Reviews of Prog Rock, Classical Music, Art Rock and Jazz
Sunday 2 June 2024 The Stoller Hall, Manchester ***** A joyous and moving performance of Bach's masterpiece Three hundred years ago, JS Bach took up a post in Leipzig where his St John Passion was first performed on 7 April 1724. On the three hundredth anniversary of the first performance, the BBC Philharmonic and Manchester Chamber …
Continue reading "Yale Schola Cantorum and Juilliard415 – Live Review"
Friday 24 May 2024 Waterside Arts Centre, Sale, Greater Manchester ***** A delightful evening of gorgeous a cappella singing The Apex Singers are a Manchester-based chamber choir of eight voices, founded and directed by Ollie Lambert. Unfortunately, one of the tenors was ill at short notice so last Friday's stunning a cappella performance at Waterside …
Thursday 16 May 2024 Royal Festival Hall, London ***** A premiere by Roderick Williams explores the humanity of Elgar's choral masterpiece The Dream of Gerontius David Hill conducting the Philharmonia. Image credit Andy Paradise Edward Elgar’s choral masterpiece The Dream of Gerontius, with words by Cardinal John Henry Newman, describes the journey of a soul …
Continue reading "The Bach Choir and Philharmonia Orchestra – Live Review"
Friday 10 May 2024 Bridgewater Hall Manchester ***** A musical art installation brings 'a stillness that moves' to Manchester Manchester Collective first appeared on this Blog in December 2019, a review of a concert at The White Hotel in Salford, a small and (on the evening of the performance) very cold venue. Since then, this …
Continue reading "Manchester Collective: Rothko Chapel – Live Review"
Friday 29 March 2024 Bridgewater Hall Manchester A moving and dramatic interpretation 300 years after the first performance ***** Bach's St John Passion was first performed 300 years ago, on 7 April 1724 at St Nicholas' Church in Leipzig. Bach had moved to Leipzig the year before to take up a post at the Thomaskirche …
Continue reading "BBC Philharmonic : Bach’s St John Passion (1724) – Live Review"
The White Hotel, Salford Saturday 14 March 2020 Everything they touch turns to musical gold ***** Dmitri Shostakovich This was a concert for troubled times. Manchester Collective's Managing Director, Adam Szabo thanked us for braving the weather and the virus. He said that this performance, the end of a short tour, would be the end …
Continue reading "Manchester Collective: Cries and Whispers – Live Review"
Opera North The Lowry, Salford Wednesday 11 March 2020 A superbly creepy staging of Britten's masterpiece ***** Sarah Tynan as the Governess and Nicholas Watts as Peter Quint ©Tristram Kenton The small scale of the forces involved in Benjamin Britten's 1954 opera was evident when the whole cast came on stage at the end to take …
Continue reading "Britten The Turn of the Screw – Opera Review"
The festival of Christmas was central to my relationship with my Father who died thirty years ago, in April 1994. Every year, I used to listen to the Nine Lessons and Carols with him on Christmas Eve on BBC Radio 4. A week or so earlier, he would conduct his local church choir at St Werburgh's in …
Continue reading "My Father, John Charles Holmes 1933 – 1994"