Chinese tech giant Huawei recently announced its latest smartphone had composed a completion of Franz Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony No. 8. But away from PR stunts, new technological developments are making a real impact on the way we interact with classical music. Published in Askonas Holt, The Green Room Magazine
Read MoreNow entering his second season as Chief Conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, Robin Ticciati is keen to show the breadth of his repertoire and the extent of the orchestra’s abilities. Published on Bachtrack.
Read MoreOver 10 years after his death, Karlheinz Stockhausen still occupies a complex and difficult place in the canon of contemporary composers. This year's Musikfest Berlin featured a Stockhausen focus, of which the "creation ceremony" Inori was the climax. Published on Bachtrack.
Read MoreJürgen Flimm bowed out of his role as Intendant of the Berlin State Opera with the German premiere of Salvatore Sciarrino's Ti vedo, ti sento, mi perdo. Published on Bachtrack.
Read MoreBerliner Philharmoniker’s interpretation of Das Paradies und die Peri reaches for the heavens. Published on Bachtrack.
Read MoreAperghis’ migrants and a new arrangement of Janáček’s The Diary of One who Disappeared by Schöllhorn were well-handled treatments of their subject matter, yet burdened by an overwrought conceptual framework. Published on Bachtrack.
Read MoreBernd Alois Zimmermann’s music was the starting point for this year’s Ultraschall Festival, marking what would have been his 100th birthday. Read more on Bachtrack.
Read MoreIn L’Invisible, which had its première last weekend at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Aribert Reimann has condensed three plays by Maeterlinck into bite-size chunks that vanish before they can be savoured. Published on Bachtrack.
Read MoreVladimir Jurowski is fond of grand statements, and sometimes off-the-wall programming – genius when it works, baffling when it doesn’t. Published on Bachtrack.
Read MoreBarrie Kosky's landmark production at the opening of the 2017 Bayreuth Festival is a surreal fantasy in which Wagner plays a starring role.
Read More“Jewish people and Germans will always be connected to each other.” These words of powerful understatement from the Israeli Ambassador to Germany prefaced the first edition of the New Life Festival, dedicated to Jewish musicians who fled from or suffered under the National Socialist regime during the Second World War. Published on Bachtrack.
Read MoreIf Johann Sebastian Bach is the fountain from which Western music springs, then Leipzig is its source. Three concerts over one day at the opening weekend of the Bachfest Leipzig provided a chance to tip one’s toe into Bach’s enormous legacy. Published on Bachtrack.
Read MoreThe Staatskapelle brought a showcase programme to the Berlin Philharmonie under chief conductor Daniel Barenboim. With it, the orchestra made a case for themselves as one of the best ensembles performing today. Published on Bachtrack.
Read MoreIn Berlin, the ‘FREE! Music’ festival at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt celebrated musical freedom fighters of all kinds, including Harry Partch, a rebel of a more esoteric kind. Published on The Cusp.
Read MoreOvershadowed by its Hanseatic cousin Hamburg, Antwerp recently celebrated the opening of its own new concert hall. In his Symphony no. 2, Wim Henderickx tested the hall's capabilities with a multi-media extravaganza. Published on Bachtrack.
Read MoreThe curators of a new exhibition on Julius Eastman, a recently rediscovered composer from the New York experimental scene in the 1970s and 80s, think he was far more than a political provocateur. Published on The Cusp.
Read MoreTeodor Currentzis, bad boy of early music, appeared at the Konzerthaus Berlin with Patricia Kopatchinskaja and MusicAeterna for a performance that turned it up to 11. Published on Bachtrack.
Read MoreVikingur Ólafsson, a daring and unique artist, never repeated himself in a performance of Philip Glass' Etudes for piano as part of the Berlin Konzerthaus' "Festival USA". Published on Bachtrack.
Read MoreJohn Adams and Peter Sellars' biblical oratorio given a fine concert performance by the Berliner Philharmoniker under departing chief conductor, Sir Simon Rattle. Published on Bachtrack.
Read MoreThe piano is the ultimate celebrity instrument. American pianist Liberace, one of the 20th century's best-loved virtuosos, was the highest-paid entertainer in the world from the 1950s to the 70s. Many kinds of keyboard instrument existed in earlier times but the piano as we think of it was invented by Bartolomeo Cristofori.
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