Latest news with #CocteauTwins
Daily Record
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Record
Music fans name their 'favourite Scottish musicians' of all time
Scotland has birthed many musical icons and these are the best ones, according to locals Music fans have shared their "favourite Scottish musicians". Artists and bands from a large range of genres have been named among the best. Scotland has a long history of producing world-famous musicians. From the Bay City Rollers in the 1970s to contemporary acts such as Lewis Capaldi, there are more legendary Scots music acts than you might think. One music buff recently took to social media to ask others their top musicians from Scotland. Posting on Reddit on Wednesday, June 4, they questioned: "What's your favourite Scottish musician? "There are way more of them than I thought." The post has since received more than 85 comments from fellow music enthusiasts. Many were quick to share their top Scottish musicians. One of the top responses to the question named Elizabeth Fraser as the number one Scottish musician. Best known as the vocalist for the band Cocteau Twins, Fraser is famous for her distinct style and operatic vocals. Cocteau Twins achieved critical and commercial success throughout 1980s and 1990s. Their most well-known album is Heaven or Las Vegas from 1990, which has become a cult favourite and routinely appears on lists of the greatest albums of all time. Elsewhere, one music fan stated that Boards of Canada was their favourite Scottish band. Despite the name, Boards of Canada was formed in Edinburgh in the late 1980s. The electronic music duo became popular following the release of their first full album Music Has the Right to Children in 1998. Since then, they have released acclaimed albums such as The Campfire Headphase in 2005 and Tomorrow's Harvest in 2013. Meanwhile, another Reddit user wrote that Frightened Rabbit was their number one Scottish music act. Frightened Rabbit was a Scottish indie rock band that formed in Selkirk in the Scottish Borders in 2003. The band are known for acclaimed albums such as Sing the Greys and The Midnight Organ Fight, released in 2006 and 2008 respectively. Frightened Rabbit was headed by musician Scott Hutchison, who tragically died in 2018. Another contemporary Scottish act named by one music buff as their favourite is Lauren Mayberry. Originating from Stirling, Mayberry is the vocalist and percussionist of the band CHVRCHES. CHVRCHES formed in Glasgow in 2011, and are renowned for their synth-pop sound. The group have released critically and commercially successful albums such as The Bones of What You Believe, Every Open Eye, and Screen Violence—the latter two of which peaked at number one on the Scottish albums chart. Meanwhile, one Reddit user stated that their favourite Scottish music act is Paolo Nutini from Paisley in Renfrewshire. Nutini's first two albums, These Streets and Sunny Side Up, achieved major success around the world thanks to singles such as Last Request and Candy. Other Scottish acts named by music fans as being their favourite include The Blue Nile, Orange Juice, and Belle and Sebastian. Elsewhere, others chose Teenage Fanclub, Mogwai, and Primal Scream.
CairoScene
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CairoScene
French Artist Sarilou Launches ‘Coeur Eternel' Party at CJC May 29th
The party features a lineup of regional and local female artists like Marcelina, Sareena, Contrasté and Femaledjkhaled. May 27, 2025 French alt-pop singer and producer Sarilou is set to launch her femme-fatale party concept, 'Coeur Eternel', at Cairo Jazz Club on Thursday, May 29th. Transforming the iconic Agouza club into her own 'eternal heart' world, Sarilou's party will feature a series of fun immersive installations, live performances, and DJ sets from a roster of regional and local female artists. Featured on the lineup is Lebanese artist Marcelina, who will be making her Egypt debut. Sarilou will be performing her newly-released EP 'Eyes Wide Open', along with a selection of her earliest tracks and some unreleased gems. Based in Paris, Sarilou has built up a reputation as one of the most promising talents in Europe for her volatile, cyberpunk and fairy-like sound, blending industrial textures with high-pitched vocals, reminiscent of global icons like SOPHIE and Cocteau Twins. The lineup will also feature Cairo's selector Sareena, Contrasté, with Femaledjkhaled –one-third of the IASC trio–on closing duties. Doors open at 8 PM. To book your tickets, head to Cairo Jazz Club's official website.
