brisbane hate

I first met Alex Woolf a few years ago when he was still a teenager on the Aldeburgh Young Musicians programme, testing his wings in composing and conducting. Since then he's been through university, graduated and set up as a seriously promising twenty-something composer, with a profile that's fast expanding - and it was particularly pleasing to see that his new Requiem, written for the World War I commemorations, is to be premiered in a special charity concert this Saturday with tenor Nicky Spence, cellist Laura van der Heijden and the chorus Vox Luna, as part of a programme of much and varied British choral music. The words mingle the traditional Requiem Mass with new poetry by Gillian Clarke, the National Poet of Wales. Here's a guest post Alex has written for us on why he wanted to write a Requiem and what we can look forward to in it. JD A RICH AND SPECIAL TRADITION Guest post by Alex Woolf This Saturday (9th June), I’ll conduct the premiere of my Requiem, a piece I’ve...

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Live radio is quite scary, but I took the plunge yesterday. It's an honour to be on the panel of judges for the BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour Power List 2018, which is devoted to Women in Music and was launched yesterday. I'm the classical representative alongside some formidable figures from the pop world - producer Catherine Marks, broadcaster Jasmine Dotiwala and singer-songwriter Kate Nash - and we have quite a task ahead of us, whittling down the number of powerful women in the music world to select the top 40. The list will be announced in the autumn. You can hear the podcast from yesterday's programme on the iPlayer, here.  Happy listening.

Liza Ferschtman Photo: Marco Borggreve I had a lovely interview with the Dutch violinist Liza Ferschtman the other week (official version available to read in this week's JC, here ) - she will be in London to play Bernstein's Serenade at Cadogan Hall with the Brussels Philharmonic on Thursday 31 May. Her recording of it - and the Korngold Violin Concerto - is highly recommended. During our conversation, I learned that her family was close to the absolute legend of a violinist that was Philippe Hirschhorn. Her father was the cellist of the Glinka Quartet until they left Russia in the late 1970s, her mother was a pianist, and she grew up in the Netherlands with fellow emigré Hirschhorn virtually as honorary uncle.  Hirschhorn, born in the USSR, won the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, and later settled in the Netherlands - but his career ended tragically, with his death from a brain tumour aged only 50. His sound burned one up like no other. There was more to say than I...

Barbara Hannigan as Isabel, Stéphane Degout as The King, Gyula Orendt as Gaveston Photo: Stephen Cummiskey There has been a great deal of fuss this week, courtesy of questionable decisions at the Philadelphia Orchestra, about 'respecting the sanctity of the concert hall' ( Read Philip Gentry's piece here. ) Just the tired old standard defence against anyone objecting to decisions made by performers/managers that are...questionable – designed simply to silence those who disagree. It's saddening to see Yannick say 'Musicians are not men and women of words', as most of the ones I know bloody well are. My latest evening at the Royal Opera House has left me wondering why anyone would consider there's anything resembling 'sanctity' in any performance house – I won't say 'any more' because it probably was never there. Last night I went with a friend to see the new George Benjamin opera Lessons in Love and Violence. We sat in the amphitheatre - c...

Planning to spend the bank holiday weekend catching up on a spot of practising?...well, if you're anything like me, you may be wondering where to start. I sit and stare at my books of Beethoven, Debussy and Schumann, feeling stumped before playing a note by the decision of which piece to pick and why. Brush up an old one or learn something new? Try something I know (well, think) I can still manage, or something that will force me to learn a new technical trick? Or what? Fortunately I've asked pianist, teacher and maker of anthologies Melanie Spanswick for a guest post and she says: play to your strengths. Here's the post explaining why. JD Playing to your strengths A guest post by Melanie Spanswick Piano students working towards a graded piano exam, a diploma, a competition, a concert or any type of performance always want to know if the repertoire they have selected offers an eclectic programme. Is their choice of composers, piano pieces and range of styles and genres, sui...

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