Mission Accomplished This performance made me weep. I am not familiar with the work, but I am familiar with the huge amount of work and dedication that went into learning the piece. Darin Qualls made it his mission in Lockdown to learn this challenging work. Most of us made excuses about how the lockdown […]
Our Spring 2022 soloist – Layla Köhler Baratto oboist. Born in Brazil, oboist and ABRSM scholar, Layla Köhler Baratto won her first award at the age of 11 in the Municipal Music School of São Paulo Young Soloists Competition. She has also won the São Paulo Symphony Young Soloists 2017 in first place, the […]
New conductor Claudio Di Meo Kensington Philharmonic Orchestra starts a new chapter with new conductor Claudio Di Meo. The KPO, founded in 1965, is one of London’s leading amateur orchestras. It provides opportunities for advanced players of all ages to perform works from the classical and modern repertoire, including pieces that are rarely heard […]
First rehearsal for KPO this year On Monday 17 May 2021 we made a wonderful start towards returning to a new musical normal. We had our first full orchestra rehearsal since March 2020. Thanks to St Peter’s, we were able to rehearse in the spacious church, rather than the usual more modest parish hall […]
Brief Encounter Lawyers love Brief Encounter for all the right reasons, of course. But also for the magical passage where Trevor Howard’s cut-glass voice lists the appalling diseases that shaped 20th and 21st century jurisprudence on causation: pneumoconiosis, anthracosis, chalicosis and silicosis. Mesothelioma was not mentioned as it was not identified for another 20 years. There […]
Short Ride in a Fast Machine John Adams wrote his orchestral fanfare “Short Ride in a Fast Machine” in 1986. His description of it was suitably postminimalist: “You know how it is when someone asks you to ride in a terrific sports car, and then you wish you hadn’t?” For me, it conjures up a jalopy […]
Fantasia I have three Fantasias, two films and an encore, which acts as a brief apology to those who think I should have included something from Toutes Les Matins du Monde last week. And I include something to give us all hope for the return of live music soon soon soon. The word Fantasia […]
Pianists After the rough and tumble of full orchestral Berlioz and Wagner, I thought it was about time for some piano music. So here are two of my favourite living pianists with a mind-blowing encore thrown in. The Leeds International Piano Competition has enriched our lives by “finding” a succession of truly great pianists. […]
Roger Moore and the swans Saint-Saens’ swan is a familiar friend. Composed in February 1886 and never out of the repertoire since. The cello glides serenely on its way, with the piano suggesting something of the paddling that goes on underneath. The piece is simply conceived and executed; but the comments for the two YouTube clips […]
Themes, Variations & Fugues Brahms wrote the Handel Variations for his “beloved friend” Clara Schumann in 1861, when the young composer was just 28 and achieving complete mastery both of the piano and of large-scale forms. For many people it is one of the half-dozen great sets of variations and still sometimes overlooked by […]