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Showing posts with the label Music review

Music: Michael Feinstein

November 03, 2009

Spending Sunday evening with Michael Feinstein and his 17 piece band was a great way to pass the time. When I last saw him five years ago, I wasn't so enthused by his performance. Since then he has released a number of new albums including most recently his Sinatra album with new interpretations to the music of Sinatra. This seems to have thankfully given him new music to explore, beyond being known just as the Gershwin man (or one of the foremost interpreters of Gershwin's music). The concert featured a range of songs recorded by Sinatra, but also included some tributes to Cole Porter (including with John Barrowman ) and at 53, he is looking and sounding pretty good. There were various nods to famous people in the audience such as Leslie Bricusse and Judge Judy (who married Feinstein and his partner), but in the end it was an evening of music. And the music sounded great... If only leaving us wanting to hear a little more from that band...

Rubbish Music: Carousel The Songs of Jacques Brel

October 22, 2009

An oddly shambolic concert took place at the Barbican tonight in what was supposed to be a show to highlight the music of Jaques Brel and his ongoing influence on musicians. Instead we had a band that drowned out the singers, half the singers sounding as if they had spent a bit too long at the bar, and a concert that looked and sounded like it needed to have a tech run and a rehearsal. Some people loved this show and obviously had an affinity to the performers. I suspect however they would have been happy for them to read from the phone book. It wasn't all bad either, but when half the performances were so inept, many of those who were more interested in the music of Brel voted with their feet and left at intermission. Some of us stayed to see if it got better, but only after a stiff drink at the bar... Part of what is amazing about Brel's music is its nuances and particularly its lyrics. But when you pump up the volume or get a performances that are just loud, noisy and atona

Idle chatter in the front row at Cadogan Hall Tuesday

Gio: I don't think much of their pirate outfits ... Paul: Hmm no but check out the camel toe on the violinist... Gio: Ok come interval we're leaving... Paul: I am finding it strangely intriguing already...

Scenes from the Roundhouse Friday night

January 31, 2009

img_0673 , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London . Grace Jones singing Slave to the Rhythm with a hula hoop. It had to be seen to be believed. Surely the Roundhouse this week with Grace Jones was the best place to be in London... Of course on Flickr there are better shots of this moment, but I enjoy working within the limitations of the iPhone and my standing position... Later at Chalk Farm tube a girl was overheard saying, "I've just got to get me a hula hoop"...

Opera: Aida and For You

November 12, 2008

The weekend before last turned out to be a bit of an opera fest. I went with Patrick on Saturday night to see Aida at the ENO as he liked a bit of grand spectacle on a Saturday night. That Saturday was so cold and wet I had not dared venture out all day so going to see this rather brightly coloured production of the show certainly felt like a sensible antidote to such a grey day... This production was first staged last year and while the directorial choices are not to everyone's taste I thought it was interesting enough... It runs until later this month... I am trying to get Patrick to write an opera blog as he has far more witty lines about Opera productions than I do as I suspect he has seen every opera staged in London over the last twenty or so years... He has only just got an MP3 player though so the blogging concept might be a bit too new media for him right now but we can only hope as opera writing needs some laughs... Anyway not content with just Aida on Saturday, on Sunda

Music: Favelization

September 28, 2008

It had been a while since I had been to the theatre, and so Felicity and I caught Afroreggae 's Favelization concert at the Barbican on Thursday evening. Afroreggae have played at the Barbican a few times over the past few years, but this is the first time I caught them. Afroreggae began in Brazil in the shantytowns (favelas) and the music is a fusion of reggae, hip hop, soul, pop and latin rhythms. In addition to this the music also is a call to action about many of the injustices in the world, particularly among the world's poor and disenfranchised. Of course being in Portugeuse this was lost on me. I checked with Felicity and she was a little rusty on it too. I guess most of the audience may have been in the same boat. While there were projections that accompanied the show the rapid fire words deserved to be comprehended. So after making a mental note to add language course to my new years resolutions, I could sit back and enjoy the concert. It was interesting that despite

