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The Guardian
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
In times of despair, try to glimpse the stars
Like Jonathan Freedland (The world's in flames. But these are the ways I've found hope this summer amid the gloom, 8 August), I seek ways of finding hope in the face of overwhelming news. Jonathan rightly finds hope in sport and popular music. There's a category he misses. We are in the midst of the BBC Proms, and, here in Scotland, the Edinburgh International Festival, where, earlier this month, a large orchestra of teenagers from New York showed what joy can come from classical music. The young folk from NYO2 practised, worked together, took instruction from an inspiring conductor and produced a brilliant, ebullient wall of sound and harmony. And they had a whale of a time. The Proms, too, offer new creativity alongside well-known favourites. Look, if you will, at the pleasure on the faces of the Prommers. There is hope, and one of its forms is classical BrownEdinburgh I couldn't agree more with Jonathan Freedland. My family and I recently went to Stratford to watch the Royal Shakespeare Company's stellar production of The Winter's Tale. With its powerful depiction of the terrible evil that humans are capable of, as well as the abilities of both love and time to heal, Shakespeare's sublime words reminded us that in deepest despair, we must indeed try to glimpse the JessopLondon Our most used banner in Tyneside Extinction Rebellion is entitled 'Climate anxiety? The remedy is action.' Jonathan Freedland writes of watching cricket and seeing the 'obsessive pursuit of excellence' as an antidote to the problems overwhelming the world. We believe that action is the best remedy, both to give us hope and to tackle the problems. And as an example of the pursuit of excellence, let us praise the action of the 532 people arrested in Parliament Square last weekend: this is what gives me WaterstonNewcastle upon Tyne Reading Jonathan Freedland's piece is an excellent example of escapism and the vision it promotes of what humans can achieve in the most desperate of circumstances. But the determination of us little folk to fight against the odds is no match for the greed, ignorance, short-termism, political cowardice and persuasive distraction of the world's ruling elite. Unfortunately for life on Earth, that balance will not shift until the ivory towers of the powerful are no longer proof against lethal heat, rampant disease, limited habitable space (with consequent global strife), dead oceans and catastrophic climate events. Then the mighty will share with us all a future that is not uncertain – but very LoweNewcastle upon Tyne I loved Jonathan Freedland's piece. Escapism is essential for all. It reminded me of the Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief album, which contains a sketch between George Bernard Shaw, James Whistler and Oscar Wilde in front of the Prince of Wales: 'Your majesty is like a stream of bat's piss.' 'What?' he exclaims. 'I merely meant, your majesty, that you shine out like a shaft of gold whilst all around is dark.' We probably don't need more bat piss but we (as in the world) have had enough dark. Whether it's cricket or the Lionesses or Victoria Mboko's tennis, we should all delight in the things that give us pleasure and help us avoid a doom scroll of news. (Also worth listening to the cheese shop sketch on the same album, when it all gets too much.)James KyddLondon Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
Scotsman
05-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
EIF music reviews Best of Monteverdi Choir Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Best of Monteverdi Choir ★★★★ Usher Hall An ensemble of soloists, some of whom featured at Saturday's EIF opening, the new generation of Monteverdi Choir has a surprising, fresh and distinctly modern sound. We are long past the somewhat over-manicured early music delivery mantras of the past: painstakingly enunciation and wowling phrases. These singers have formidable technique and pristine diction, and sing with open and unfettered joy. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Monteverdi Choir | Tommy Ga-Ken Wan Monday's programme was tricky - its title Best of Monteverdi Choir was a challenge – and pitching Purcell with Johann Sebastian Bach and his remote cousin Christoph in the concert's short first half didn't always deliver absolute success. Invigorating listening rather depended on the levels of woe in the texts and their settings, and the extent of the Lord's redemption. Purcell sounded a little tentative before a Christoph Bach rarity sung so gently as to be almost whispered, demanding wispy discretion from English Baroque Soloists' beautiful strings. JS Bach's Singet dem Herrn then set off at spanking pace, and both choir and orchestra seemed to find their pace. In Handel's Dixit Dominus the young composer's inebriation with all things Italian and operatic explodes into virtuosity with brilliant dialogue between voices and instruments. The texture, with matching violins and violas plus bass creates an ingenious match with the five strands of voices as equals. The 22-year-old Handel was certainly out to prove himself to Rome's diva strewn intellegentsia. Perhaps fueled by contemporary Papal disapproval of publicly played opera, florid cantatas were seeping into Church music encouraged by wealthy palazzo-owning clergy. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Handel, lover of word-painting, sets off, a fearless adventurer into a theatrical psalm of stern judgement swerving from wild pulsing choruses with stuttering repetitions to soloistic sweetness. Jonathan Sells, conducting a skittering tempo, gave us poise and agility. As encore, JC Bach's touching personal epilogue Gutte Nacht restored slow-breathed calm. We returned home serene and blessed. Mary Miller NYO2: Family Concert ★★★ Usher Hall Now in its second year, the EIF's Family Concert concept is a good thing. How to stage it, however, remains work in progress. NYO2, a youth orchestra of almost 100 instrumentalists from Carnegie Hall New York's trailblazing education programme, were ideal inspirational role models for any child present, audience numbers of which looked sadly depleted thanks to Storm Floris. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad With lighter style breeziness in impressively agile playing, the performers' joy in being part of the amazing phenomenon of what makes an orchestra was delightfully evident. Yet, a bitty programme of very short pieces with too many stops, starts and interruptive calls to stir up applause - deserved though applause was - didn't make for an optimum sense of musical satisfaction. A loose thread of music from America and Scotland, with participatory Piobaireachd humming, wasn't sufficient to weave together a coherent whole, despite NYO2 being completely at ease in surefire favourites such as Mambo or Encanto. With slick direction from conductor Josè-Luis Novo, an appropriately triumphant main theme from Star Wars meant time for storm-delayed free ice-cream and reflection on an unusual highlight, a rumba version of Ca' the Yowes by Thea Musgrave. Carol Main First Night at the Hub ★★★★ The Hub Finishing just before midnight, the opening night of The Hub's informal performance series felt like being at a party with an abundance of exceptionally talented guests. An intimate soiree of EIF friends, hosted by Festival Director Nicola Benedetti in the organisation's own front room, Monday's curation became a sort of mini festival in its own right. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad With party turns from many of this week's artists, including Roby Lakatos and his Hungarian ensemble, a wind quintet from NYO2, the Monteverdi Choir, trad legend Dougie McLean and the storm-cancelled Barokksolistene from Norway, and everyone getting together along with Benedetti's own in-house ensemble at the end, spontaneity and adrenaline fuelled energy were never far away. Hard though it is to pick out a favourite, Benedetti and Lakatos in the Csárdás by Monti nailed how to pull off virtuosity with wit and charm. Even the audience created its own suitably gentle chorus rendering of This Love Will Carry Me led by McLean. In flawlessly blended singing, the Monteverdi Choir, after a full performance at the Usher Hall earlier the same evening, brought the serenity of vocal perfection to Tavener's Song for Athene and Bruckner's Locus Iste. Carol Main Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy ★★★★★ Queen's Hall Head and heart collided and intermingled to breathtaking effect in Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy's magnificent recital of piano duets and duos - though even that paltry description doesn't do justice to their elegant, evidently choreographed movements across keyboards, sometimes intimately sharing a single instrument with wrists and fingers intertwined (it no doubt helps that they're real-life partners), sometimes hammering imperiously at their separate pianos. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad There was little hammering, though, in the concert's limpid first half, which contrasted Hungarian composer György Kurtág's intricate, subtly adapted arrangements of Bach with some of his own more playful, gnomic pieces. They drew inspired accounts from the two men, who brought a similar sensitivity to Bach's eloquently rippling melodic lines and Kurtág's ghostly clusters. Heart came after the interval, however, with an overwhelmingly passionate account of Messiaen's monolithic Visions de l'Amen, which again felt revealingly choreographed in Kolesnikov's showy soloing standing in sharp contrast to Tsoy's granitic, motoric figurations. But their respective spectacular techniques aside, it was a vivid, visionary account, leaving no doubt as to the authentic passions of the 'Amen du desir' and pushing the concluding 'Amen de la consommation' to ever greater heights of euphoria. Their softly spoken encore, 'The Fairy Garden' from Ravel's Mother Goose Suite, blossomed from elegant restraint to joy and wonder. Unforgettable. David Kettle
Scotsman
04-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
María Dueñas and Alexander Malofeev
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... MUSIC NYO2 Prokofiev 5 Usher Hall ★★★★☆ Kickstarting their festival residency with a meaty programme, Carnegie Hall's NYO2 orchestra for 14- to 17-year-olds oozed confidence and dynamism under the baton of conductor Rafael Payare. Jimmy López's Perú Negro with its vibrant modern framing of Afro-Peruvian music was an ideal opener to showcase this 100+ strong orchestra. A lively brass fanfare set things going but eventually gave way to drum-driven rhythms that swept the music along in a giddy wake of boisterous climaxes. A graduate of Venezuela's El Sistema project, Payare impressed with his meticulous attention to detail especially in Prokofiev's fifth symphony. Premiered in 1945, the work was conceived during the horrors of world war two, and there was plenty of suitable bite to the strings and fiery salvos from the brass and percussion. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad However in Shostakovich's first cello concerto there were times when the orchestra were often out of step with soloist Alisa Weilerstein. The opening movement was rushed leaving the cellist with little room for artistic nuances and in the more exposed passages of the allegro marcato the orchestra tended to overwhelm Weilerstein's quieter, reflective tone. There was a better balance in the busy finale with the musicians revelling in its exuberance. SUSAN NICKALLS Make sure you keep up to date with Arts and Culture news from across Scotland by signing up to our free newsletter here. MUSIC María Dueñas and Alexander Malofeev Queen's Hall ★★★★☆ While Storm Floris was whipping up winds outside the Queen's Hall, there was no shortage of tempestuousness inside courtesy of the whirlwind of a recital from Spanish violinist María Dueñas and Russian pianist Alexander Malofeev Szymanowski. Debussy and Franck didn't make for the friendliest of programmes, my neighbour remarked. Maybe not, but these were clearly pieces both musicians felt passionately about, and their performances – not so much demanding to be heard as shouting from the rooftops – were big, bold, loud and forthright as a result. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Especially so in their opening Szymanowski Sonata, which they attacked with quite astonishing vigour and determination, though Dueñas reined in her vehemence somewhat for the Debussy Sonata that followed, more limpid and mercurial, even if she somewhat passed over the final movement's euphoric outbursts in her desire to surge ever forward. Calmer still – though still simmering on quite a high gas – was the pair's closing Franck Sonata, whose finale felt like the concert's first expression of joy and buoyancy. Though Malofeev's strongly defined playing could occasionally verge on the clangorous, Dueñas is a phenomenal performer with a fiery technique to match her deeply passionate interpretations – both evident in the duo's brilliant encore, Piazzolla's appropriately named Yo soy María.