The Herald Scotland
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
I am not ashamed that I used to be a drunk, says Scots star
Admittedly, it's in the Upper East Side, a block away from Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art and it cost the best part of $2 million (just under £1.5m in Sterling), so he's probably not slumming it. And certainly the tiny corner I see of it through my Zoom lens looks handsome. What's that picture behind you, Craig? 'That's a Scottish artist, Hugh Williams, the horse painter guy. It's good, isn't it?' It's Good Friday in New York today. And in Falkirk too, for that matter. 'You live in Falkirk? A million years ago I went to Falkirk Technical College for a year with Robin Guthrie who was in the Cocteau Twins. He was from Grangemouth. We were both electronic engineers. He made something of his life.' Read more I think it's fair to say that Ferguson has too. Once upon a time known round these parts by his angry comedic alter ego Bing Hitler, Ferguson has gone on to become a film star, a late-night American talk show host - he hosted The Late Late Show on CBS for 11 seasons - and an author. These days he's 62, drug-free, drink-free, a podcaster, a husband and a father. And he has returned to stand-up. Indeed, he's coming back to Glasgow this June with a new show, Pants on Fire. I ask him for the show's elevator pitch. 'It's a bunch of almost true stories. Some of them not true at all. Do you know when you see something on Netflix that's 'based on a true story'? OK, so this is all based on a true story.' What it isn't is particularly topical. 'I made a bit of a change in how I did stand-up. When you do late night [aka The Late Late Show] you're forced into topical events all the time. Everything's topical, everything's politics. I was looking at that space thing with Katy Perry. [Perry went up to the edge of space for 11 minutes on Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin rocket; but you already knew that.] And I thought, 'God if I was doing late night I would be all over that stuff.' 'So, when I came out of it I wanted to go back to the kind of stuff I used to do right at the beginning when I was doing Bing. It was stuff that was anecdotal and personal. And that's what I did.' In his last stand-up show I'm So Happy, which you can watch on his website, he addressed cancel culture and what comedians can and cannot say these days. Does he feel inhibited as a comedian now in any way? 'I recorded that special about 18 months ago and it was very much prominent in my mind at that time and I don't really talk about that anymore. I think it was a moment when everybody was very touchy.' Craig Ferguson on his US talk show (Image: free) When he started comedy, in the 1980s, he reminds me, the only comedians around were himself, Fred MacAulay - 'Fred was doing golf clubs and I was doing nightclubs' - and his hero, Billy Connolly. Back then, he says, 'you were always getting in trouble for saying something. Billy was always in trouble. And I expect it. It's the price of doing business in my line of work. Some people will get mad at what you say. 'When I was doing late night I had a very good producer who would say, 'Is it worth it? Is the joke good enough.' And sometimes it was and sometimes it wasn't. 'And that stuck with me. If it's a good enough joke I don't give a f*** who it annoys. But if it's not that good a joke maybe it's not worth the hassle. 'I know there's stuff I have done back in the day I would now go, 'Oh Jesus.' But you live and learn, I guess.' It's maybe worth remembering that while hosting The Late Late Show on CBS for all those years the moments that cut through most were his interview with Desmond Tutu which managed to combine humour with a platform for ideas of forgiveness and compassion (the show won a Peabody Award as a result) and his monologue in 2007 when he revealed why he would not be doing jokes about Britney Spears when she was struggling with her mental health. 'We shouldn't be attacking the vulnerable people,' he said at the time. All of which maybe raises the question, is he a very different comedian than he was back in his Bing Hitler days? 'It's funny. My youngest boy found a vinyl of Bing Hitler live at the Tron so he put it on and made me listen to it and I thought, 'Some of that is not bad.' That's 1986 I was 24. 'I tend to dismiss things and move on, but I listened to it and I can see how that did OK. Parts of it are funny, parts of it are awful. 