| Date and venue | Title | Submitted by |
|---|---|---|
| 25-Apr-2013 La Maison Symphonique de Montréal | A celebration of youth with L'Orchestre Métropolitain | Andrew Crust |
 Tonight’s concert by L’Orchestre Métropolitain was a celebration of youth which featured a great number of young musicians, including guest conductor Jean-Michaël Lavoie, 21-year-old pianist Marika Bournaki, 13-year-old violinist Kerson Leong, a children’s choir, and even a few child composers.
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| 21-Apr-2013 The Armstrong Hall Complex | Première of Rouse Ye Women at the Thornbury Arts Festival is a sell-out production | Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres |
 The sold-out première of Rouse ye Women told the story of the chain-making women in the Black Country in 1910. The story of how the chain-makers’ strike led to the implementation of the minimum wage in Britain, is told through a cast of six female singers who use a dynamic mixture of scored music and choreographed movement. This hour-long performance at the Amstrong Hall was part of the Thornbury Arts Festival, given by new music theatre company And Then We Danced.
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| 23-Feb-2013 Columbia University, Miller Theatre | A stunning portrait of Enno Poppe from Yarn/Wire and JACK Quartet at Miller Theatre | Meg Wilhoite |
.jpg) “Wheel: mechanical, circular motion. The brake was invented later.”
Enno Poppe’s words about Rad (“Wheel”), the first piece on his Composer Portraits concert at Miller Theatre on Saturday night, express well the experience of listening to it. With their two keyboards connected to computers that allowed them to play a huge array of scales in multiple tunings, Laura Barger and Ning Yu of Yarn/Wire gave a dizzying, athletic performance of the piece, which Barger related afterwards left her and Yu feeling almost like madwomen.
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| 13-Feb-2013 St Paul's Church | Contemporary Music Venture at St Paul's Church, Bristol | Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres |
 There was no doubt that for this concert, one had to enter the front door with a completely open mind. The aim of the Contemporary Music Venture is to promote contemporary music to a wider audience, in an hour and for free – an honourable challenge.
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| 29-Jan-2013 Sage: Hall Two | Northern Sinfonia in the cafés of Paris | Jane Shuttleworth |
 When I collected my ticket for this evening’s Late Mix concert in Hall Two of The Sage Gateshead, I was somewhat surprised to see it marked as unreserved seating. A computer glitch, I thought, until I walked into the hall and found that the usual rows of seats in this small, in-the-round auditorium had been replaced with café-style tables and chairs. The surprise of this novel seating arrangement immediately set up a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, as people brought drinks in and mingled.
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| 20-Dec-2012 Cadogan Hall | Nowell sing we now: The King's Singers at Cadogan Hall | Julia Savage |
 The King’s Singers epitomise a cappella musicianship. The group was originally formed in the 1960s by choral scholars of King’s College, Cambridge (and one from Christ Church, Oxford), but its current membership includes members who were previously choral scholars at Oxford, and even one member from New Zealand. With a relatively young line-up compared to previous incarnations of the group, The King’s Singers’ international repute remains – in 2012, they performed around 120 concerts worldwide.
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| 2-Dec-2012 Oxford Town Hall | A Christmas carol: Christmas with Sir James Galway and the Orchestra of St John's | Katy Wright |
 Oxford Town Hall was certainly decked with boughs of holly for last night’s Christmas special. Featuring the twelve-piece Orchestra of St John’s and a carol-singing choir, the scene was set for a cosy evening away from the cold and drizzle outside. Maybe the best way to describe this concert is by comparing it to a festive CD. The performances were of mixed quality: although some were a joy to listen to, others were less gripping and faded into the background.
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| 15-Nov-2012 The Jam House | Hebrides Ensemble: Eight Songs for a Mad King | Alan Coady |
 The Jam House is a jazz and blues club occupying the BBC’s former Queen Street Studios in Edinburgh. Now owned by Jools Holland and designer Neil Tabbitt, its spacious Georgian interior is occasionally given over to theatrical and musical events. Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King (1969) qualifies as both music and theatre, and this production, which was directed by Ben Twist, designed by Fiona Watt and lit by Martin Palmer, was certainly theatrical.
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| 2-Nov-2012 Cadogan Hall | The Swingle Singers look forward to their 50th birthday at Cadogan Hall | Sarah Reid |
 If anyone in tonight’s audience was hoping for a recital of the Swingle Singers’ greatest classical arrangements from the past 50 years, they would have come away disappointed. Instead, tonight’s concert showcased a more contemporary group performing stunning a cappella versions of everything from world to jazz to pop, plus some original compositions – with a reminiscent look back at a couple of well-known classical pieces from previous incarnations of the Swingle Singers.
