fiction
What I'm Reading: Musician Justin AdamsTuesday, 13 September 2011
Justin Adams is considered to be one of the UK’s most original guitarists and record producers and is an extremely versatile collaborator. He was brought up in the Middle East - his father was a British diplomat in Jordan and Egypt - and his music... Read more... |
Jane EyreFriday, 09 September 2011
As fresh and enchanting as the first flushes of spring, Cary Joji Fukunaga’s imaginative retelling of Charlotte Brontë’s 19th-century proto-feminist novel captures the thrill of attraction with rare perception, sweep and tenderness. It foregrounds... Read more... |
My Summer Reading: Violinist Vadim GluzmanTuesday, 06 September 2011
Some violinists just play; others have a voice. Ukrainian-Israeli violinist Vadim Gluzman follows the distinguished line of great Petersburg violinist Leopold Auer - whose 1690 Stradivarius he currently plays - David Oistrakh and Isaac Stern, his... Read more... |
My Summer Reading: Writer William DalrympleThursday, 01 September 2011
William Dalrymple wrote his highly acclaimed bestseller In Xanadu, an account of his journey to the ruins of Kubla Khan's stately pleasure dome, when he was 22. In 1989 he moved to Delhi where he lived for six years researching and writing his... 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... |
My Summer Reading: Singer Pauline BlackMonday, 29 August 2011
Pauline Black, the lead singer of 2-Tone band The Selecter, was born in 1953 to an Anglo-Jewish mother and Nigerian father and was adopted as a baby by a white working-class couple from Essex, who refused to acknowledge she was black. However, by... Read more... |
My Summer Reading: Composer Nitin SawhneyWednesday, 24 August 2011
Composer and music producer Nitin Sawhney (b 1964) is known for his variety of musical projects, reflecting his background fusing Indian and British heritage. He has written music for films, television, dance productions, studio albums and concert... Read more... |
My Summer Reading: Tenor Ian BostridgeMonday, 22 August 2011
The career of acclaimed tenor Ian Bostridge (b 1964) has taken a somewhat unusual trajectory. He was reading for a PhD on witchcraft at Corpus Christi College, Oxford before he decided to turn his hobby of singing into his profession, despite not... Read more... |
My Summer Reading: Writer Louise WenerSunday, 21 August 2011
Louise Wener rose to prominence as part of the Britpop movement in the mid-Nineties. While Blur and Oasis flew the flag for laddism and Suede flirted with camp glam, Wener was one of the scene’s few high-profile women, inspired by David Bowie,... Read more... |
My Summer Reading: Playwright Alfred UhryThursday, 18 August 2011
Alfred Uhry, now 74, may boast the greatest ratio of accolades to output of just about any American playwright, having copped two Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize across merely a handful of works and an Academy Award for the film version of his best... Read more... |
My Summer Reading: Percussionist Colin CurrieTuesday, 16 August 2011
Third in line to share their summer reading selection with theartsdesk is Colin Currie (b 1976), the leading percussionist of his generation. A driving force behind new percussion repertoire for more than a decade, in 2000 Currie was awarded the... Read more... |
theartsdesk MOT: The Railway Children, Waterloo StationMonday, 15 August 2011
This warm-hearted production of E Nesbit’s most famous novel premiered to glowing reviews at its site-specific venue last summer. I didn‘t catch it last year, but I doubt this swift revival is any less captivating, nor the new cast any less sure-... Read more... |