Music: Mahler's 8th

I caught the second performance of the London Symphony Orchestra playing Mahler's 8th as part of the City of London Festival at St Paul's Cathedral tonight. I wondered whether I would enjoy listening to it as much as performing in a choral concert. Well when it is Mahler it isn't such a problem. What is more a problem is whether in a piece like this everything is held together ( apparently it wasn't last night ) and if the soupy acoustic of the Cathedral makes for a rather lost cause. It might all depend on where you sat, but sitting in the north transept there were some startling moments of clarity and subtlety amongst the great forces at play (big choirs, huge orchestra, big soloists and gigantic cathedral). But there was also a lot of soupy ones... At the end of both the first and second movements, the audience stayed transfixed on the dome... We were all watching the music bounce around and around until it went up to God. The last time I saw Mahler's 8th I wa

Music: Maria Frieman Re-Arranged

Meeting Maria Friedman , originally uploaded by Andrew Orange . I don't normally go for photos with performers but West End Whinger Andrew made me do it since he hassled Maria Friedman enough to get her to pose for photos. Why not blind her in the process? I don't quite recall what the distraction was... Nor why I am covering my mouth... Anyway, Maria Friedman has just started doing a concert series at the Menier Chocolate Factory through until May. Maria has been around for ages (particularly if you note her very long timeline on her website), and I had seen her in the concert version of Follies last year. But not being a Friedman devotee (or should that be groupie?), I wasn't particularly won over by the music, performance or banter of the first half of the show. I wasn't alone with this view either, since the guy next to me fell asleep. By the second half however, the show picked up the pace and turned out to be quite a treat. Particular highlights were he

Concert: Ute Lemper

February 15, 2008

There are some people I would pay to see even if they sat on stage and read a phone book. Just out of sheer curiosity to see what they would do with it. Ute Lemper is one of those people to me. And when you become a fan, you buy their CDs and you put up with their eccentricities like that last never ending track on the album of Punishing Kiss or all that annoying screeching on the Grapefruit Moon track on Blood and Feathers . On the other hand someone recently told me that they no longer see her shows as "her head is so far up her own arse that it all feels like a bit of an ego trip". I saw the Ute with Alice at the Shaw Theatre Thursday night and he definitely agreed with that last sentiment. And given the number of people getting up and leaving during the course of the show maybe this wasn't an isolated view. Well the show started late and the seats at the Shaw toward the rear of the theatre resemble QANTAS economy so maybe they just had to get up and have a stretch

Music: Billy Budd and the last stand

December 10, 2007

It had been a while since I had heard or seen Billy Budd live so this concert version at the Barbican with the LSO seemed like a good idea. And it was. Huge forces, excellent soloists and thrilling and dramatic score made it seem not necessary for all that staging and drama stuff. With such a large orchestra at hand one also felt like you were on the Indomitable as it swelled and subsided... It was all thrilling stuff and quite a treat, even if it started at 7pm which would have to be a rather annoying starting time leaving little time for dinner. But towards the end of Act two I was preoccupied with the added tension of Ian Bostridge's music stand teetering over the stage. He had been leaning over it, pushing on it, holding it with both hands as the drama dictated, and every time he did, the music stand moved closer and closer to the edge. By the finale, one leg was over the edge. If another went surely that would have made the evenings recording less than satisfactory. The ol

Music: Music in 12 Parts

October 25, 2007

I am not quite sure what I was thinking when back in February I booked tickets to see Music in 12 Parts . Maybe it was the opportunity to see Philip Glass . Maybe it was the opportunity to hear a lot of his music (well at least during his minimalist phase). Whatever the reason, I wasn't prepared for four hours of music plus an hour and a half of breaks when I arrived at the Barbican Sunday. The piece is all about recurring musical structures that grow and change. I was entering the world of musical minimalism and wondering if I would ever escape. It didn't help either that I was surrounded by people with thick rimmed glasses and black turtlenecks. Is this a minimalist thing I wondered? I was glad that I wore a black shirt so I didn't stand out too much... As for the music, well listening to the minimalist music has a way of creeping up on you and becoming a bit hypnotic. By the first hour I was into it. Suddenly things like gestures by the ensemble members to the onstage m

