brisbane hate

Alexandra Dariescu's virtual-reality piano recital ballet marvel The Nutcracker and I is off on a world tour soon, taking in China, Romania, Belgium, Germany, Austria (four performances in Vienna's Konzerthaus), Sweden, Australia and the UK (including, among others, the London Piano Festival and the Ryedale Festival). Above, the Trepak, with Alex at the piano and ballerina Amy Drew meeting some rather special friends. Full tour dates here. Last year Alex decided to record a CD of the complete music - some of the arrangements have been specially commissioned for the project - with a souvenir booklet, targeted at the young audience she hopes will be attracted to experience a piano recital for the first time. But you can't put virtual reality into audio or print...so she needed a text version of the story. I was more than thrilled when she asked me to oblige. The script, recorded by Blue Peter presenter Lindsey Russell, has been very cleverly woven into the music (it works eve

...I'm off to Glasgow to give a pre-concert talk about Chopin for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Concert Hall. Curtain-raiser for a gorgeous programme bookended by Smetana and Dvorák, and in the middle David Kadouch is the soloist for Chopin's Piano Concerto No.2. Matthias Pintscher conducts. I'll be telling the story of the young Chopin, the significance in his life and output of his 'Second' Piano Concerto (inverted commas used for a good reason there) and the various elements that went into forming his style then, and which would stay with him for the rest of his life. The talk starts at 6.45pm and the concert is at 7.30pm, broadcast live on Radio 3. More details here.  It is actually, embarrassingly, more years than I'd care to admit since I last went to Scotland at all, and I'm looking forward to revisiting this vibrant metropolis, if all too briefly.

Thanks for coming to tonights QuestGaine at Newmarket You can input your answers   here . The map is available here Feel free to post your route in the comments below.

2018 - Week 13 - Newmarket 25 April @ 7pm- This week we'll be starting at the SE corner of Mc Cook Park in Newmarket.  Thanks to Errol for setting this weeks map, and offering to cook some snags while everyone is out on the course. When registering please let us know if you are staying for the BBQ afterwards. This week we are only running Wednesday evening . Maps will be available on this blog if you would like to print your own map and run the course on Thursday or later. We'll be using the regular question and answer format this week. Please arrive by 6:45 to sign on and grab your map ready to turn maps over at 6:58.  Please register below -  BY MIDDAY WEDNESDAY -  so that we can print enough colour maps. Entry is Free!  Timing: Please arrive by 6:45pm Map handout at 6:58pm Turn over maps for two minutes of route planning at 6:58pm Mass start at 7:00pm Finish at 8:00pm - 20 point penalty for every minute you are late 8:00pm onwards - enter your answers into the online form th

Anita Lasker-Wallfisch It's rare for any concert in hall in London, except the eclectic Southbank Centre, to present anything with overtly political overtones. So all credit to John Gilhooly at the Wigmore. Watching the cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, 92 and a survivor of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, address the Bundestag in Berlin a few months ago, he decided she must give the address to London as well, in English - from the stage of his hall. She will speak about her own experiences and the importance of learning from one of the darkest moments of human history. The event, on 8 July at 3pm, will also feature her son Raphael Wallfisch (cello) and John York (piano) in music Bloch, Ravel and Korngold. It will be live streamed on the Wigmore Hall website . Gilhooly says: “After I saw Anita Lasker-Wallfisch's address to the Bundestag, I felt it had to be heard in London, so I invited her to give the address in English at Wigmore Hall. As a non-Jewish leader working in the arts, I

It's the Proms launch today and the great news is that the Last Night commission goes to our very own Roxanna Panufnik! Roxanna rules the waves She is writing a choral piece, Songs of Darkness, Dreams of Light , for the combined forces of the BBC Symphony Chorus and BBC Singers involving a poem by the World War I poet Isaac Rosenberg and lines from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. Today's tension is reduced, of course, by the fact that the whole programme went online at 7am, so there will be no repeat of the little adrenaline rush that accompanied the opening of the nice fat brochure at the press briefing, let alone of the time I teared up there on seeing the words KORNGOLD SYMPHONY on a Proms page for the first time ever. Everyone is tweeting their highlights and I've had a quick zip through the website to see what jumps out. No doubt I will have missed plenty, so please forgive me if your favourite concert does not appear in this post... For opening night there is another n

Thanks for coming to tonights QuestGaine at Rochedale South You can input your answers   here . The map is available  here Feel free to post your route in the comments below.

2018 - Week 12 - Rochedale South 18-19 April @ 7pm- This week we'll be starting at the shops on Parfrey Rd, Rochedale South.  Thanks to Mark for setting this weeks map. We'll be using the regular question and answer format this week. Please arrive by 6:45 to sign on and grab your map ready to turn maps over at 6:58.  For those who cannot make the  Wednesday  night, you can register for  Thursday  and someone will bring maps to the start.  Please register below -  BY MIDDAY ON THE DAY YOU'RE ATTENDING -  so that we can print enough colour maps. Entry is Free!  Timing: Please arrive by 6:45pm Map handout at 6:58pm Turn over maps for two minutes of route planning at 6:58pm Mass start at 7:00pm Finish at 8:00pm - 20 point penalty for every minute you are late 8:00pm onwards - enter your answers into the online form that generates a live leaderboard What to bring: Marker Pen/ highlighter Headtorch Compass (optional) Whistle for safety (optional)

