SINCE 1999 A LIVE REVIEW SITE FOR OPERA, BALLET, CONCERTS, BROADCASTS, AND THEATRE
The master list of news, features and interviews
Michael Cookson Meets Omer Meir Wellber
Earlier this year during a reporting trip to Munich I was fortunate to secure an interview with charismatic and hardworking conductor Omer Meir Wellber whose burgeoning career has taken him to the world’s greatest opera houses and working with the finest orchestras.
AN INTERVIEW WITH VALENTINA LISITSA
The Ukrainian pianist Valentina Lisitsa has achieved the accolade of becoming the world’s most popular classical artist since her first YouTube recital in 2007. By leading the way to finding new audiences with sensational success, Lisitsa has gained a staggering 95 million views and almost 200,000 subscribers on YouTube.
Dénes Várjon in conversation with Sebastian Smallshaw
Dénes Várjon studied music at the Liszt Academy with Sándor Falvai, György Kurtág, and Ferenc Rados. Over the last 25 years, he has established an international career as a concert pianist and chamber musician, and is a regular guest at prestigious festivals in Europe and the United States. Since 2015, he has been artistic co-director of the chamber music festival kamara.hu, which he coordinates together with his wife, the pianist Izabella Simon. I spoke with Dénes Várjon in Budapest, just after he had performed in the second concert of this year’s kamara.hu.
Dmitri Hvorostovsky (16 October 1962 – 22 November 2017) dies at 55
Seen and Heard-International is saddened to have heard of the death – after a courageous fight against cancer – of the wonderful Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky, at much-too-early age of 55.
A Great Tradition Lives: Ann Murray’s Masterclass at the V&A (Royal College of Music)
Like all the world’s greatest teachers, Gioacchino Rossini was much more focused on what he could get out of a pupil than what he could put in. But the maestro was also a composer, in my spare time, he used to quip. So it was not unknown for him to to put something into the pupil too.
Mark Sebastian Jordan Encounters Margaret Brouwer
American composer Margaret Brouwer will be premiering an oratorio, Voice of the Lake, on November 12 in Cleveland. Though she grew up in Michigan, the composer now lives near Lake Erie in Ohio, where she served as head of the composition department of the Cleveland Institute of Music until 2008. By her own reckoning, she has a special relationship with nature in general, and water in particular, which is reflected in many of her pieces.
The 12th Malcolm Arnold Festival. Royal and Derngate and St Matthew’s Church, Northampton, 14-15.10.2017 (RBa)
INSIGHTFUL SENSE
Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think About Art, Pleasure, Beauty and Truth by A. O. Scott. Penguin, 291pp (available from Amazon)
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