David Hockney: Drawing from Life – a magnificent, intimate overview of Hockney’s oeuvre and imagination as a master draughtsman and also a meditation on friendship, change and the ageing process
French Impressions at the British Museum
The British Museum’s new French Impressions show was several floors up in room 90, around the back of the museum. I’ve become quite accustomed to coming here for the BM’s print shows, for, for one thing, the BM benefits from an impressive print archive – admired the world over. The last exhibition I attended here,…
A Remarkable Meditation on Masculinity at the Barbican
Masculinities: Liberation through Photography at the Barbican is an exploration of male identity from the 1960s to the present day! The subject is vast and being the Barbican, it’s a big show, taking up two levels of floor space and showcasing three hundred artworks from celebrity photographers such as Richard Avedon and Robert Mapplethorpe, through…
Lustrous line-up of singers for ENO’s Luisa Miller
Verdi is a fascinating composer. His musical output was phenomenal and he managed to notch up twenty-five operas during a long and largely successful career. He was long-living too, dying at the grand old age of eighty-seven. It’s quite an achievement when you think how many composers, worn out from the effort of composing and…
Maliphant Works at the Coronet
In the modern dance world, dancer and choreographer, Russell Maliphant, is a name which commands respect. Ballet fans still remember his very successful pairing with star dancer, Sylvie Guillem in Push, filmed at Sadler’s Wells. It still is compelling viewing on youtube https://bit.ly/2SxRJVj . Since that time, Maliphant has won many awards for his choreography…
Visions: Cyril Scott Piano Works
For many pianists, our first encounter with the music of Cyril Scott is through his exotic, languorous piece Lotus Land. This was also Georgian pianist Nino Gvetadze’s first introduction to Scott’s piano music, through one of her teachers at Tbilisi Conservatory. Scott’s music is rarely performed today, though Lotus Land remains a perennial favourite at…
Over the Top with Everything They’d Got: British Baroque at Tate Britain
The new show at Tate Britain, British Baroque: Power and Illusion starts in another epoch when our relationship with Europe was a tad strained, let us say, and ends at the point when a German prince who spoke not a word of English was invited – if not begged – to take over the English throne. You’d almost think Tate Britain had timed this show deliberately.
A Darker Setting for Carmen at the Coliseum
Carmen at ENO Bizet’s Carmen has probably been the world’s most performed opera since it premiered at the L’Opéra Comique in Paris in 1875. Scroll up to 2020 and opera houses and directors worldwide are still trying to come up with ways of injecting new life into Bizet’s rich score. Carmen’s hits, have been played…
Do we still need music critics?
Critic – one who engages often professionally in the analysis, evaluation, or appreciation of works of art or artistic performances The debate about the value of music criticism and those who write it is not new. In the digital age, the music itself has not changed, but the technologies through which we discuss, transmit and…
Streetdance to Seoul
Inside the heavy oak doors of Shoreditch Town Hall, a disco-funk beat is pulsing as we scale the marble steps to the Assembly Hall. PopcityUk’s 2020 International Hip Hop and Popping competition has already started. In the ring of darkness surrounding the brightly lit dance floor, hundreds of youths have gathered. Some are dancers, stretching…
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