'Am I different? I'm older. I move around less on stage now. I get out there, I stand and talk, that's it.' Craig Ferguson as Bing Hitler (Image: free) What's undeniable is that he's a very different person. In the days before we speak I read his 2019 book Riding the Elephant, a series of autobiographical essays in which he talks about his childhood in Cumbernauld, his comedy, his marriages, how he lost his virginity and his toxic relationship with alcohol. He has been sober for more than 30 years now. Reading it, I say, what strikes me is the almost insane drive for success that seems to have animated him throughout his career. 'I think when I was younger I liked to phrase it like that because it sounds like I'm searching for something. That sounds a little bit nicer than what I think it might have been. 'I think I was greedy and I wanted things. I wanted attention. All the stuff people look for on social media. I wanted kudos and attention and money, I suppose. 'There was something that happened early on that reset that for me and I still talk about it with my kids. Whenever I get recognised in the streets we call it a 'Haw Bing'. 'Because one of the first shows I ever did at the Tron Theatre had gone really well and I had gone down the next day to get my guitar or whatever and when I was leaving somebody shouted to me, 'Haw Bing'. It was the first time I'd ever been recognised in the street. A guy at the Trongate shouted, 'Haw Bing' and I turned around. He went, 'You're a c***.' 'It was such an interesting, sharp lesson on visibility and fame and this kind of life. So, if I'm going somewhere the kids will say, 'Put a hat on dad so we don't get any Haw Bings'. 'So, was I searching for something? I don't know. I don't think it was particularly artistic or noble. It was hard to know who I even was. I felt like I was panicking all the time. I think we grew up pretty panicky. Maybe it was the Cold War or something. I felt like I was terrified all the time.' Nuclear annihilation always seemed imminent back then, I suggest. 'It was, though, wasn't it? I used to have dreams about it. I was terrified. There was this level of anxiety all the time. It's probably much more dangerous and scary now.' Craig Ferguson in Still Game in a guest role (Image: free) Does that younger you feel close or far away? 'Yes and no, I suppose. I've reached a point now - I don't know if this is age - I feel affection more than embarrassment or shame for being a drunk back then. I feel sorry for me then. I was so full of f****** bravado and gallusness, but it was all a front. I was f****** terrified and I'm not terrified anymore. 'Am I the same guy? I think essentially yeah. The same DNA obviously, but experience changes you a bit. I was talking to somebody yesterday who's a very successful writer of a TV show and she was saying she's managed to avoid bitterness in her career and I said, 'Well, yeah, maybe a bit of success has helped you avoid bitterness.' 'I don't know. I'm less driven than I was. I'm not out to have it all, girlfriend.' Because you've already had it all? 'A little bit. I used to have a friend - he's still a friend, but he's not alive anymore - this lovely man who helped me out when I was trying to get sober and he was from Liverpool and he used to say, 'II always feel a bit more spiritual when I've a couple of bob in my pocket.' And I think there is some truth to that. 'Look, health is the number one. There's nothing else but health and if you have health you've got everything. But at the same time a bit of cash, a bit of success, a couple of pats on the back is not horrible.' Well, I tell him, as we're more or less of an age, maybe this is a good time to talk about mortality. Craig, do you think about death much? 'The last four or five years I've had a couple of medical procedures. Nothing terrifying, but they involved me getting put under. They give you a drug called Propofol to put you under for an endoscope. 'Now, I'm drug and alcohol-free for decades, but the IV drip went into my arm and the anaesthesiologist said, 'OK, I'm going to send you to sleep now and I watched the drips go in and I thought, 'Oh God, this is great. I love this, I love this, I love this … And then I was gone. Craig Ferguson at the Brave premiere in Edinburgh with Kelly Macdonald and the late Robbie Coltrane (Image: free)'And I think it's probably like that. You're just not there. But this is what I don't know. And I have become more interested … You know people say, 'How often does your dad think about the Roman Empire?' I've become fascinated by Hellenistic philosophers, Stoic philosophers, pre-Roman christianity, the Upanishads, all sorts of people trying to figure it out. 'I am much more interested in that than when I was skint Haw Bing. 'But having a concrete idea about it, no. Do I think about it, not directly. I try not to scare myself too much. But I do question the nature of the universe. 'I think illness terrifies me more than oblivion,' he adds. 