John Morgan Bentley News
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2024-03-28
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2024-02-17 09:41:00
Mythical Creatures: I chat to Polish-born, Australian composer Paul Kopetz about the recent disc of his music
[…] all written for piano, viola and clarinet. And he is still running with it, arranging the publishing and looking after off-shoots.Looking ahead, he has two more song cycles planned for recording. The first is Monster Clerihews where the texts poke fun at various monsters such as Frankenstein, the Mummy, Kraken and so on. Each movement is just two minutes long (a clerihew is a whimsical, four-line biographical poem of a type invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley). The second, Oz Clerihews, also cleaves to the clerihew for its texts, but this time poking fun at Australians from politicians to sportsman Shane Warne.After he wrote Mythical Creatures, his first opera was performed in Brisbane. Tales of Scheherazade set text in English and Farsi, the language of the original Persian story. [You can hear excerpts on YouTube]. The work was well received, and he would like to follow it up with another opera . […]
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 […]
2023-03-24 00:00:00
Made in Britain and British Light Music (John Wilson)
[…] the Mountain and the Flood, op.3 [9'11]02 Marcus Dods: Highland Fancy * [3'11]03 Hugh Roberton (arr. Philip Lane): All in the April Evening [3'24]04 - 08 Iain Hamilton: Scottish Dances, op.32 [11'57]09 Buxton Orr: Fanfare and Processional [4'31]10 - 13 Muir Matheson: From the Grampians. Suite [9'12]14 - 16 Hamish MacCunn (arr. Carse): Highland Memories, op.30 [9'49]17 Cedric Thorpe Davie: Royal Mile. Coronation March, op.106 [7'30] 18 - 21 Buxton Orr: Celtic Suite ^ [10'39]Alaster Bentley- oboe*, Royal Ballet Sinfonia conducted by David Lloyd-Jones^ and John WilsonASV White Line CDWHL2123 [recorded July 1997^ and January 1999; issued 1999, digital download 2005][digital download; flacs, cover, booklet and inlay scans]Recording venues: Whitfield Street Studios and All Hallows Church, Gospel Oak^, London, UKRecording engineers: Mike Ross-Trevor and Liz Cox^; Producer: Philip LaneEric Coates - London Again:01 Footlights. Concert Valse [5'51]02 - 04 The Three Men Suite [14.32]05 The Selfish Giant. A Phantasy [10'44]06 […]
2022-04-21 05:10:00
Recent Releases, No. 28
By Karl W. NehringJóhannsson: Drone Mass. One Is True; Two Is Apocryphal; Triptych in Mass; To Fold & Remain Dormant; Diving Objects; The Low Drone of Circulating Blood, Diminishes with Time; Moral Vacuums; Take the Night Air; The Mountain View, The Majesty of the Snow-clad Peaks, From a Place of Contemplation And Reflection. Paul Hiller, conductor; American Contemporary Music Ensemble (Clarice Jensen, artistic director and cello; Ben Russell, violin; Laura Lutzke, violin; Caleb Burhans, viola); Theatre of Voices (Else Torp, Kate Macoboy, Signe Asmussen, Iris Oja, Paul Bentley-Angell, Jakob Skjoldborg, Jakob Bloch Jespersen, Steffen Bruun). Deutsche Grammophon 483 7418.Here we have another recording of music from the late Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannson (1987-2018), whose compositions have been reviewed several times before in Classical Candor. Jóhannson was a composer with a rich imagination who was fascinated with sounds, so you never quite knew what he might come up with next. As the […]
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