This is a perennial issue among those who spend more evenings at concerts or other performances than not. You need to eat. But when do you ever have time? It's a more widespread problem than we like to admit. I remember interviewing a much bigger-time critic than I am and asking what the most challenging thing about this job is. Reply? "Working out when to eat. I've never cracked it." Here is an extreme example, more extreme than usual. But frankly, usual is pretty odd too. The other night I found myself in a position I'd never dreamed of. (Well... OK, yeah, I dreamed. Who wouldn't?) But there we were, the Silver Birch team from Garsington, glammed up in our silks, velvets and black tie, converging around 5.30pm in the Chandos Pub for our big evening as a finalist candidate for the International Opera Awards a few doors up at the London Coliseum. I've had nice things happen to me over the years, but never before been a member of a team in the running for

Thanks for coming to tonights QuestGaine at Wishart You can input your answers   here . The map is available  here Feel free to post your route in the comments below.

Last night the Queen Elizabeth Hall reopened in grand style with a performance by Chineke! which by all accounts raised the new roof high indeed. I couldn't be there because I had to go to something else (of which more shortly), but I'm pleased to offer an insider's view of what it was like to be part of that concert - because my husband was playing in it. He is, as you  know, usually in the London Philharmonic. And my gosh, he had a good time. Over to Tom... Chineke! with conductor Anthony Parnther (Tom is at the back on the left) Photo: Mark Allen So, my dear, some people were apparently quite surprised to see you playing in Chineke! But you are of an ethnic minority, technically - please explain? Tom aged 24 One of the main misconceptions of Chineke! is that only black musicians may play in it; the mission statement clearly says “ The organisation aims to be a catalyst for change, realising existing diversity targets within the industry by increasing the representation

It's a big day here in rainy old London. Tonight the Queen Elizabeth Hall reopens after a two-and-a-half-year closure for refurbishment, and the lucky orchestra doing the concert is Chineke! , the UK's first BAME orchestra founded by the indomitable Chichi Nwanoku. I can't go, because Garsington Opera's Learning and Participation Department is a finalist for an International Opera Award for  Silver Birch  and so we are trooping off to the Coliseum for the awards evening. Wish us luck.  Meanwhile, if, like me, you can't attend the Chineke! concert, you can hear it on BBC Radio 3. And you can also hear a fabulous new CD from the pianist Rebeca Omordia , which explores the music of three composers from her father's native Nigeria. I loved it to pieces. The music is gritty, passionate, imaginative, startling and irresistible by turns - highly recommended. I asked Rebeca to do an e-interview to tell us more about it. JD: Please tell us why you wanted to make this

2018 - Week 11 - Wishart 11-12 April @ 7pm- This week we'll be starting at Mailbry St, opposite Michelle Crescent in Wishart.  We'll be using the regular question and answer format this week. Please arrive by 6:45 to sign on and grab your map ready to turn maps over at 6:58.  For those who cannot make the  Wednesday  night, you can register for  Thursday  and someone will bring maps to the start.  Please register below -  BY MIDDAY ON THE DAY YOU'RE ATTENDING -  so that we can print enough colour maps. Entry is Free!  Timing: Please arrive by 6:45pm Map handout at 6:58pm Turn over maps for two minutes of route planning at 6:58pm Mass start at 7:00pm Finish at 8:00pm - 20 point penalty for every minute you are late 8:00pm onwards - enter your answers into the online form that generates a live leaderboard What to bring: Marker Pen/ highlighter Headtorch Compass (optional) Whistle for safety (optional)

The other week, conductor George Jackson 's account of his last-minute close encounter with the LSO, some lost Ubers and a banana case became my fourth most popular post ever on JDCMB (behind only the  London  Hamburger Orchestra, the story of Enescu and an interview with the divine Cecilia). So when he called up and said 'You're not going to believe what happened the other day', I thought he'd better tell us about it.... JD Remember the Horse... George Jackson to the rescue, once again George Jackson Photo: A.P. Wilding It’s another Sunday morning, but this time, a more civilised 10:30am. And it’s Easter.  I have had an interesting weekend, beginning with fulfilling my role as ‘best man’ for a good friend (go-karting in Tower Bridge and a barbecue-style feast in East London for the stag) and complemented by listening to my local church choir singing the gorgeous Fauré Requiem for Easter Saturday. I am sipping coffee and very slowly packing my case for a week in Par

Jonas Kaufmann is singing Tristan und Isolde, Act 2, in concert this week with Camilla Nylund (soprano), the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons. The New York Times has a sneak preview video, plus an interview by Joshua Barone . The singing sounds quite good. Kaufmann. Photo: Gregor Hohenberg/Sony Classical NYLUND  It’s actually very dangerous to drive a car and listen. You always drive much too fast. [She's not wrong - JD] NELSONS  A few conductors have died during “Tristan.” The reason is Act II. It might seem relaxing, but actually the heartbeat and the intensity and level of excitement — it’s so high that you can’t stand it for a long time. So I don’t want yet to die, but I might. KAUFMANN  Do it on Saturday, so at least we’ve done one concert.