What concert did you attend in 2018?

Haha that would have been great to just experience that one nice in person.

Yeah. Along with attending The Bayreuth Festival!

Kuma, it’s not that hard to get tickets for Bayreuth if you know someone with a membership or just via a tour operator. A bit awkward timing wise for those of us bound to school holidays as the festival usually falls in the summer holiday, but I hope to see Parsifal there, some day.

Cheers

EJ (looking forward to this month’s Tristan in Amsterdam)

EJ,

Unfortunately, I know anyone with the membership! ( wish I had such a *connection*! ) I've been told it's like a lottery for us civilians. 

P.S. re: Tristan: who's production? The Lyric still hasn't played it. Their 2018-19 season program comes out in a few months. Hope it'll get on it.

I have tickets for Paul Weller at the Brighton Centre on a Saturday in early February.  I have seen him quite a few times over the years but stopped about 10 years ago when things began to get a bit stale, I spent most of the last concert I saw in the bar. However his last few albums have seen a bit of a return to form with some newer more interesting ideas so  I'm quite looking forward to this one.

A fairly new Pierre Audio production, I believe DNO is the third to have it on. Stephen Gould to sing Tristan, Marc Albrechts will conduct.

cheers

EJ

EJS posted:

Kuma, it’s not that hard to get tickets for Bayreuth if you know someone with a membership or just via a tour operator. A bit awkward timing wise for those of us bound to school holidays as the festival usually falls in the summer holiday, but I hope to see Parsifal there, some day.

Cheers

EJ (looking forward to this month’s Tristan in Amsterdam)

I have applied, without any luck, for the past three years for Parsifal tickets via the official Bayreuth website, I will try again next year.
Meanwhile I am very tempted by an all star, new production, of Parsifal at Munich in July; Jonas Kaufmann, Nina Stemme & Rene Pape, conducted by Kirill Petrenko.
This evening I have booked a couple of tickets for Tristan at Budapest in June with Anja Kampe singing Isolde, a much lower priced event than either of the others!

Morton posted:

EJS posted:

Kuma, it’s not that hard to get tickets for Bayreuth if you know someone with a membership or just via a tour operator. A bit awkward timing wise for those of us bound to school holidays as the festival usually falls in the summer holiday, but I hope to see Parsifal there, some day.

Cheers

EJ (looking forward to this month’s Tristan in Amsterdam)

I have applied, without any luck, for the past three years for Parsifal tickets via the official Bayreuth website, I will try again next year.
Meanwhile I am very tempted by an all star, new production, of Parsifal at Munich in July; Jonas Kaufmann, Nina Stemme & Rene Pape, conducted by Kirill Petrenko.
This evening I have booked a couple of tickets for Tristan at Budapest in June with Anja Kampe singing Isolde, a much lower priced event than either of the others!

Couple of years I got tickets offered, but at the price of 450 euros I passed it....

SWMBO has got a ticket for Epica - somewhere in Londinium (organised by Daughter#2).

The family has got tickets for Bill Bailey (to be fair, he is a bit musical.... ) in Southampton.

But nothing serious..........

EJS posted:

A fairly new Pierre Audio production, I believe DNO is the third to have it on. Stephen Gould to sing Tristan, Marc Albrechts will conduct.

Nice.

Looking forward to your review. Let me know what you think of Gould.

Bert Schurink posted:

Couple of years I got tickets offered, but at the price of 450 euros I passed it....

That's pretty steep just for one ticket altho that's still cheaper than Prince ( a friend paid 500$ for the first row seat and this was 20 years ago ) or Barbra Streisand tickets ( she paid 1200$ per ticket for a new year's concert at MGM Grand in Vegas ) in the US. :/

Morton posted:

Meanwhile I am very tempted by an all star, new production, of Parsifal at Munich in July; Jonas Kaufmann, Nina Stemme & Rene Pape, conducted by Kirill Petrenko.

That would be interesting to see. Out of curiosity what's the ticket price for something like that?

Stalls seats for Parsifal are priced at 293, 263, 228 or 183 Euros, so not cheap! In the gallery they go down as low as €23 but you have to very careful as the lowest prices are for standing places, not so good for Wagner.
We saw Meistersinger in Munich a couple of years ago (again with Jonas Kaufmann) when we had seats on the top level, the sound was surprisingly good but the sight lines were poor with part of the stage completely hidden. So, if we do go to Parsifal, we will be in the stalls which would be an expensive risk as Kaufmann is getting a bit of a reputation of not turning up.

I think those pricing are comparable to the Lyric's. That's a lot of dough for Kaufmann.

