James Laing News
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2024-04-25
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2024-02-21 08:00:00
Revealing a remarkable talent: Solomon's Knot explore the Sacred Songs and Anthems of 17th century composer George Jeffreys
[…] features Jeffreys' sequence of five-voice anthems which cycle over the Church year. These are mostly early compositions, with largely anonymous poetical texts (though one uses George Herbert). The second disc features four-voice anthems described by Jeffreys as 'Songs of 4. Parts For the Church', these set largely sacred texts culled from the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer.The music is performed by the eight singers of Solomon's Knot, Zoë Brookshaw and Clare Lloyd-Griffiths, soprano, James Laing and Kate Symonds-Joy, alto, Thomas Herford and Andrew Tortise, tenor Alex Ashworth and Jonathan Sells, bass with theorbo and organ, performing one voice to a part. Throughout they perform with flexibility, freedom and virtuosity, this is rightly given as music for a virtuoso vocal consort rather than solos with large choral ensemble. The result has a compelling vividness that makes the music really sing. That the performers have experience with the more virtuoso Italian style […]
2023-10-23 07:12:00
A little bit crazy yet done with verve, imagination and style: The Masque of Might, David Pountney's Purcellian masque at Opera North
Purcell & Pountney: The Masque of Might - Andri Björn Róbertsson, Xavier Hetherington, Matthew Brook - Opera North (Photo: James Glossop)Purcell & David Pountney: The Masque of Might; Andri Björn Róbertsson, Anna Dennis, James Laing, James Hall, Callum Thorpe, Xavier Hetherington, Matthew Brook, director: David Pountney, conductor Harry Bicket; Opera North at the Grand Theatre, LeedsReviewed 21 October 2023Told with imagination and verve, David Pountney's recreation of a 17th-century masque with a contemporary twist.For all Purcell's iconic position, his theatre music remains relatively unexplored and certainly is rarely heard in the theatre, beyond The Fairy Queen and King Arthur, with the notable exceptions such as Peter Sellars' reworking of The Indian Queen.After David Pountney stage The Fairy Queen without dialogue or replacement connective tissue, he thought of repeating the exercise with Purcell's other theatre music. Lockdown finally gave him the leisure time to do the research and the result is The Masque […]
2023-07-30 10:58:00
Music of the Muslim counterculture
[…] radical but too often collapsed leaving people stranded and traumatised. Despite this his communities still survive in Norwich, Granada and Cape Town. But like him, they are strangely disconnected from mainstream Islam. The same could be said of his books which never appear in the bibliographies of the many books published in the Muslim world. He had real appeal at the outset but his latent anti-family Marxist outlook mixed with the destructive psychology of RD Laing began to tarnish his reputation. It's what happens when teachers set themselves up as guides without the authority, the knowledge and the necessary training. It's not just controversial, it's lethal. This is how I see it and it only comes from what I was witness to. Others may disagree. But in the period while the old shaykh was still alive, Ian Dallas was at his best and did his job well as the […]
2022-05-10 07:00:22
Five Questions With Black Orchestral Network Founding Board Member Alex Laing
Perhaps the one thing that sets the Black Orchestral Network (BON) apart from similar efforts is how much importance they place on accountability as a key to measuring success. In their open letter to American Orchestras, words are rarely minced. Systemic issues are clearly identified and after reading through their material several times it seems clear this group of musicians have grown weary of the gap between equity word salad and ...
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