The Guardian
13-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Artists have the power to stand up for truth, says Edinburgh festival director
Musicians and artists should challenge disinformation and cynicism in global politics by standing up for fundamental truths, the violinist Nicola Benedetti has said. Benedetti, the director of the Edinburgh international festival, said the arts played an essential role during periods of turmoil by showing the best of human achievement. 'We're currently caught in a bewildering swirl of truth and alternative fact and manipulated language disguised as information,' she said, as she announced this year's programme, the theme of which is 'the truth we seek'. Speaking after the launch, Benedetti acknowledged she was referring to the crises that have erupted since Donald Trump resumed the US presidency. 'There's no point downplaying the presence of the United States [here]. Everyone is watching and there are huge tectonic shifts and enormous questions facing leadership and political leadership at the moment,' she said. 'But we have an advantage with the arts in that we can speak that language of allegory. We can speak to both pertinent and timeless issues at once, [so] now is the time to double down on exactly that.' The opening event features a marathon eight-hour performance at the Usher Hall of Sir John Tavener's religious song cycle The Veil of the Temple, which Benedetti said spoke to the role religious belief played in illuminating universal truths. Being staged for the first time in the UK in 20 years, it features 250 singers from several companies singing about the Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist faiths in five languages, including Aramaic and Church Slavonic. The following day the Usher Hall will host 120 teenage musicians from the NYO2 youth orchestra based at Carnegie Hall in New York, who start a three-year festival residency this year, as well as 20 young Scottish musicians. They will collaborate in a family concert that afternoon, followed by a performance of Prokofiev's fifth symphony. Benedetti said grand scale and mass participation were central to the festival's ethos. In another event, chamber musicians with the Aga Khan music programme would jam on the spot, with audience members able to request pieces of music. She said: 'We are committed to infusing a relatable, casual, open and trusting vibe into everything we do, in spirit and in action.' That would include again selling about 50,000 tickets for £30 or less, alongside £10 offers and half-price tickets for teenagers. Other notable events, she said, included the premiere of a new play starring the Succession actor Brian Cox, satirising the Scottish banker Fred Goodwin and his role in the 2008 financial crisis, with Cox playing the ghost of the economist Adam Smith. There is also a new Scottish Ballet production on the feud between Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I, featuring punk couture costumes, stilts and a male dancer playing Mary; an Australian production of the opera Orpheus and Eurydice, featuring a contemporary circus company and video projections; and the premiere of a hip-hop interpretation of JS Bach's work featuring dancers from Acland Burghley school in north London and 18th-century period instruments. This year's festival would be smaller than previous years, Benedetti said, because of funding cuts, with contemporary music and opera pared back. Speaking in January, Benedetti expressed alarm about the threat to Scottish arts from cuts in government and philanthropic funding. But she said a subsequent award to the festival of £11.75m over the next three years, part of a £200m nationwide funding package from Creative Scotland, was 'pivotal'. She said she hoped three-year funding pledges would be honoured. 'You have to proceed with a level of confidence and plan ambitiously, but you also hope for a level of non-partisan integrity around promises made,' she said. The Edinburgh international festival runs from 1 to 25 August and tickets go on general sale on 27 March via Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Figures in Extinction Nederlands Dans Theater explores humanity's destructive impact on the world through soundscapes, dialogue and dance. Make it happen Brian Cox plays the ghost of Adam Smith in a satire about Royal Bank of Scotland's role in the 2008 banking crisis, in a show by National Theatre of Scotland and Dundee Rep. The Veil of the Temple Sir John Tavener's eight-hour choral work involves 250 singers and features the Monteverdi choir, the National Youth Orchestra and Edinburgh Festival Chorus. Mary Queen of Scots This Scottish Ballet premiere from the choreographer Sophie Laplane fuses a punk aesthetic with renaissance power politics in a story about the conflict between Mary and Queen Elizabeth I. Orpheus and Eurydice Australian opera companies along with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the modern circus company Circa present an acrobatic 'ancient tale of love, lust and loss'.
