brisbane hate

Current mood: LUDWIG Everyone is sending out their end-of-year messages of thanks, gratitude, invocation of blessings and marvels at the wonders around us, and I'd like to join in. Only it's difficult, because I am mad as hell about what has happened to my home country during the course of 2018 and terrified out of any remaining wits about what will happen in 2019. I haven't been blogging much, because to be interested in blogging you have to not mind 'sweating the small stuff' and currently I mind this very much indeed. Oooh, a mispronunciation on Radio 3! Oooh, clapping between movements! Ooooh-ahhh, a soloist in a short skirt. WOW! I've been lucky to have some excellent guest posts this year. I've given the floor whenever possible to those who make the arguments best: Anna Lapwood on gender equality for choristers, Dame Sarah Connolly on the implications for the music world of Brexit, and more. It's not that I don't want to write. It's that I ...

Many thanks to everyone who entered the Swan Lake Competition! I hope you've all had excellent Christmasses.  It's time to reveal the winner. The question was: Which ballerina danced the role of Odette/Odile in the world premiere of  Swan Lake , at the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, on 4 March 1877? The correct answer is: Pelagaya Karpakova The first correct entry out of the hat is from Lucy Braga, who will receive a paperback of Odette from JDCMB and a CD of Swan Lake conducted by Vladimir Jurowski from Pentatone. Congratulations!

Dear readers, have a wonderful Christmas and new year! Lots of love from your slightly knackered blogger and her household. xxxxx

Deck the halls with chocolate silver,  Falalalalaaaah, meow me-ow... If you've been reading JDCMB for a while, you'll know that TODAY'S THE DAY. It's the Winter Solstice, which means it's time for our very own virtual awards ceremony, in which we take a lighthearted look back at the year's peaks and plunges, while Ricki (chocolate silver) and Cosi (silver) present our winners with a special prize purr and let them stroke their luxuriant fur. Please come in. Welcome to the CyperPoshPlace!  No need to stand on ceremony here. All are welcome. No tickets are checked, no charges made for the cloakroom, and the CyberBubbly, being virtual, is limitless free to all and won't make you drunk. Just the right degree of pleasantly tipsy, if you so wish. It's been a...well, I can't remember a year quite like this one. It's tense. Everyone is anxious and exhausted and we still don't know what the heck is going to happen to us all, let alone the music busine...

Steven Isserlis is 60 today! I have flipping' well missed his big birthday concert on Monday at the Wigmore Hall - which included appearances by Simon Keenlyside, András Schiff, Radu Lupu, Ferenc Rados, Josh Bell and Connie Shih - because for some reason we'd thought it would be a good idea to go to Iceland in the middle of December to try and see the Northern Lights... As my Dad used to say, one lives and learns. Steven Isserlis Photo: PA Anyway, it was a wonderful excuse to pop up to north London the other week and interview Steven himself. We talked about music, books, cellos, Rabbi Moses Isserles, Schumann, Fauré, Bloch, the perils of curly hair and the Marx Brothers, among much else. You can read the whole thing in the JC, here.  And here's one select story. His Twitter account makes lively reading, full of hair-raising stories about his travels with his cello. “I was on a Japanese airline, business class — very nice — and I asked the stewardess if she could help make ...

WIN A SWAN LAKE CD AND A COPY OF ODETTE Vladimir Jurowski's recording of Swan Lake in its original 1877 version - before Drigo got his paws on the score - is an absolute stunner, out now on Pentatone Classics. The State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia 'Evgeny Svetlanov' offers sleek, intense playing, the sound quality is excellent and in Jurowski's hands the dramatic climaxes become utterly hair-raising, almost Wagnerian in their magic and majesty. And in the box there's even a set of instructions for how to fold your own Origami swan. Swan Lake is the inspiration behind my new book, Odette,   in which the ballet's heroine meets the present day head-on. This week Odette has been on a 'blog tour' which has found it termed 'enchanting', 'magical' and 'absolutely unique' (for which I'm extremely grateful and happy.) I'm delighted to say that Pentatone is offering a copy of Jurowski's splendid Swan Lake  recordin...

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Xian Zhang, principal guest conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, fulfils a long-standing dream this month: she is at the helm as the orchestra heads for a tour of her native land. She's sent me a guest post about what this confluence of countries means to her, with a look, too, at the state of musical life in China [compared to the state of things here at the moment, one could weep - jd.]. Enjoy! First, here they are performing Respighi's The Pines of Rome. A Meeting of Minds Guest post by the conductor Xian Zhang Xian Zhang Photo: Benjamin Ealovega It has long been a dream of mine to take a European orchestra to my native country, China, and after years of planning, it is finally happening as I conduct BBC National Orchestra of Wales in five concerts in four major cities 15-21 December.  For me, it’s a homecoming: I was born in China and studied there but, the main focus of my career has been in Europe and the United States. It feels a bit like three old friends m...

Much fuss has been caused in the choral world these past few days by a suggestion from Lesley Garrett that it's high time all-male choirs were abolished . Some defenders of the great English choral tradition, in which these have featured since forever, have been up in arms. Others lean strongly towards providing equal opportunities for girls to sing, because at the moment they still miss out, and have done for centuries. I was somewhat amused by a press release that landed in my in-box the other day in which a famous choral conductor vaunted the importance of keeping choirs all-male, saying - without irony - that boys would lose opportunities to make music if they admit girls (um, what does he think has been happening to women all this time?) and that the choir is defined by its people, after which he lists a number of highly distinguished personages going back to the 19th century, who are of course all men. My instinct is to cheer on Lesley Garrett's opinion. At the same time,...

Last week I went north of the river to interview Steven Isserlis about a certain big birthday he has this month, to be celebrated with some close friends on stage at the Wigmore Hall (and more, of course - results in the JC soon). On my way out, I met another Isserlis going in: Steven's son, Gabriel.  A few weeks ago Gabriel launched a new scheme called Tutti to help musicians find rehearsal space when and where they need it. Given the headache that such things cause - even finding somewhere to practise the piano can turn into a student's worst nightmare, as I well remember - this seems an absolutely inspired idea. It functions like Airbnb: those with space can sign up to offer it and musicians who need it can sign up to book in.  The crucial thing at the moment is: if you have a space to offer musicians, please sign up NOW, using the links below. Here's Gabriel himself to tell us more about it, after an energising Schumann treat from dad and Dénes Várjon. CREATING TUTTI My...

I’ve just had a terrific Skype chat with the young Russian violinist  Alena Baeva , ahead of her London debut at the Royal Festival Hall on Wednesday. She and I have a little Schumann-related project together in June in Oxford and it’s splendid to get to know her. Here she is, talking about her turbulent background in central Asia, her first-rate musical training, her passion for historical recordings and all we can learn from them, and a few particularly wonderful concertos… JD: Alena, you’ve recently been playing a very special piece in Katowice to mark 100 years of Polish independence…  AB: It was a major event for me because I’d wanted to play the Karlowicz Concerto for a long time. It’s hardly played anywhere but Poland, which is a pity because it’s a great piece. It’s quite difficult! Someone brought it for me to play in a masterclass in Poland and I was fascinated. I’m happy we did it this summer.  JD: Where are you from and where did you grow up?  AB: That’s ...