Anna Dennis News
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2024-03-29
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2024-03-19 09:58:00
[…] the modern horn. Utley's subtle piano playing complemented the long lines and shapely phrases of Goldscheider's horn in the first movement. The second began with a contrast between the engagingly impulsive piano and the more sober, yet richly coloured horn, the two then developing the music into something more urgent. The final piece had a youthful sense of impulsiveness.Huw Watkins' Lament from 2020 was written for Ben Goldscheider for his disc Legacy: A tribute to Dennis Brain [see my review] and Watkins was deliberately inspired by the writing in Poulenc's Elegie, written in memory of Dennis Brain. Here we had a piece that began with a sense of haunted magic, really leaning into the horn's romantic links. As the music became more intense and strenuous, there were elements of rapture and triumph, until everything died. The use of a mute brought a new colour to the opening material's sense of […]
2024-02-02 10:19:00
As chilling and emotional as ever: Kate Lindsey returns as Offred in ENO's strong revival of Poul Ruders' The Handmaid's Tale
Poul Ruders: The Handmaid's Tale - Kate Lindsey, John Findon (film) - English National Opera 2024 (Photo: Zoe Martin)Poul Ruders & Paul Bentley: The Handmaid's Tale; Kate Lindsey, Juliet Stevenson, Rachel Nicholls, Nadine Benjamin, Rhian Lois, Avery Amereau, James Creswell, Madeleine Shaw, Zwakele Tshabalala, Eleanor Dennis, director Annilese Miskimmon/James Hurley, conductor Joana Carneiro; English National Opera at the London ColiseumReviewed 1 February 2024As chilling as ever; Kate Lindsey's emotional rollercoaster performance as Offred anchors a strong revival of Poul Ruders' operaEnglish National Opera's 2022 production of Poul Ruders' The Handmaid's Tale [see my original review] was cut short due to COVID-related problems so that it is good news that Annilese Miskimmon's production returned to the London Coliseum on 1 February 2024 (revived by James Hurley) for five performances with Kate Lindsey returning to the role of Offred and Joana Carneiro back in the pit. Juliet Stevenson was Professor Pieixoto, John Findon was […]
2024-01-12 10:22:59
Back to my roots: Gavin Higgins on how his new horn concerto reconnects him to trees – and teenage trauma
He abandoned his French horn years ago, so why did the composer decide now was the time to dust the cobwebs off it?I grew up in a forest at the edge of England and Wales; a borderland in the shape of a heart, isolated between two rivers, with its own unique dialect. Local playwright Dennis Potter called the Forest of Dean a “strange and beautiful place”, and JRR Tolkien is said to have found inspiration here for Middle-earth; today it remains drenched in myth and legend, with tales of faeries, witches and ghosts commonplace.But the forest is also a place full of music. I remember the sound of brass bands drifting across the canopy from every direction as they rehearsed in their tiny, purpose-built practice rooms. Female-voice choirs would sing from tree-shrouded churches. As a child I would fall asleep to the noise of foxes and deer, while enormous sound systems […]
2024-01-09 07:48:00
Aldeburgh Festival at 75: festival regular, Tony Cooper reports
[…] perform on stage in festival concerts with world-class performers and conductors. And always striving for the best, Britten and Pears brought to the Suffolk coast a host of international stars including such world-renowned figures as the German lyric baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the American violinist/conductor Yehudi Menuhin, who, incidentally, spent most of his performing career in Britain, the Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter and the Russian cellist Mstislav (Slava) Rostropovich as well as the likes of Kathleen Ferrier, Dennis Brain, Clifford Curzon and the Amadeus String Quartet. A coterie of emerging talent made their way to Suffolk, too, that included Swedish soprano Elisabeth Söderström, the American pianist Murray Perahia and the English-born virtuoso classical guitarist/lutenist Julian Bream while the inaugural festival of 1948 witnessed a staging of Britten’s opera Albert Herring at the Jubilee Hall and the first performance of his cantata Saint Nicolas at the Parish Church with a trio of lectures delivered […]
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