Come and join us at the English Music Festival in a fortnight’s time! No, alas, not in person – but at our online EMF, from the safety and comfort of your own home!
Read moreEnglish Music Festival’s 2020 online series of concerts and talks
Articles & Interviews
The master list of news, features and interviews
Perfect Pianists at the BBC: education and entertainment
Another BBC triumph. An hour with nineteen of the world’s ‘Perfect Pianists’ captured across almost a century on BBC film. Rarely has education combined so well with rich entertainment.
Read morePerfect Pianists at the BBC: education and entertainment
Need to escape reality? Enter into the magical world of composer David Hertzberg
Over a few days in early March, concert halls, opera houses and theaters went dark around the world in an attempt to halt the spread of the coronavirus. Countless works of music, both new and old, could not be performed, among them the premiere of a symphonic piece by the American composer David Hertzberg. Hertzberg gave the piece the working title Madig, a German word that may translate to worm-eaten but has a range of meanings in colloquial usage.
Read moreNeed to escape reality? Enter into the magical world of composer David Hertzberg
Opera Philadelphia announces Digital Festival O
Opera Philadelphia’s Digital Festival O
Opera Philadelphia will stream five operas in May 2020 as part of its Digital Festival O. Southeastern Pennsylvania, where Philadelphia is located, has been hit hard by the coronavirus, but at present there is hope that the peak of the epidemic has passed.
BTHVN2020 – Beethoven anniversary goes into overtime
BTHVN2020 exceeds its initial course, runs projects until September 2021
The celebrations in honour of Ludwig van Beethoven’s 250th birthday will continue until September 2021. This was agreed on by the supervisory board of Beethoven Jubiläums GmbH at its meeting this Friday. This will allow the creative potential of BTHVN2020 to continue to unfold, despite the restrictions imposed by the COVID 19 pandemic.
Read moreBTHVN2020 – Beethoven anniversary goes into overtime
The BBC takes the Corner Shop Back in Time from yesteryear to nearly next century
Do you have a corner shop nearby? If so the chances are it will be owned and run by a family of Asian heritage, open most of twenty-four hours, friendly, better stocked than the supermarket, and all the more likely to provide you with improbable, impossible whatever, if you have ready cash and a sense of humour. Theatre doesn’t come better than this. But this is real life. No kidding.
BBC2 have just taken us through a six-part ‘extraordinary time-travelling adventure’ on the corner shop from Victorian times to the end of our new century. At the moment Back in Time for the Corner Shop is waiting for you on iPlayer for a little while longer. If this isn’t entertainment with a big smile, I don’t know what is.
Read moreThe BBC takes the Corner Shop Back in Time from yesteryear to nearly next century
Remembering Margaret Rutherford: murder on and off screen
You have to be forty-one at least, to make an impression as the dotty old woman on screen. That was Margaret Rutherford’s age when she began her film career. She said in a BBC television interview that she was puzzled why so many people found her films comic. Solving crime is a serious business, she added. Coming from her lips, we find that comic too.
Read moreRemembering Margaret Rutherford: murder on and off screen
The Singapore Symphony in 2020-2021
The Singapore Symphony’s new season
The Singapore Symphony recently announced its upcoming season, the first under the baton of Hans Graf, the new Chief Conductor. Appointed to the post in July 2019, the Austrian conductor will open the season on 2 July 2020 at the Victoria Concert Hall with the world premiere of 承 Flow, a SSO commission by Singaporean composer Zechariah Goh; Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No.1 in A minor with violinist Karen Gomyo; and Beethoven’s Symphony No.3 in E-flat major ‘Eroica’. This concert also launches the SSO’s year-long celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth.