English film composer John Barry has died at 77

 cinema, music, obituary  No Responses »
Jan 312011
 

Although best known for his Bond music (Fed­erico Fellini said that was his favour­ite music for film), he wrote almost one hun­dred film scores, and some of his best music wasn’t for the Bond series at all. He won Oscars for 1969’s The Lion in Winter, 1985’s Out of Africa and 1991’s Dan­cing with Wolves. His song Born Free won him another for best song, and the score for the film won best score. Mid­night Cow­boy showed his skill at choos­ing the right mood and orches­tra­tion for each film; no big orches­tral sweeps here but a cham­ber score with a memorable mouthorgan theme.

My per­sonal favour­ite is the sexy, jazzy score for , the music match­ing ’s husky voice and sen­sual lines. Hot!

John Barry at the Royal Albert Hall (2006).
Image via Wiki­pe­dia

As a com­poser,” John Barry once told me, “you’ve got to see a scene and fall in love with it, laugh when you should do, cry when you should do.

… con­tinue reading

The guile and pathos of Guillem’s Manon: Sylvie Guillem’s triumphant return to La Scala

 ballet, dance  10 Responses »
Jan 302011
 

After con­cen­trat­ing on con­tem­por­ary , and mostly new works, since leav­ing  the Kitris and Odettes with which she made her name, has made a sur­prise return to the full-length nar­rat­ive with one of her most cel­eb­rated roles. After hav­ing not worn pointe shoes for almost a year the decision was cer­tainly some­thing of a gamble. In the ori­ginal pro­gram­ming she was to altern­ate the role of with Svet­lana Zakhar­ova — “the new Guillem”: could it have been a per­sonal chal­lenge, a desire to remind audi­ences who the real Guillem is?

With or without Zakhar­ova, there was ten­sion in the house as fans waited to see how she could match up to the hard­est con­front­a­tion of all, that of her­self in the same role in Milan, six years ago. Then she was partenered, as now, by Massimo Murru and with a sur­pris­ing début from as Mon­sieur GM. The applause was deaf­en­ing.… con­tinue reading

Looters destroy two Pharaonic mummies in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum

 other  No Responses »
Jan 292011
 

Loot­ers broke into the Egyp­tian Museum dur­ing anti-government protests late yes­ter­day and des­troyed two Pharaonic mum­mies, Egypt’s top archae­olo­gist told state television.

The museum in cent­ral Cairo, which has the world’s biggest col­lec­tion of Pharaonic antiquit­ies, is adja­cent to the headquar­ters of the rul­ing National Demo­cratic Party that pro­test­ers had earlier set ablaze. Flames were seen still pour­ing out of the party headquar­ters early Sat­urday.… con­tinue reading

Countertenors possess a childlike quality. An innocence, something airy and angelic. — Philippe Jaroussky

 other  No Responses »
Jan 292011
 

“Andreas Scholl’s sound is more like a man, while mine is more like a child. Some­thing pure and without sex, or per­haps between the sexes. Coun­terten­ors pos­sess a child­like qual­ity. An inno­cence, some­thing airy and angelic. I try in my singing to keep some­thing intact from my child­hood.” — Phil­ippe Jaroussky… con­tinue reading

Welsh soprano Dame Margaret Price has died aged 69

 music, obituary, opera  No Responses »
Jan 292011
 

Dame , pos­sessor of one of the world’s most beau­ti­ful sop­rano voices, has died from heart fail­ure at the age of 69. She passed away yes­ter­day morn­ing at her home near Car­digan, Ceredigion.

She was born into a musical fam­ily in Black­wood, Monmouthshire. In her youth she rarely com­peted at Eistedd­fodau but dreamt instead of becom­ing a bio­logy teacher. It was on her teacher’s recom­mend­a­tion she went to Lon­don to sing for con­ductor Charles Kennedy Scott and won a schol­ar­ship to study with him at the Trin­ity Col­lege of fol­lowed when she was just 15.

Price made her oper­atic debut in 1962, singing Cher­ubino in Le nozze di Figaro for the Welsh National Opera. That same year, Price joined the Royal Opera House where she sang minor roles. Her break­through came when Teresa Ber­ganza can­celled a per­form­ance, and Price got the chance to take over as her under­study — again in the role of Cher­ubino, a per­form­ance that made her fam­ous over night.… con­tinue reading

Joshua Bell’s impromptu performance in the street

 music  No Responses »
Jan 292011
 

The in has been hav­ing prob­lems. Here’s their cur­rent homepage:

Due to ongo­ing tech­nical issues res­ult­ing from recent storms, the Strath­more web­site and online ticket sales cap­ab­il­it­ies are cur­rently off­line. We are work­ing to cor­rect and apo­lo­gize for any inconvenience.

The Joshua Bell con­cert, ori­gin­ally sched­uled for Wed­nes­day, Janu­ary 26 and can­celled due to massive power out­ages, has been res­ched­uled for Wed­nes­day, Feb­ru­ary 2 at 8PM.

But some of the audi­ence have already had a pre­view performance:

Last night was one big mess, but at least it wasn’t a total loss for one group of people who headed out to see Joshua Bell play at Strath­more. Accord­ing to DCist reader Dakota Korth, when his group arrived at the venue, they were informed that the show was can­celed due to a power out­age. We’ll let Korth take it from there:

As we were put­ting coats back on, I noticed a guy stand­ing around with a case slung over his shoulder.

… con­tinue reading

Egyptian TV says army will protect Cairo’s museums

 other  No Responses »
Jan 292011
 

Army units secured the Egyp­tian Museum in cent­ral Cairo against pos­sible loot­ing on Fri­day, pro­tect­ing a build­ing with spec­tac­u­lar pharaonic treas­ures such as the death mask of the boy king Tutankhamun, state TV said.

The news fol­lows a day of viol­ent anti-government protests in Cairo and other cit­ies. Some of the most viol­ent scenes in four days of protests have been in squares and streets close to the museum build­ing. It was also broad­cast as reports of loot­ing of some gov­ern­ment build­ings emerged. One Reu­ters phở­to­grapher said loot­ers had broken into a rul­ing party build­ing near the museum and were walk­ing out with fur­niture, com­puters and other items.… con­tinue reading

Ballet Boyz: the next generation — meet The Talent

 ballet  1 Response »
Jan 262011
 

It’s more than 10 years since Michael Nunn and sen­sa­tion­ally left the Royal — and the , as the pair became known, are Boyz no more. Now in their early forties, Nunn and Tre­vitt are passing their exper­i­ence on to the fledgling dan­cers who make up their cheekily named new troupe, The Talent.

In a drab stu­dio back­stage at Sadler’s Wells, where Nunn and Tre­vitt are asso­ci­ate artists, Adam, Anthony, Ed, Jesús, Kai, Leon, Matt, Miguel and Taylor are absorbed in a rehearsal. These nine men, aged 20 to 25, recruited from open audi­tions, are the “second gen­er­a­tion” of Bal­let Boyz, as Tre­vitt puts it. Star cho­reo­graph­ers Rus­sell Maliphant, Paul Roberts and new­comer Jarek Cemerek have been com­mis­sioned to cre­ate new dances for them. The style is con­tem­por­ary, the pace is fast and the live is spliced with behind-the-scenes video foot­age to give audi­ences an ink­ling of what makes young men choose the pre­cari­ous life of a pro­fes­sional dan­cer.… con­tinue reading

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