He seems to be having  some health issues lately. ( altho he made a Japan tour recently )

I've been to a completely free and unknown concert yesterday. During my studies I had to attend lessons Gregorian Chant. What started as a compulsory subject, turned into an addiction. Our class was filled with music theory, organ, flute, opera, brass, direction students both male and female and we had a good teacher who is a good scientist too. We were introduced to Prof Stefan Kloekner from Folkwang Universitat Essen in Germany who is the teacher Gregorian Chant there. My wife and drove 2 hours one direction to attend the concert and it was great. Just a bunch of guys well singing Gregorian Chant, and some teachers singing / playing music nicely. Hildegard von Bingen was the theme. It was a very joyful night on a historical place. Sometimes you see that the musicians enjoy what they do, and that was the case.

GBH, The Arches, Coventry, Sat 13th Jan

Might not be too many peoples' choice on here, a spot of early 80s punk from Birmingham.

They've been going non stop since the beginning, really exceeded my expectations, a proper tight unit, and a great small venue to see them in. Considering I was just going to meet up with some friends and wasn't so bothered about the gig, really glad we paid in, excellent local support bands too.

ChrisH posted:

GBH, The Arches, Coventry, Sat 13th Jan

Might not be too many peoples' choice on here, a spot of early 80s punk from Birmingham.

They've been going non stop since the beginning, really exceeded my expectations, a proper tight unit, and a great small venue to see them in. Considering I was just going to meet up with some friends and wasn't so bothered about the gig, really glad we paid in, excellent local support bands too.

Nice to see that sort of thing mentioned here.  I saw them at the Brum Punx Xmas bash just before the new year and thought they were great.  I'm always amazed by how good Scott the drummer is live whenever I catch them.

Dave***t posted:

ChrisH posted:

GBH, The Arches, Coventry, Sat 13th Jan

Might not be too many peoples' choice on here, a spot of early 80s punk from Birmingham.

They've been going non stop since the beginning, really exceeded my expectations, a proper tight unit, and a great small venue to see them in. Considering I was just going to meet up with some friends and wasn't so bothered about the gig, really glad we paid in, excellent local support bands too.

Nice to see that sort of thing mentioned here.  I saw them at the Brum Punx Xmas bash just before the new year and thought they were great.  I'm always amazed by how good Scott the drummer is live whenever I catch them.

Wow, wasn't expecting anyone to reply to my post [@mention:41551092540348438] ! Totally agree about the drummer, he is awesome on the sticks. When I was looking in Wiki after the gig, he is the only non original member, but he's still been with them 25 years plus. Good to see an old band with such a stable line up.

We saw Joe Stilgoe and his big band at Chichester Festival Theatre last night. Joyful music, brilliant musicianship and great entertainment as well. 

Lenny should be proud!

I really loved this young Venezuelan conductor Rafael Payare for terrific rhythmic precision and colourful dynamics and expressions. Pity that CSO did not film the Bartok program  ( personally it was even better than the West Side Story video featured here ) which showed his delicate fluid side. Aside from his unkept wild hair, his lanky posture and wired rim glasses sort of reminded me of Mahler.

I hope he'll be back again. He was terrific!

Buncke definitely gets extra points for being so young and ballsy move by offering his own cadenza on all 3 movement for Mozart Bassoon concerto but, I felt he was too restrained and laid back lacking some personalities. Orchestra, OTOH, was expressive and lively yet never upstaged or over powered the soloist. Just a perfect balance and tempo.

Morton posted:

Meanwhile I am very tempted by an all star, new production, of Parsifal at Munich in July; Jonas Kaufmann, Nina Stemme & Rene Pape, conducted by Kirill Petrenko.

Morton,

Did you get tickets for that? I see Die Walküre is live streamed on Monday. I might watch that. Looks like an interesting production for sure.

STAATSOPER.TV

Geoff Tate, in Rebellion, Manchester last night. He did the whole of operation mind crime plus four other big hits from the Queensryche days. Damned good gig

kuma posted:

Morton posted:

Meanwhile I am very tempted by an all star, new production, of Parsifal at Munich in July; Jonas Kaufmann, Nina Stemme & Rene Pape, conducted by Kirill Petrenko.

Morton,

Did you get tickets for that? I see Die Walküre is live streamed on Monday. I might watch that. Looks like an interesting production for sure.

STAATSOPER.TV

Hi Kuma,
Yes, I could not resist so have ordered two tickets but don’t know yet if we will be successful, preordered tickets will not start being processed until February 1st.
I much prefer to choose my actual seats but I know from experience that by the time this process is available at Munich very few, if any seats will be left. As it is I was just able to choose a price bracket with an alternative and hope for the best.

On Tuesday we will be at Covent Garden for Salome.

I may take a look at the Walkure, they certainly like their Wagner (and beer) in Munich.

Morton posted:

On Tuesday we will be at Covent Garden for Salome.

Looks very intense!