'You can have a bunch of problems until you've got a health problem. And then you've got one f****** problem.' We talk some more. We talk about how Billy Connolly is still his God ('If I play guitar, he's Jimi Hendrix'). We talk about his favourite places to eat in Scotland. ('The Curry Pot in Dumbarton Road is my current go-to.') We talk about his obsession with Facebook Marketplace ('that's my new porn'), and his old friend and bandmate Peter Capaldi. ('He's one of those annoying bastards who can do everything.') We talk about his plans for a Polish Easter weekend with his wife's family on a dairy farm in Massachusetts. And inevitably we talk about the state of the world. 'Everybody's got a different opinion and everybody's a f****** expert and everybody has their own TV show on their phone. It seems to create a rather agitated society. Marx talked about religion being the opium of the masses. Clearly, social media is the opium of the masses now and I think it's just a new drug. Indignation is the new drug. 'Everybody is outraged by everybody else's opinion. Maybe that's not new. Maybe it's not that different. But everybody seems a little more ready to be indignant perhaps. 'I have social media accounts, but, full disclosure, I don't do them. 'Also, it seems like it's very addictive and I have a bad history with shit like that.' Craig Ferguson is drug-free and living in New York. Craig Ferguson is an American citizen who still loves coming home to Scotland. Craig Ferguson is not a young man anymore. 'I've reached the age now when I see a cop I go, 'Oh good. There are some police around.'' Craig Ferguson is still making people laugh. What more do we need from him? Craig Ferguson: Pants on Fire, 02 Academy, Glasgow, June 21
The Herald Scotland
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Craig Ferguson: 'I feel affection not shame for being a drunk in past'
Admittedly, it's in the Upper East Side, a block away from Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art and it cost the best part of $2 million (just under £1.5m in Sterling), so he's probably not slumming it. And certainly the tiny corner I see of it through my Zoom lens looks handsome. What's that picture behind you, Craig? 'That's a Scottish artist, Hugh Williams, the horse painter guy. It's good, isn't it?' It's Good Friday in New York today. And in Falkirk too, for that matter. 'You live in Falkirk? A million years ago I went to Falkirk Technical College for a year with Robin Guthrie who was in the Cocteau Twins. He was from Grangemouth. We were both electronic engineers. He made something of his life.' Read more I think it's fair to say that Ferguson has too. Once upon a time known round these parts by his angry comedic alter ego Bing Hitler, Ferguson has gone on to become a film star, a late-night American talk show host - he hosted The Late Late Show on CBS for 11 seasons - and an author. These days he's 62, drug-free, drink-free, a podcaster, a husband and a father. And he has returned to stand-up. Indeed, he's coming back to Glasgow this June with a new show, Pants on Fire. I ask him for the show's elevator pitch. 'It's a bunch of almost true stories. Some of them not true at all. Do you know when you see something on Netflix that's 'based on a true story'? OK, so this is all based on a true story.' What it isn't is particularly topical. 'I made a bit of a change in how I did stand-up. When you do late night [aka The Late Late Show] you're forced into topical events all the time. Everything's topical, everything's politics. I was looking at that space thing with Katy Perry. [Perry went up to the edge of space for 11 minutes on Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin rocket; but you already knew that.] And I thought, 'God if I was doing late night I would be all over that stuff.' 'So, when I came out of it I wanted to go back to the kind of stuff I used to do right at the beginning when I was doing Bing. It was stuff that was anecdotal and personal. And that's what I did.' In his last stand-up show I'm So Happy, which you can watch on his website, he addressed cancel culture and what comedians can and cannot say these days. Does he feel inhibited as a comedian now in any way? 'I recorded that special about 18 months ago and it was very much prominent in my mind at that time and I don't really talk about that anymore. I think it was a moment when everybody was very touchy.' Craig Ferguson on his US talk show (Image: free) When he started comedy, in the 1980s, he reminds me, the only comedians around were himself, Fred MacAulay - 'Fred was doing golf clubs and I was doing nightclubs' - and his hero, Billy Connolly. Back then, he says, 'you were always getting in trouble for saying something. Billy was always in trouble. And I expect it. It's the price of doing business in my line of work. Some people will get mad at what you say. 