SINCE 1999 A LIVE REVIEW SITE FOR OPERA, BALLET, CONCERTS, BROADCASTS, AND THEATRE
United Kingdom Britten, Pärt, Butterworth, Strauss. Episode 2 – Roderick Williams sings Butterworth: Roderick Williams (baritone), Hallé / Sir Mark Elder (conductor). Performance recorded in Hallé St. Peter’s, Manchester and streamed on 10.12.2020. (JQ)
United Kingdom Ireland, Bartók, Vaughan Williams: Eugene Tzikindelean (violin/director), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla (conductor). Symphony Hall, Birmingham, 18.11.2020 (streamed on the CBSO website on 3.12.2020). (JQ)
United Kingdom Tallis, Byrd, Gibbons, Tomkins, Morley, Sheppard: Ex Cathedra / Jeffrey Skidmore (conductor). CBSO Centre, Birmingham, 25.11.2020. (JQ)
United Kingdom Sibelius, Elgar, Beethoven: Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla (conductor). Symphony Hall, Birmingham, performance (10.11.2020), livestreamed from the CBSO website on 19.11.2020. (JQ)
United Kingdom Visions of Childhood – Wagner, Humperdinck, Schubert, Mahler: April Fredrik (soprano), English Symphony Orchestra / Kenneth Woods (conductor). Filmed in Wyastone Concert Hall, Monmouth, relayed via the ESO’s YouTube channel, 16.10.2020. (JQ)
United Kingdom Richard Strauss: April Fredrick (soprano), English Symphony Orchestra / Kenneth Woods (conductor). Performed at Wyastone Concert Hall, Monmouth, and broadcast on ESO’s YouTube channel, 18.9.2020. (JQ)
United Kingdom CBSO Centenary Concert – Schumann, Elgar, Saint-Saёns, Hannah Kendall, A.R. Rahman, Stravinsky: Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello), Roopa Panesar (sitar), Adrian Lester (presenter), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Sir Simon Rattle (conductor). Streamed live on the CBSO YouTube and Facebook channels from PRG’s Live Stage Studio, Longbridge, Birmingham. 5.9.2020. (JQ)
On 4 March 2020 I went to Symphony Hall, Birmingham to hear the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the CBSO Chorus give a fine performance of Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem conducted by the orchestra’s charismatic Osborn Music Director, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla (review). Though the Coronavirus alarm bells were ringing ever more loudly by that point, little did I imagine that this would be the last time that I would be able to hear the CBSO during their 2019/20 season. I had plans to review several more of their concerts, most notably their planned performance of Britten’s War Requiem on 20 June. Not long after that Brahms concert, though, the UK was put into lockdown and the orchestra was obliged to cancel future concerts on an incremental basis, including a 12-concert tour of Germany and Austria. Eventually, on 30 April, they bowed to the inevitable and cancelled the remainder of the season.
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