Who: The Civil Wars, a Nashville Americana band formed in 2008, and composed of country/rock singer and songwriter John Paul White, and Joy Williams, who started out as a contemporary Christian singer in her teens, before moving on to mainstream as adult songwriter. They met at a songwriting workshop organised by a Nashville record label, … More Album Club: Barton Hollow by The Civil Wars
another year, another Connolly Fest done – every year around October or so, there’s a blurry of Dame Sarah related activity. This year was a near repeat of the last – Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde in London and a Lieder Festival concert in Oxford – with an added bonus of an opera, Wagner’s … More Lately
What a long silence it’s been. Between the last post and now, I have gone through illness and health scare, and through a spell of just general sort of fatigue. I also already in March made the decision to not to photograph any of the things I usually photograph (as a part of the annual … More Pilgrimages
After the gloriously busy first week of half term, the second was quieter and spent largely preparing for a surgery I had three weeks ago; it got rescheduled meaning I missed Andrei Bondarenko’s recital at the Lieder Festival. I did catch Roderick Williams singing Die Schöne Müllerin in Saint John the Evangelist, which is one … More Lately
It’s been one of those mad glorious weeks that tend to roll around once or twice a year, filled with goodies of every kind. Thursday week ago I saw a fab concert performance of Rameau’s Dardanus by the English Touring Opera at the Sheldonian. As it happens, this is my only opera this autumn – … More Lately
I have a thing for 20th/21st century opera – the first opera I consciously remember choosing to see was Giancarlo Menotti’s The Consul, and I have found myself loving Turnage’s Anna Nicole, Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites and pretty much everything by Benjamin Britten. Thomas Adés’ The Exterminating Angel (which premiered last year in Salzburg Festspiele, … More Last night at the opera
There haven’t been many weeks like this. Over the space of just seven days, I have seen Renee Fleming’s farewell performance at the Royal Opera, watched Simon Russell Beale play Prospero in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s The Tempest, and finally listened to Martha Argerich play Prokofiev in the Sheldonian. I have been trying to write … More Lately
Shakespeare for absolute beginners 