20th century
McCoy Tyner, Ronnie Scott'sWednesday, 06 April 2011
Inspired to take up the piano by his neighbours Bud and Richie Powell, Philadelphia’s McCoy Tyner made jazz history as a member of the early-1960s John Coltrane quartet before emerging as a leader at Blue Note records. If his voicings seem any less... Read more... |
Rocket to the Moon, National TheatreThursday, 31 March 2011
“Love is no solution to life,” declares a line from Clifford Odets’s 1938 drama; and in straitened times, then and now, it’s a sentiment that carries considerable doleful weight. And yet every character here is in desperate search of that elusive... Read more... |
Dirt: The Filthy Reality of Everyday Life, Wellcome CollectionWednesday, 23 March 2011
Weeds, memorably, have been described as merely being plants that grow where we don’t want them. Walking through the Wellcome’s fine new exhibition, we can conclude that the “dirt”, too, is merely material appearing out of its appropriate... Read more... |
Ida Kar: Bohemian Photographer, National Portrait GalleryMonday, 14 March 2011
What ever happened to Ida Kar? If the question is not quite on the level of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, perhaps the answer is more interesting, if less melodramatic. Ida Kar - born Ida Karamian in Russia of Armenian parents, resident of Cairo... Read more... |
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, CBSO Centre, BirminghamMonday, 14 March 2011
This latest BCMG concert had its pleasures; and it had its irritations. Among the pleasures was a pair of works, one of them newly commissioned, by the under-performed Japanese composer Jo Kondo. The irritations were of the BBC variety: long pauses... Read more... |
Janelle Monáe, The RoundhouseTuesday, 01 March 2011
I have thus far been a bit wary of the Janelle Monáe hype. It's only natural: when an attractive young performer is taken under the wing of megastars like Outkast and P Diddy, and drenched with media acclaim that pronounces them an artist on the... Read more... |
Hoppé Portraits: Society, Studio and Street, National Portrait GalleryWednesday, 23 February 2011
If you’ve seen pictures of the Ballets Russes, then you’ve seen Hoppé photographs. But then, if you’ve seen any society pictures from the 1920s and 1930s, then you’ve seen Hoppé. And famous writers. In fact, for portrait photography in Britain... Read more... |
Celebrating Grainger, Kings PlaceFriday, 18 February 2011
Too many column inches have been devoted to Percy Grainger’s sado-masochistic sexplay and celebration of blue-eyed Anglo-Saxon supremacy, but it’s his music I love. And have done ever since they celestially sounded the wineglasses for Tribute to... Read more... |
Nixon in China, Metropolitan Opera HD LiveSunday, 13 February 2011
Metcentric New Yorkers tend to think an opera hasn’t achieved classic status until it arrives at their vast inner sanctum. Whereas other cities worldwide know that the inimitable Peter Sellars production of grand opera’s last masterpiece (to date)... Read more... |
Mark Padmore, Britten Sinfonia, Queen Elizabeth HallWednesday, 09 February 2011
It was Leonard Bernstein who declared of English music that it was “too much organ voluntary in Lincoln Cathedral, too much Coronation in Westminster Abbey, too much lark ascending, too much clodhopping on the fucking village green”. Fey, whimsical... Read more... |
Faulks on Fiction, BBC Two/ Birth of the British Novel, BBC FourTuesday, 08 February 2011
London’s literary world must be as small as it was in the 18th century. Or at least that’s the impression you get when you watch book programmes on the BBC, for it’s the same old characters that keep cropping up. Martin Amis, Will Self, Jenny Uglow... Read more... |
Faith Healer, Bristol Old VicSunday, 06 February 2011
Theatre, particularly tragedy, can pack a terrific punch when things are kept simple – even if the themes evoked are enfolded in layer upon layer of complexity. Brian Friel’s Faith Healer, a play with three characters, each of whom takes to the... Read more... |