'When I was doing late night I had a very good producer who would say, 'Is it worth it? Is the joke good enough.' And sometimes it was and sometimes it wasn't. 'And that stuck with me. If it's a good enough joke I don't give a f*** who it annoys. But if it's not that good a joke maybe it's not worth the hassle. 'I know there's stuff I have done back in the day I would now go, 'Oh Jesus.' But you live and learn, I guess.' It's maybe worth remembering that while hosting The Late Late Show on CBS for all those years the moments that cut through most were his interview with Desmond Tutu which managed to combine humour with a platform for ideas of forgiveness and compassion (the show won a Peabody Award as a result) and his monologue in 2007 when he revealed why he would not be doing jokes about Britney Spears when she was struggling with her mental health. 'We shouldn't be attacking the vulnerable people,' he said at the time. All of which maybe raises the question, is he a very different comedian than he was back in his Bing Hitler days? 'It's funny. My youngest boy found a vinyl of Bing Hitler live at the Tron so he put it on and made me listen to it and I thought, 'Some of that is not bad.' That's 1986 I was 24. 'I tend to dismiss things and move on, but I listened to it and I can see how that did OK. Parts of it are funny, parts of it are awful. 'Am I different? I'm older. I move around less on stage now. I get out there, I stand and talk, that's it.' Craig Ferguson as Bing Hitler (Image: free) What's undeniable is that he's a very different person. In the days before we speak I read his 2019 book Riding the Elephant, a series of autobiographical essays in which he talks about his childhood in Cumbernauld, his comedy, his marriages, how he lost his virginity and his toxic relationship with alcohol. He has been sober for more than 30 years now. Reading it, I say, what strikes me is the almost insane drive for success that seems to have animated him throughout his career. 'I think when I was younger I liked to phrase it like that because it sounds like I'm searching for something. That sounds a little bit nicer than what I think it might have been. 'I think I was greedy and I wanted things. I wanted attention. All the stuff people look for on social media. I wanted kudos and attention and money, I suppose. 'There was something that happened early on that reset that for me and I still talk about it with my kids. Whenever I get recognised in the streets we call it a 'Haw Bing'. 'Because one of the first shows I ever did at the Tron Theatre had gone really well and I had gone down the next day to get my guitar or whatever and when I was leaving somebody shouted to me, 'Haw Bing'. It was the first time I'd ever been recognised in the street. A guy at the Trongate shouted, 'Haw Bing' and I turned around. He went, 'You're a c***.' 'It was such an interesting, sharp lesson on visibility and fame and this kind of life. So, if I'm going somewhere the kids will say, 'Put a hat on dad so we don't get any Haw Bings'. 'So, was I searching for something? I don't know. I don't think it was particularly artistic or noble. It was hard to know who I even was. I felt like I was panicking all the time. I think we grew up pretty panicky. Maybe it was the Cold War or something. I felt like I was terrified all the time.' Nuclear annihilation always seemed imminent back then, I suggest. 'It was, though, wasn't it? I used to have dreams about it. I was terrified. There was this level of anxiety all the time. It's probably much more dangerous and scary now.' Craig Ferguson in Still Game in a guest role (Image: free) Does that younger you feel close or far away? 'Yes and no, I suppose. I've reached a point now - I don't know if this is age - I feel affection more than embarrassment or shame for being a drunk back then. I feel sorry for me then. I was so full of f****** bravado and gallusness, but it was all a front. I was f****** terrified and I'm not terrified anymore. 'Am I the same guy? I think essentially yeah. The same DNA obviously, but experience changes you a bit. I was talking to somebody yesterday who's a very successful writer of a TV show and she was saying she's managed to avoid bitterness in her career and I said, 'Well, yeah, maybe a bit of success has helped you avoid bitterness.' 'I don't know. I'm less driven than I was. I'm not out to have it all, girlfriend.' Because you've already had it all? 'A little bit. I used to have a friend - he's still a friend, but he's not alive anymore - this lovely man who helped me out when I was trying to get sober and he was from Liverpool and he used to say, 'II always feel a bit more spiritual when I've a couple of bob in my pocket.' And I think there is some truth to that. 