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New Indian Express
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
Ilaiyaraaja's symphony 'Valiant' to be performed by London Philharmonic Orchestra in Tamil Nadu on August 2
CHENNAI: Music Maestro Ilaiyaraaja on his birthday, announced that his symphony 'Valiant', first performed in March in London, will be performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra in Tamil Nadu on August 2 (Saturday). The venue of the performance has not yet been disclosed. The legendary composer made the announcement in a video message amidst wishes pouring in from fans and other prominent personalities as he turns 82 today. In the video message, Ilaiyaraaja said he was sharing the happy news that the symphony he composed and performed in London will be performed for 'his people' in Tamil Nadu.
The Sun
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Royal fury over fake German prince who met King Charles after using legal loophole to gain access to high society
A FAKE German prince who has met King Charles has sparked fury among real royals. His Serene Highness Dr Donatus, Prince of Hohenzollern, has spent the past 20 years using his title to access high society in Britain. 4 4 4 But despite his claims to be descended from a royal dynasty, in reality he is a low-born music teacher called Markus Hänsel. It's understood Donatus, 64, paid to be adopted by a minor royal in the House of Hohenzollern at the age of 42, taking advantage of a law loophole in Germany. The real Prince of Hohenzollern, Karl Friedrich, the head of the House of Hohenzollern, blasted the imposter. He told The Sun: 'It makes me angry and frustrated, it leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth. 'Donatus is not my blood, he is not a member of the German royal family, he is simply a non-royal name bearer. 'He certainly cannot use the moniker of Serene Highness.' And European nobility expert Bearn Bilker insisted: 'Donatus is indeed the fake prince.' Donatus is connected to a number of top music organisations and charities alongside King Charles and the Duke of Kent. He became Chairman of the Friends of the English Chamber Orchestra and is also ambassador of The Purcell School for Young Musicians, in Bushey, Herts, Charles is a patron of both. Humiliating moment Harry poses with Z-list German 'fake prince' dubbed King of Trash TV who starred in show Travel Boobs Donatus is a member of the International Board of Governors of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, of which the Duke of Kent is patron, and also Creative Benefactor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. And he's formerly a Principal Supporter of the Royal College of Music in London and founding patron of the Royal College of Music Prince Consort Orchestra. In an online video Donatus talks from his Surrey home about his charity work and in the background there's a framed photo of him and Charles together. He is also seen in a video at the Royal College of Music with the King. Prince Karl, a direct descendant of German emperor Wilhelm I, said he first found out about Donatus' bogus claims more than a decade ago. 4 He told The Sun: 'I wrote to Donatus and said I know all the members of my family but I hadn't heard of him. He wrote back and said, 'yes I have been adopted by your aunt Katharina'. 'I then spoke to my aunt and she told me, 'yes well, he offered me such an amount of money I couldn't resist'. She was always short of money. 'There's nothing we as a family can do.' It's understood Donatus was adopted by Katharina Feodora, Princess of Hohenzollern in around 2003. Three years later he married Dr Viola Hallman, heiress of the Theis steel business, who became Dr Viola Christa, Princess of Hohenzollern. They lived in a castle in Haelen, the Netherlands. Viola died of cancer in 2012. Mr Bilker exposed the couple's dodgy royal standing in the Dutch media in 2007. He said: 'Princess Katharina adopted this man. He paid a lot of money. We see such awkward facts only in Germany. 'Donatus claims to be a real prince but that is not the case.' 'Fake prince' Mr Bilker said the name Prince (Prinz) is a name under German law, not a title. He added: 'Donatus is well aware of these facts. Donatus, born in Germany in 1961, used to be a music teacher. After getting a doctorate in Catholic theology in Frankfurt, he later self-published several books under the name Dr Markus von Hänsel-Hohenhausen. He first appeared in the UK in 2007 when he bought a £975,000 annexed section of a manor house on a private estate in Surrey. He drives a Bentley convertible with a personalised number plate, takes his blind dog, Alexis, for country walks and helps out with local music groups. Donatus admits he was adopted by Princess Katharina, but said it was wrong to call him a 'fake prince'. Speaking in the third person in an email he said: 'Donatus has the same legal rank and rights represented in Germany's family law as Karl Friedrich of Hohenzollern, who does not have the authority to speak on behalf of all the members of the family,' He also says he 'financially supports' his 'mother'. Prince Karl said he is seeking legal advice and insisted: 'We don't like somebody bringing the family name into a bad light. 'It's obvious he doesn't know me and the history of the Swabian branch of the Hohenzollerns. He's an uninformed man. 'He is not a member of the royal house of Hohenzollern.'
Edinburgh Reporter
06-05-2025
- Business
- Edinburgh Reporter
Carol Grigor to receive the Carnegie Medal
Philanthropist Carol Colburn Grigor, CBE, will receive the Carnegie Medal at a ceremony at Edinburgh Castle on Wednesday evening. The international family of Carnegie institutions has named five philanthropists as recipients of the prestigious medal of Philanthropy – a biennial award which recognises innovative philanthropists and their contributions to tackling global challenges. The award recognises Carol's unwavering dedication to the arts and the lasting, global impact her philanthropic giving has made on the cultural and civic landscape of Scotland and the UK. The medal ceremony is taking place in Edinburgh, where Carol's investment benefits the city's economy by creating jobs and attracting new performers and audiences. Ms Grigor's support for arts and cultural causes extends from the USA to Australia, and more recently Ireland, along with support in the UK for organisations including the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Edinburgh International Festival. Dunard Fund, which is chaired by Carol, has provided millions of pounds worth of grants to charities in the arts and heritage sectors, including the Edinburgh International Festival, National Galleries of Scotland, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, National Library of Scotland and Britain's major opera companies. Her generosity continues to support the development of new projects which will be key additions to Scotland's cultural offering in the years to come. Together, they reflect the values which underpin the legacy of the Scottish industrialist Andrew Carnegie: imagination, generosity, and a belief in progress through public good. The Dunard Centre, set to occupy the recently cleared site behind the historic RBS branch building on St Andrew Square, will be the first purpose-built concert hall in Edinburgh for more than 100 years. It will also be the first UK venue designed by Nagata Acoustics, the world's foremost acoustic experts, and the first concert hall anywhere in the world from the globally renowned David Chipperfield Architects. Its mission is to become a 'Hall for All', that will host a varied programme of performances including globally renowned musicians, emerging artists, and other acts seeking to break the mould of what would ordinarily be showcased in a traditional concert hall. It will provide a permanent home for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and a new venue for the Edinburgh International Festival. Jo Buckley, chief executive of the Dunard Centre, said: 'I am delighted to see Carol's transformative philanthropy being celebrated on the global stage, and it is especially fitting that this year's ceremony is taking place in Edinburgh, which was Carol's home for many years. It is no exaggeration to say that her longstanding support has helped to make Edinburgh the cultural capital that it is today, with its future assured by her powerful investment in two landmark capital projects, the Dunard Centre and the National Centre for Music. 'Cultural transformation relies on the dogged persistence and determination of visionary individuals, as Andrew Carnegie's legacy has shown us over the past century. As we look to create Edinburgh's first new concert hall in over a century, it is tantalising to think ahead to the exceptional performers it will attract, and the profound economic, social, educational and cultural impact that Carol's philanthropy will have on Scotland for generations to come.' The new National Centre for Music which will occupy the former Royal High School building on the city's Calton Hill is also a key beneficiary of Carol's support. Nestled within two acres of beautiful, landscaped garden, it will become an energising force in Scotland's music sector. The centre will feature performance, rehearsal and learning spaces, a recording studio, meeting rooms and creative offices, as well as events and conference facilities in a striking heritage setting. Its performance programmes will celebrate music making from across Scotland, and across all genres, and it will nurture and inspire new talent through apprenticeships, artist residencies and strategic partnerships. Music centre designs. Image: Montagu Evans /Royal High School Preservation Trust. Jenny Jamison, Chief Executive and Creative Director of the National Centre for Music, said: 'Carol has been a driving force behind the National Centre for Music. Not only has she enabled the preservation of the spectacular old Royal High School buildings which we are transforming into our home, she has also championed the importance of making this a welcoming place where locals and visitors, learners and professionals can enjoy and expand their musical passions every day. 'The National Centre for Music will celebrate and support all genres of music making and will be a place where Scottish musical history is made. Offering new resource and partnership opportunities to Scotland's music sector, it will ensure Scotland continues to be a leader in music and culture across the globe. Carol's vision is very much at the heart of this ambition, and we are delighted to see her honoured this week.' Carol Grigor at the site of the Dunard Centre next to St Andrew Square Other recipients Others recognised include Joseph and Jeanette Neubauer, who have effected transformational change in education, public safety and the arts internationally and Barbara and Amos Hostetter, whose Barr Foundation has granted over $1.5 billion to the arts, climate, and education causes since 1997. Previous winners of the medal include Dolly Parton (2022), Michael Bloomberg (2009), Sir Ian Wood (2019) and Sir Tom Hunter (2013). Professor Dame Louise Richardson, DBE, President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, said: 'From education and climate change to arts and culture, this year's honourees have demonstrated the transformational role philanthropy can play in tackling the world's problems. They all embody the philanthropic spirit championed by Andrew Carnegie by doing real and permanent good in the world. All are true standard bearers of his legacy.' The Carnegie institutions also announced a special Carnegie Catalyst Award for Sir Lenny Henry and Richard Curtis CBE, two of the co-founders of Comic Relief, which has raised over £1.6 billion by using the power of entertainment and popular culture to tackle poverty and injustice in the UK and across the world. The Catalyst Award celebrates the transformational power of human kindness by honouring a non-profit organisation that has been effective in encouraging people to help one another. Professor Dame Louise Richardson DBE added: 'Sir Lenny Henry and Richard Curtis CBE are true catalysts for positive change and worthy recipients of our Catalyst Award. Comic Relief has a vision of a just world that is free from poverty and uses the power of entertainment to encourage us all to play our part.' The Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy is awarded on behalf of the international family of Carnegie institutions founded by the Scots-American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Previous winners include Dolly Parton, the Wolfson Family, Sir Ian Wood, Michael Bloomberg, the Rockefeller Family and Bill and Melinda Gates. This is only the third time the ceremony will be held in the UK since its inception in 2001, and will be hosted by the three UK-based Carnegie institutions: Carnegie UK, The Carnegie Dunfermline Trust and The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. Gillian Taylor, CEO of Carnegie Dunfermline and Hero Fund Trust, one of the host organisations, said: 'Andrew Carnegie believed in committing his private wealth to the public good. His legacy is still felt around the world today, with all our honourees showing the good that can be done through philanthropy. The Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy event in May is an opportunity for the international family of Carnegie foundations to come together in Scotland, the birthplace of Andrew Carnegie, to discuss and debate how our work in today's world furthers Carnegie's philanthropic vision and values.' Carol Colburn Grigor CBE is president of Dunard Fund USA, chair emeritus and board member of the Colburn School, and chair of the Colburn Foundation, which supports classical music through performances, presentations, education, and musician training in Southern California. Her contributions to classical music and the visual arts have been recognised with numerous honours including Commander of the British Empire (CBE). She is an inaugural recipient of the Prince of Wales Medal for Philanthropy and has been admitted as a Chevalier into France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Grigor received her Bachelor of Music from Indiana University School of Music and her Master of Musical Arts from Yale University School of Music. She also has received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Edinburgh Napier University. As a pianist, she performed extensively in the United States and Europe, before turning to family business activities and philanthropic initiatives in the United Kingdom, the United States, Europe, Australia, and now specifically in Ireland. Grigor is a director of the Colburn Collection, the Colburn Music Fund, and Dunard Fund UK and a member of the board of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, the Marlboro Music Festival, and the Yale School of Music board of visitors. In August 2013, she was named honorary vice-president of the Edinburgh International Festival Society. She is the founder and member of the Royal High School Preservation Trust in Edinburgh. Like this: Like Related
The Guardian
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Circa/LPO/Gardner review – Exhilarating, exquisite and extraordinary as Ravel melds with acrobatics
The Southbank Centre's cross-genre Multitudes festival opened with a double bill of Ravel's ballets Daphnis et Chloé and La Valse, played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Edward Gardner, and performed by the Australian company Circa with choreography by their artistic director Yaron Lifschitz. Circa's style amalgamates circus and acrobatics with contemporary dance, and the combination of athletic beauty, agility and strength suits Ravel uncommonly well. Rather than use the music as accompaniment to display, Lifschitz worked with the score rather than against it, though he dispensed with Daphnis et Chloé's narrative, replacing it with a sequence of contrasting abstract tableaux, now exhilarating,now erotic, always rooted in the pulse and throb of the music, played with exquisite finesse and detail by the LPO and Gardner throughout. Circa's acrobats, five women, five men, look like classical statues slowly coming to life in the Introduction, as their lifts and dives become ever more vertiginous. The Danse Guerrière became a spectacular contest of prowess between two men on a climbing frame, and in Chloé's Danse Suppliante, a woman hovered and swung with supreme grace in bolts of cloth high above the orchestra. The interlocking bodies of Lever du Jour, suggestive of ancient Greek friezes, were particularly beautiful, though the final Bacchanale, where the music turns orgiastic, eventually coalesces into an aggressive, unresolved standoff between two men. The sudden ambivalence, in fact, marked the transition to La Valse with its underlying sense of society careering towards its own destruction. The atmosphere was markedly different. Tracksuits and skirts replaced the clingy lacy outfits worn in Daphnis, and where the latter was danced in pools of light, all pastel shades and purple, the platform now glowed red. The choreography was again spectacular, if more closely woven: we're now aware of tautness and tension throughout. Routines began and ended in the formality of ballroom hold, which felt increasingly like a constraint, and Gardner ratcheted up the pressure as the waltz itself moved almost imperceptibly from suave elegance to something infinitely more troubling. Lifschitz's ending, meanwhile, with the 10 acrobats simultaneously performing a different spotlit dance was astonishing, but we were also suddenly and shockingly aware how isolated each had become. Powerful, beautiful stuff, and a most extraordinary evening.
Telegraph
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Nicola Benedetti makes a modern concerto take wing, plus the best of April's classical and jazz concerts
LSO/Gianandrea Noseda, Barbican ★★★★☆ It's been a good week for overstatement and triumphalism – and no, I don't mean Trump and his tariffs. I mean the musical kind inspired in Soviet composers by their country's victories over Nazism and those beastly capitalists, and the need to please their political masters. The London Philharmonic Orchestra gave us a fine example on Wednesday, with the ear-splitting Third Symphony by Ukrainian composer Boris Lyatoshynsky. On Thursday night, the London Symphony Orchestra pinned us to the wall with Shostakovich's even noisier 12th Symphony, composed to celebrate the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. If I say Shostakovich's symphony was more successful, it's not because it had more moments of poetic subtlety to compensate for all the noise. The Ukrainian symphony was actually better on that score. Shostakovich's symphony was simply better paced and less clunkily symbolic. The performance under conductor Gianandrea Noseda certainly had its subtle moments. The slow movement had a beautiful far-away tenderness (step forward the LSO's principal clarinetist Sérgio Pires) that made the music seem more interesting than it actually was. As for the grandiose ending, where the same thunderous drum-and-trumpet affirmations kept coming round for what seemed like an eternity, it was thunderous and, yes, grandiose. The opening piece, Shostakovich's Festival Overture, was hardly more subtle, but it was irresistibly high-spirited and brilliantly played. The real musical interest of the evening was in the Second Violin Concerto by famed Scottish composer James MacMillan, which was receiving its first London performance. It always helps a new piece when the performer truly believes in it, and there was no doubt on the night of soloist Nicola Benedetti's fervent commitment. She gave the high lyrical effusions a piercing sweetness, and when the furious cadenza (solo spot) in the opening movement came round she strove to give the angry gestures a genuine musical shapeliness. That was one reason the work exuded a touching radiance. But the composer, too, is mellowing. For me, MacMillan's music has often seemed too overtly symbolic, with angry 'modernist' outbursts over here fighting with an age-old 'spiritual' hymn over there. And there were moments on Thursday when the music took on a parodic military quality that was hard to fathom. But the main idea, a succession of simple luminous harmonies, registered without effort on one's heart and mind. That effect deepened each time the harmonies returned, as Benedetti draped a new arching melody over the top. In this new more serene phase, MacMillan's music can admit all kinds of enriching connections with the past. I caught a whiff of Britten's Turn of the Screw at one point, and those luminous opening harmonies made me think of Wagner's Twilight of the Gods. And lurking in the background of the beautiful ending was the lovely farewell of Strauss's Four Last Songs, with its trilling flutes evoking birds at dusk, or perhaps two souls. For some, that evocation might be just too blatant; for me it showed the one-time Angry Young Man is now more at peace with himself. IH No further performances LPO/Vladimir Jurowski, Royal Festival Hall ★★★★☆ After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the classical music world went into a brief agony of conscience. Should Russian music and musicians be banned? Should Ukrainian works be championed? Now, more than two years on, it seems like business as usual, but that's only from the perspective of this safe little island. For Russian artists, the issue is still a burning one, and some brave ones have risked their careers, not to mention their safety, by making their opposition to the war very public. One of them is the conductor Vladimir Jurowski, who on Wednesday, night made a return visit to the orchestra he led for 14 years until 2021, the London Philharmonic Orchestra. As if to make sure he has burnt all his bridges with Russia, he offered a programme that placed the spotlight on two Ukrainian composers, and a Russian song-cycle that contains a denunciation of the senseless slaughter of war. The first of those two composers, Sergei Prokofiev, is claimed by Russia as one of theirs. But Prokofiev grew up in the Donbas, in eastern Ukraine, and his opera Semyon Kotko is a celebration of the beauty of his native land and the bravery of his people in fighting off invaders. The orchestral suite Prokofiev drew from the opera has a picture-book charm that Jurowski was clearly keen to play down. He homed in on the serious moments: the militaristic rhythms, doom-laden bell-strokes and satirical brass, and gave them the sharpest possible edge as if to persuade us the work is more than a nostalgic picturing of Prokofiev's homeland. Less immediately appealing but much more weighty was the Third Symphony of 1951, by Ukrainian composer Boris Lyatoshynsky. It was subtitled 'Peace shall defeat War', but the defeat was very hard-won. You could feel the agonies of the recent Second World War in the jagged brass outcries, and the sturdy Ukrainian folk-melody that keeps coming back with peasant-like doggedness felt assailed by musical canon-fire. In the slow movement, lyrical consolation in the oboe was soon pushed aside by a repeated bell-like tolling, which grew and grew like an advancing army. Jurowski and the players had clearly worked hard to make all the warring, piled-up elements stand out clearly. It was worth the effort. They persuaded me and the enthusiastic audience that the symphony had moments of real eloquence, and a huge cumulative weight. Looking down on both these works with what felt like scorn was the evening's masterpiece, Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death. The bass who impersonates the figure of Death was Matthew Rose, who was simply magnificent. He caught the way Death assumes many forms: the seductive lover for the sick girl, the friendly drinking partner for the drunken peasant, and finally the Field-Marshall who surveys the legions of dead soldiers with contempt. Jurowski brought out the sinister, flickering colours of Edison Denisov's orchestral arrangement of the songs, but occasionally Rose seemed overwhelmed. The stark simplicity of Mussorgsky's original piano version is still the best way to hear these masterly songs.
