2022 - a safe space to reflect on horrors

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Prom 39, Hartwig, BBCSO, Oramo review - bright and breezy followed by a curate's egg

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La Voix humaine/Les Mamelles de Tirésias, Glyndebourne review - phantasmagorical wonders

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Prom 35, Wang, Oslo Philharmonic, Mäkelä review - crystalline fantasy and levitational brilliance

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theartsdesk at the Pärnu Music Festival 2022 - conductors from 15 to 85, and the greatest players

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Prom 2, Walker, Sinfonia of London, Wilson review - sensuousness and subtlety in excelsis

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Prom 1, Verdi's Requiem, BBCSO, Oramo review - introspective sorrow and consolation between the blazes

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theartsdesk at the Ravenna Festival 2022 - body and soul in perfect balance

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The Turn of the Screw, Garsington Opera review - terrors and tragedy

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theartsdesk at the East Neuk Festival 2022 - on Cloud Nine for five days of the greatest music-making

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Così fan tutte, Royal Opera review - vibrant youth and vocal beauty

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theartsdesk in Zurich - forging a brilliant new Ring

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theartsdesk Q&A: bass-baritone Christopher Purves on communicating everything from Handel to George Benjamin

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George Fu, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - high intellect and visceral shocks

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'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
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Why are the Irish such good storytellers? The historical perspective is that the oral tradition goes way, way back, allied to the gift of the gab...

Hadelich, BBC Philharmonic, Storgårds, Bridgewater Hall, Man...

Concerts need to have themes, it seems, today, and the BBC Philharmonic’s publicity suggested two contrasting ideas for the opening of its 2025-26...

Album: Mulatu Astatke - Mulatu Plays Mulatu

The tour by the 81-year-old Mulatu Astatke which is currently under way and this album seem to be giving off different...

Music Reissues Weekly: Sly and the Family Stone - The First...

The remarkable The First Family: Live At Winchester Cathedral 1967 represents the first-ever release of a previously...

Monteverdi Choir, ORR, Heras-Casado, St Martin-in-the-Fields...

35 years ago, persona-now-non-grata John Eliot Gardiner revealed how performances of Mozart’s Idomeneo and La Clemenza di Tito...

Dracula, Lyric Hammersmith review - hit-and-miss recasting o...

If a classic story is going to be told for the umpteenth time, there is a good bet it will come with a novel spin on it. So it proves...

Cho, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - finely-focused stormy w...

It was a hefty evening, as it needn't necessarily have been throughout, since Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony can conceal more darkness between the...