Music, Carol Main

Regal king size - Król Roger

Edinburgh International Festival

22 Jul 2008

Fitting neatly into the EIF’s theme of Artists Without Borders, the majestic Król Roger opens up audiences to an innovative collaboration. Carol Main chats to Festival director Jonathan Mills about the opera’s arrival in the city. Listening to a…

Music at Paxton

17 Jul 2008

Established just a couple of years ago, Music at Paxton hasn’t taken long to realise its ambition of presenting high quality chamber music, whether home-grown or from further afield, within the impressive splendour of Paxton House, just outside…

Cappella Nova - Voices of Scotland

3 Jul 2008

CLASSICAL St Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh, Fri 4 Jul A fascinating concert of sung Scottish texts from the 6th to the 16th centuries seems the ideal way to close an international conference on the language and literature of Scotland in mediaeval and…

Scottish Opera: Falstaff

19 Jun 2008

OPERA Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Sat 21, Thu 26, Sat 28 Jun If you go to only one opera this year, you could do a lot worse than choosing Scottish Opera’s current production, Falstaff. Composed when he was approaching 80, this was Verdi’s last…

Royal Scottish National Orchestra: orchestra+

5 Jun 2008

NEW COLLABORATIONS Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, Thu 19 Jun The names Elvis Costello and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra aren’t likely contenders for appearing in the same sentence. Neither are the RSNO and Video Games Live. More regular…

Opera Circus: Differences in Demolitions

22 May 2008

OPERA Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Wed 27 & Thu 28 May; Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Sat 31 May Think of Bosnia and Herzogovina and the chances are that ethnic cleansing and bloodshed spring to mind. Yet, this Balkan country, where east meets west, has a rich…

Scottish Opera: A Night at the Chinese Opera

22 May 2008

OPERA Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Sat 19 May An afternoon at Scottish Opera was the setting for Judith Weir’s delightful A Night at the Chinese Opera. First performed in 1987 but amazingly only now receiving its premiere north of the border, the opera is…

Scottish Opera: Falstaff

8 May 2008

OPERA Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Tue 13, Thu 15, Sat 17, Wed 21 & Sat 24 May; Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Wed 18, Sat 21, Thu 26 & Sat 28 Jun Long before any government directives on obesity, Shakespeare’s Sir John Falstaff knew all about the challenges…

A Night at the Chinese Opera

10 Apr 2008

OPERA Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Fri 11 & Sat 19 Apr, Tue 20 & Thu 22 May; Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Wed 25 & Fri 27 Jun Pick up any newspaper these days and the chances are that a story about China will be making the headlines. Whether it’s the…

Scottish Chamber Orchestra

27 Mar 2008

NEW COMMISSION Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Thu 10 Apr; City Halls, Glasgow, Fri 11 Apr It’s not often that a new orchestral commission has its world premiere in Strathpeffer, but that is what happened in the case of Stuart MacRae’s Scottish Chamber…

Mr McFall’s Chamber - Aye: An Affirmation of Martyn Bennett

13 Mar 2008

CLASSICAL Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh, Wed 19 Mar; Eastwood Park Theatre, Giffnock, Thu 27 Mar Whether playing to a packed hall or an empty one, musicians bond through the shared experience of being there and doing it together. When legendary piper…

Scottish Opera - Five:15

28 Feb 2008

Think opera, and it’s usually think big. At 15 hours in total, for instance, the four operas that make up Wagner’s Ring are very definitely tipping the overblown end of the scale. Proving that the genre doesn’t always have to be of such towering…

Scottish Chamber Orchestra - Mozart Symphonies 38–41

28 Feb 2008

CLASSCIAL (Linn Records) There are some partnerships that just work. The SCO’s collaboration with conductor Sir Charles Mackerras is one of them. Not that it doesn’t have to be worked at. Having done so over many years, their partnership has matured…

RNSO – Wagner’s The Ring, an Orchestral Adventure

14 Feb 2008

CLASSICAL Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, Sat 23 Feb; Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Sun 24 Feb When, in the early 1980s, conductor Neeme Järvi left his Estonian homeland to work in the west, it didn’t go down too well with the powers that be. His name was…

Scottish Chamber Orchestra

17 Jan 2008

CLASSICAL City Halls, Glasgow Fri 18 Jan; Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Sat 19 Jan From the familiar tunes of Vivaldi’s pre-Christmas Four Seasons to four saxophones performing a brand new piece of music is quite a leap. Four is also the number of…

Met Opera at the Cameo

13 Dec 2007

Usually, a visit to a cinema is for film and a trip to an opera house is for, well, opera. Ripping apart the straitjacket of all of that is a relatively new venture that brings live opera direct from stage to the big screen. The stage is the New York…

Scottish Chamber Orchestra with Anthony Marwood

29 Nov 2007

Temperatures are dropping, fires are starting to burn in the grate and teeth are heard in rhythmic chattering. As the seasons change and winter makes its first appearance, that’s the picture painted by Vivaldi in his tribute to this time of year.

Dunedin Consort – Buxtehude Anniversary Concert

15 Nov 2007

ANNIVERSARY Queens Hall, Edinburgh, Sun 18 Nov Composers’ anniversaries can be neat pegs upon which to hang concert programmes, with the added bonus that audiences hear music that otherwise might not get much of an airing. In the case of Dietrich…

Scottish Opera: Seraglio

15 Nov 2007

OPERA Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Sat 24, Tue 27 & Thu 29 Nov. Seen at Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Sat 27 Oct The term Turkish harem usually brings to mind opulent palaces, sumptuous silks and sensual, oriental soft-furnishings. In Seraglio, however…

The Edinburgh Quartet - album review

Classical

1 Nov 2007

Bringing together composers from very different cultures, Frontiers and Bridges’ thread of commonality is their inspirational teacher, Nigel Osborne. Composition Professor at Edinburgh University, Osborne has guided three authoritative and adventurous…

Hitlist - The best classical & opera

18 Oct 2007

• BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra: Thursday Night Series Not long back in Glasgow from a tour to Prague, the orchestra stays in Czech mood for Dvorak’s richly melodic Symphony No 7. Nationalist sounds from closer to home are heard in Eddie McGuire’s…

Sarah Chang

18 Oct 2007

GUEST PERFORMER Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, Wed 24 Oct Glasgow’s International Classical series has some impressive names attached to it this season. Alfred Brendel, Kurt Masur, Ian Bostridge and Antonio Pappano are just a few of those who are in…

The Barber of Seville

20 Sep 2007

She’s 31, he’s 62. She’s a young Scot at the start of her operatic career, he’s a singer who seems to have been at the top of his for ever. But in Scottish Opera’s new production of The Barber of Seville, it is not as singers that the two come together.

Hitlist - The best classical & opera

20 Sep 2007

• BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra: Thursday Night Series The opening concert of the BBC SSO’s new series is inspired by heavenly bodies, centred on Holst’s everlastingly vivid portraits of The Planets, one of the most popular pieces of classical music…

Royal Scottish National Orchestra

20 Sep 2007

NEW SEASON Classic Bites, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Fri 21 Sep; Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, Sat 22 Sep; Opening Concert, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Fri 28 Sep; Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, Sat 29 Sep The leaves on the trees are starting to…