'Look, health is the number one. There's nothing else but health and if you have health you've got everything. But at the same time a bit of cash, a bit of success, a couple of pats on the back is not horrible.' Well, I tell him, as we're more or less of an age, maybe this is a good time to talk about mortality. Craig, do you think about death much? 'The last four or five years I've had a couple of medical procedures. Nothing terrifying, but they involved me getting put under. They give you a drug called Propofol to put you under for an endoscope. 'Now, I'm drug and alcohol-free for decades, but the IV drip went into my arm and the anaesthesiologist said, 'OK, I'm going to send you to sleep now and I watched the drips go in and I thought, 'Oh God, this is great. I love this, I love this, I love this … And then I was gone. Craig Ferguson at the Brave premiere in Edinburgh with Kelly Macdonald and the late Robbie Coltrane (Image: free)'And I think it's probably like that. You're just not there. But this is what I don't know. And I have become more interested … You know people say, 'How often does your dad think about the Roman Empire?' I've become fascinated by Hellenistic philosophers, Stoic philosophers, pre-Roman christianity, the Upanishads, all sorts of people trying to figure it out. 'I am much more interested in that than when I was skint Haw Bing. 'But having a concrete idea about it, no. Do I think about it, not directly. I try not to scare myself too much. But I do question the nature of the universe. 'I think illness terrifies me more than oblivion,' he adds. 'You can have a bunch of problems until you've got a health problem. And then you've got one f****** problem.' We talk some more. We talk about how Billy Connolly is still his God ('If I play guitar, he's Jimi Hendrix'). We talk about his favourite places to eat in Scotland. ('The Curry Pot in Dumbarton Road is my current go-to.') We talk about his obsession with Facebook Marketplace ('that's my new porn'), and his old friend and bandmate Peter Capaldi. ('He's one of those annoying bastards who can do everything.') We talk about his plans for a Polish Easter weekend with his wife's family on a dairy farm in Massachusetts. And inevitably we talk about the state of the world. 'Everybody's got a different opinion and everybody's a f****** expert and everybody has their own TV show on their phone. It seems to create a rather agitated society. Marx talked about religion being the opium of the masses. Clearly, social media is the opium of the masses now and I think it's just a new drug. Indignation is the new drug. 'Everybody is outraged by everybody else's opinion. Maybe that's not new. Maybe it's not that different. But everybody seems a little more ready to be indignant perhaps. 'I have social media accounts, but, full disclosure, I don't do them. 'Also, it seems like it's very addictive and I have a bad history with shit like that.' Craig Ferguson is drug-free and living in New York. Craig Ferguson is an American citizen who still loves coming home to Scotland. Craig Ferguson is not a young man anymore. 'I've reached the age now when I see a cop I go, 'Oh good. There are some police around.'' Craig Ferguson is still making people laugh. What more do we need from him? Craig Ferguson: Pants on Fire, 02 Academy, Glasgow, June 21
The Guardian
29-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The week in classical: Arias Reimagined; Rhythm of the Seasons; Out of the Deep; Turandot
Hair streaked with blue, face bubble-gum pink, eyes highlighted in yellow, Andy Warhol paid homage to Botticelli's Birth of Venus with joyful freedom, creating a vivid dialogue between Italian Renaissance high art and American mass culture. His reworking loosely exemplifies a growing trend for musicians to try something similar: a Handel aria sung into a microphone, with pulsating keyboard accompaniment, turns into a yet more impassioned soul song. The same composer's instrumental Concerto Grosso, Op 6 No 10 is reinvented as a vocal piece – with AI Handelbot-generated lyrics (Bfjjfid Ooooh eeeee aahhhh iiii ghdjjrr) for those who want to trill along. Three events last week presented versions of this kind of baroque-update experiment. Two were at Stone Nest, the ex-Welsh chapel, ex-nightclub on London's Shaftesbury Avenue: Arias Reimagined, part of the London Handel festival, with the independent record label nonclassical; and Rhythm of the Seasons, presented by the venue's resident group, Figure, which included an interpretation of Vivaldi's Four Seasons on percussion. In Arias Reimagined, the mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean, a singer of rich and fearless versatility, switched