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| 5-Oct-2012 La Maison Symphonique de Montréal | Stravinsky, turntables and beer with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal | Andrew Crust |
 Tonight’s concert was certainly one of the most unusual offered by the OSM in the Maison Symphonique thus far. It is indeed laudable for an orchestra to reach out to newer and younger audiences, and this is one of Kent Nagano’s strengths. Tonight’s presentation of the savage and revolutionary Le Sacre du Printemps alongside a new work for turntables and orchestra attempted to do just that. Certainly this pairing, as well as the presence of a well known DJ, served to fill the hall with new ears, and in this way the evening was a success.
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| 1-Oct-2012 Kings Place: Hall Two | Tableaux vivants with notes inégales at Kings Place | Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade |
 “What is a score?” This was the question posed last night in Kings Place, Hall Two, by the effervescent ensemble who style themselves as notes inégales. Under the directorship of Peter Wiegold, six instrumentalists brought together a programme of improvisational works that responded to computer-generated scores on a large screen.Read full review... | ||
| 24-Sep-2012 Kings Place: Hall Two | Stewart Lee meets John Cage at Kings Place | Paul Kilbey |
 They say you should never meet your heroes. But they don’t say anything about them meeting each other, so I had very little idea of what to expect at Kings Place on Monday night when comedian Stewart Lee performed John Cage. In the event, this was a hugely enjoyable short recital, though I do wonder if it wasn’t a bit funnier than should really be expected from a Cage gig.
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| 17-Aug-2012 Royal Albert Hall | Prom 47: John Cage night | Paul Kilbey |
 Now they know how many cacti it takes to fill the Albert Hall. Last night’s marathon John Cage Prom finished up, over three hours after it had started, with a wonderfully cactus-heavy performance of Branches (1976). Played by Robyn Schulkowsky and 20 more musicians scattered broadly around the hall, Branches involved copious amplified cactus-plucking as well as plenty more soft sounds thoughtfully extracted from a range of natural, foresty items such as sticks and twigs.Read full review... | ||
| 21-Jun-2012 Wigmore Hall | Andreas Staier reinvents the Diabelli Variations | David Allen, unpredictableinevitability.com |
 The story of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations is well known. The composer and publisher Anton Diabelli wanted to promote his new firm, and chose to do so by inviting fifty composers of varying fame to write a variation on his own waltz theme. Beethoven was, of course, the dominant figure in Vienna at the end of the 1810s, and his variation was to be the highlight.Read full review... | ||
| 18-Apr-2012 Shostakovich Philharmonic Hall (Grand Hall) | An International Composers Competition in St. Petersburg: Part 1 | Paul Kilbey |
 Last week, I was lucky enough to visit St. Petersburg to hear two concerts featuring winning pieces from the newly-launched St. Romanos Melodos I International Composers Competition. The aim of this competition is to revive ‘the spiritual and musical traditions founded in pre-revolution Russia’, and it was a fascinating window for me into a very different musical culture.
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| 8-Apr-2012 Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ: Main Hall | Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner and Sufjan Stevens: Planetarium | Renée Reitsma, ypgtcm.blogspot.com |
.jpg) The concert was divided into two clear parts; the first included string quartet pieces by Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly and Sufjan Stevens, and the other half consisted of Planetarium, a multi-dimensional song-cycle for string quartet, trombones, piano, celesta, synthesizer, drums, drum machine, guitar and voice. The audience was completely different from what I usually see at concert halls – the average age seemed to be around thirty, and people clapped when they wanted to, not when etiquette suggests they should, which was quite refreshing and seemed appropriate in this setting.
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| 15-Mar-2012 Carnegie Hall, Zankel Hall | L'Arpeggiata: Inspired by the Baroque | Zerbinetta |
 Though they play Baroque music, the ensemble L’Arpeggiata is more like a jazz band than a traditional orchestra. Anchored by a continuo (rhythm section?) led by artistic director and theorbist Christina Pluhar, they are joined by various other instrumentalists, singers, and even dancers, fitting each of their projects. Using improvisation and felicitous combinations of traditions, they explore various forgotten repertoires from the Neapolitan tarantella to, on Thursday evening at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, the Baroque mystery play.
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| 5-Nov-2011 St Mary's Church, South Woodford | Stocken's Archangels fly over Woodford; Icknield Ensemble delight with Dvorak Quintet | Ken Ward, Editor, The Bruckner Journal |
| I went to this concert primarily so as to be able to hear Frederick Stocken’s new work, Archangels. The performance of that work was preceded by the Choir of St Mary’s Woodford singing sixteenth century church music, conducted by Mr Stocken. Read full review... | ||