Music: John Dankworth and Cleo Laine

August 11, 2007

I keep forgetting that I should avoid going to proms concerts. Albert Hall is stuffy, the acoustics are bad, the seats are terrible, and you always have to worry about some old person falling over you with their walking stick as they navigate the steep inclines. I really don't know why so many old age pensioners risk hip replacements coming to these concerts, but they do... Anyway, I found myself among the OAPs watching two OAPs on Wednesday night: John Dankworth and Cleo Laine (well they both turn 80 later this year). Despite the limitations of the hall, they managed to give it a feel as if it were a jazz club and they were just playing some music. The audience loved it and it was a bit of a treat ...

Concert: Carmen Jones

Source: Carmen Jones publicity artwork http://southbankcentre.co.uk I had been warned that Carmen Jones was a bit of a dated show. It is afterall a "modern" 1943 reworking of Bizet's opera Carmen into a musical. Given that piece of advice (and that I was still probably jet lagged) I figured the cheap seats at Royal Festival Hall would suffice to see this new production of the show. If it were a bit dull then I figured I could always have a sleep (especially during the overlong first half). Of course I forgot that the cheap seats means that you are surrounded by cheap people. In this instance it was cheap people with body odour problems, weak bladders, and noisy crisp packets. For the first half I was detracted by the cheap people around me who felt that the people's palace meant it was their living room. I was half expecting belching and farting since there was every other noise... Well that's where socialist idealism gets you in the twenty-first century... By t

Concert: Deborah Voigt

Messing about on the river aside, Saturday night provided the opportunity to see Deborah Voigt in recital at the Barbican. It was the first time she had performed in London since being dumped from a Royal Opera production for being too fat to fit into the costumes. She acknowledged during an encore that she was a little bit nervous about coming back. The audience broke into applause at this point. All seemed forgiven on both sides. Well perhaps London hasn't forgiven her entirely since the Barbican Hall wasn't exactly full. But her absence and the lack of a full house is London's loss. Now a few years later she has slimmed down (thanks to much publicised surgery ) and sounding great. Tonight's concert was a marvelous programme with songs by Mozart, Verdi and Strauss in the first half and then American composers Beach and Bernstein in the second. This gave her the opportunity to cut loose a bit. For an encore she even tackled Berlin's "I Love a Piano" befo

Music: Mahler's Ninth

January 11, 2007

I caught Mahler's Ninth Symphony at the Barbican tonight. Conducted by Daniel Harding with the Staatskapelle Dresden it is a great piece about life and death. Towards the end the tension was so tight you could feel Mahler's presence. Or it could have been the man in the pinstripe suit to my right breathing heavily. I wasn't quite sure what that was about but it added to the tension of the evening anyway. Who said going to a concert solo wasn't an adventure? Anyway a fantastic performance by both the conductor and orchestra. One other thing I noticed was that many of the women in the Staatskapelle Dresden brought their handbags onto the stage and slung them over their seats. It was an interesting grab bag of handbags to see. Security back stage must seem to be a bit dodgy...

Music: Sir Thomas Allen

December 17, 2006

Saturday night I caught Sir Thomas Allen in a recital of music by Fauré, Duparc and Ravel at the Wigmore Hall . The first half was Fauré's La bonne chanson and L'Horizon chimérique and I thought they were great. I still had a bit of a hangover from all the merriment of Friday night so when it came to interval and everyone was bitching about how the old man was struggling through the music people started knocking back the drinks in the bar when they found out I was enjoying it. Well there are a couple of points to make here. The first is that Allen is only 62. The second is that as I had never heard some of this music performed before I was more interested in the music than the quality of the performance. But the audience was very appreciative of Allen... All told I preferred the Fauré works to the others. But I didn't hang around afterwards to get any of his CDs... I needed coffee...