freely between arias from Handel's Theodora and pop from the past 35 years, including Britney Spears and Cocteau Twins. The common thread was emotional intensity and the keyboard exuberance and invention of harpsichordist Xiaowen Shang. A second set featured Akkordeon Baroque, a duo inspired by accordionists playing baroque counterpoint in Berlin's U-Bahn stations. The radical singer-composer Loré Lixenberg and accordionist Lore Amenabar Larrañaga, who brings dignity and melancholy to every phrase she plays, worked aural spells with Handel, JS Bach and John Cage (sound by Isa Ferri). The night ended in even more remote territory, with the multiple talents of Bianca Scout (music, movement, electronics, voice and more) and her small ensemble, performing short, spooky mini-dramas with titles such as 'We are the lost ideas dancing back from death'. I admit to bafflement, but nothing new there. To say Vivaldi's Four Seasons played on percussion was straightforward in comparison would not be true. The dazzling soloist, James Larter, credited with making the arrangement with director Frederick Waxman, has stripped the score back to its bones, variously building it again with tuned percussion – vibraphone, marimba – and an array of drums, bongos, gongs, triangles, woodblocks, castanets, chopsticks and, as a ratchety addition, a güiro. Vivaldi's solos were redistributed between a five-strong string group, an almost ghostly harpsichord – Waxman used the lute stop, as well as, occasionally, his sleeve to dampen the sound – all crowned by the wild, leaping virtuosity of Larter himself. Every one of Vivaldi's familiar imitations, from barking dog to birdsong to drunken dance, sounded different, newly exposed, each vertebra tapped and rattled yet lovingly authentic. Figure's next event at Stone Nest is Lamentations on 10 April: Easter music by Couperin (Leçons de ténèbres) with readings by Radio 3's Donald Macleod. Also in Lenten mood, Vache Baroque's Out of the Deep, at Smith Square Hall, combined penitential music by Wilbye, Purcell, JS Bach and Zelenka with readings, astutely delivered by actor Malcolm Sinclair, from Oscar Wilde's De Profundis, written during his imprisonment in Reading jail. This shapeshifting group of young musicians was founded during the pandemic. Their mission embraces children's shows, opera, all kinds of outreach, working with some of the best rising star talents – here, countertenor Alexander Chance and tenor Guy Cutting – to achieve the highest standard of historically informed performance. Brahms's chorale prelude for organ, Herzlich tut mich verlangen, arranged for voices by Vache's director, Jonathan Darbourne, was a reminder of music's fluidity in honouring the past: back, in this case, to a secular song via a Lutheran hymn via JS Bach (and, eventually, forward to Paul Simon). The brief farewell, 'In pace' by John Sheppard, ended an exceptional evening. Easy to forget, Puccini also drew on a predominantly baroque form – that of Italian commedia dell'arte – for his last opera, Turandot. Archetype and myth are clothed in some of his most harmonically daring music, unfinished at the time of his death in 1924. The Royal Opera's classic 1984 staging, by Andrei Șerban with designs by Sally Jacobs, has returned for its 16th revival (director Jack Furness), cranked back into life with apparent ease, strongly cast throughout, the spectacle ageless, magnificent as well as savage. Porcelain-white masks, crimson banners, suspended tableaux enthral, as does the choral and orchestral panoply so vital to this opera. There were scrappy moments, but Rafael Payare conducts this spirited revival with such impetuous enthusiasm no one should mind. Character development is hardly the point. The Arabian-Italian story tells of a murderous princess and a self-regarding hero, each trying to outdo the other with their merciless riddles. Only the tragic former slave girl Liù (Anna Princeva) has much chance for nuance. The American-Canadian soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, an international Puccini star and a world-leading Turandot, has a gritty, reedy resonance and can soar above an orchestra at full tilt. As Calaf, the South Korean tenor SeokJong Baek tends towards the generic in terms of acting, but his sustained, gleaming top notes are matchless, exciting and only slightly longer than Puccini intended. And yes, his Nessun Dorma is as good as anyone's, over in a few minutes but worth the wait. See Turandot live in cinemas on Tuesday, or repeated from next Sunday. Star ratings (out of five) Arias Reimagined ★★★★ Rhythm of the Seasons ★★★★ Out of the Deep ★★★★ Turandot ★★★★ Turandot is at the Royal Opera House, London, until 19 April, and live in cinemas on 1 April, with encores from 6 April
