mon 23/06/2025

Classical Buzz

Subject: Re: Arts Cuts (Reply All)

theartsdesk

It began with a review of 100 Years of German Song. Roused by a comment to a reader (see Igor's comment below), Fisun was moved to email Igor in support of his trenchant views on arts funding.

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New Generation at Maida Vale

David Nice

Eleven years is a long time when you're launching young talent on the world. Since 1999, BBC Radio 3's New Generation Artists have gone forth and multiplied. All the "graduates" have outstanding careers, and among them some of the names which will be most familiar with music lovers include trumpeter Alison Balsom, mezzo-...

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London Philharmonic launches concert streaming

David Nice

For those of us who can't hear Vladimir Jurowski's intriguing LPO programme on Saturday night live - Gergiev calls over at the Barbican, in a typically frustrating London clash - all is not lost. We'll be able to hear it from 4 October...

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Edward Gardner: another live wire for Birmingham

David Nice

image.phpAs the glorious parade of British orchestras at the Proms has showcased, it's never been a better time for the native music scene across the board.

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Unlikely soulmates: Beyoncé and Turnage hammer out that ring

David Nice

Did anyone find the aged-rocker thrash of Mark Anthony Turnage's new work at the Proms, Hammered Out  - a bit of a disappointment to Edward Seckerson - oddly familiar? This brilliant YouTube remix will tell you why. And for all the orchestral flash, which struck me too as a bit vieux jeu, give me the dazzling Beyoncé...

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Tune in to Abbado's astounding Lucerne Mahler 9 livestream

David Nice

You'll just have to take it on trust from me that to hear the world's most responsive orchestra conducted by the world's finest living conductor in the deepest symphony ever written is the one concert hall experience you can't afford to miss. And since tickets for this event have been the hardest-to-get ever, live viewing will have to be a second best for most.

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Verbier remembers Anthony Rolfe Johnson

David Nice

Somehow I hadn't expected the death three days ago of the great British tenor, though unquestionably a world-class artist, to be commemorated among the international set of the Verbier Festival. Yet last night, before he raised his baton to conduct the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra, conductor Marc Minkowski had a few words to say about Anthony Rolfe Johnson.

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Vuvuzela: a final note from Berlin

Jasper Rees

The vuvuzela's long and literally monotonous journey from Soweto to the very epicentre of high European culture is complete. During the World Cup they blew it with incessant vigour on the terraces of South Africa's stadiums. Now they're blowing it in the Berlin Phil.

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Robert Sandall, Writer on The Arts Desk, RIP

theartsdesk

Robert Sandall, the music writer and broadcaster, and one of the first members of The Arts Desk, died this morning from prostate cancer. He was 58. His wit, easy style and energetic intelligence were seen in a number of book and concert reviews he did for this site, despite the encroachment of cancer.

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Mikhail Pletnev charged with raping boy

Igor Toronyi-Lalic Mikhail Pletnev is questioned by a Thai police officer in front of the muscian's Pattaya residence

One of the greatest pianists (and latterly conductors) of his generation, founder and artistic director of the Russian National Orchestra, Mikhail Pletnev, has been charged by Thai police with raping a 14-year-old boy, according to the BBC. Police also raided his Thai home in connection with a paedophile ring and found...

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