Bert Schurink posted:

Had yesterday a nice evening with a strong Russian flare... the actors and the program was as follows....

Nikolai Tokarev | Klavier
Vladimir Spivakov | Dirigent
Russische Nationalphilharmonie

 

 

Spivakov! A great humanitarian!

Steven Wilson, last night in Auckland. Quite superb. Great venue and acoustics. All that is great with rock.

Very much looking forward to my first Munich concert of the season. A great artist, a great program, so a lot to look forward to for tomorrow evening...

Orchestre National de Lyon

Khatia Buniatishvili, Klavier
Leonard Slatkin, Leitung

On 15th October I went to the famous Bull's Head in picturesque Barnes, SW13, to see Adam "Blues" Bentley, a Fijian guitar player of some renown in Saarf Lundun. With him was another local legend, Sam Kelly, on drums, plus a very good bassist whose name I can't remember.

Ese came along with me and the band kindly let her up on stage to play two of her numbers - "I Don't Mind" and "Silver Spoon" - with them.

Which was nice.

17th October. To a dive in Dalston called the Victoria to see one of my very favourite bands, Barcelona's teen sensations Mourn. They touring their third album, which sees them taking on more musical shapes - the Slits and Beefheart particular.

 The sound was pretty poor, but the energy of the band more than made up for it.

Setlist:

Barcelona City  Tour - Skeleton - Strange Ones - Fun at the Geysers - Evil Dead - Second Sage - Otitis - Gertrudis, Get Through This! - Thank You for Coming Over - Doing It Right - Divorce - Sun - Via (dEUS cover) - Your Brain Is Made of Candy - Bye, Imbecile! - Epilogue

24th October - off to The Roundhouse, one of the best venues in the capital IMO, to see the mighty Houston, Texas trio Khruangbin. I was surprised that they were so popular - they sold the place out. It was a fabulous 80-minute set, a real crate-digger's delight (spot the references to Thai pop, Afghan rock, pre-revolutionary Iranian psychedelia). Visually they are mesmerising too - Laura Lee has to be the coolest female bassist since Kim Gordon, with a nice line in costume changes and sashaying across the stage, while Mark Speer is a jaw-droppingly good guitar player. Superb light show too.

Setlist:

Bin Bin

The Infamous Bill

August Twelve

Cómo Me Quieres

Friday Morning

Dern Kala

August 10

Mr. White

Two Fish and an Elephant

Lady and Man

White Gloves

Evan Finds the Third Room

Medley: The Next Episode (Dr. Dré) / Got Your Money (Ol' Dirty Bastard) / Electric Relaxation (A Tribe Called Quest) / Your Love (Frankie Knuckles) / The Sweetest Taboo (Sade) / It Was A Good Day (Ice Cube) / Regulate (Warren G) / Searching (Roy Ayers) / I Want'a Do Something Freaky To You (Leon Haywood) / Summer Madness (Kool & The Gang)

Maria Tambien/Apache

People Everywhere

Here's a video of them in action earlier in the year (check out 35:55 - awesome):

Tonight, 13th November, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, just back from a rather excellent King Crimson gig, last time I saw them was 1976, different line up, apart from Fripp and Mel Collins but in excellent form.

Bert Schurink posted:

Very much looking forward to my first Munich concert of the season. A great artist, a great program, so a lot to look forward to for tomorrow evening...

 

Orchestre National de Lyon

Khatia Buniatishvili, Klavier
Leonard Slatkin, Leitung

Philharmonie

Di., 13. November 2018
20:00 Uhr

Orchestre National de Lyon
Khatia Buniatishvili, Klavier
Leonard Slatkin, Leitung

 

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Barber: „Adagio for Strings“
Rachmaninow: Konzert für Klavier und Orchester Nr. 2 c-moll op. 18
Ravel: „Le tombeau de Couperin“
Mussorgsky: „Bilder einer Ausstellung“

Pianistisch überaus anspruchsvoll, von großer Wirkung und emotionaler Tiefe – so könnte die Kurz-Charakteristik von Rachmaninows zweitem Klavierkonzert lauten. Für viele Pianisten ist die Einspielung dieses vielschichtigen Werks, dessen schwelgerischer Mittelsatz mit seinen raffinierten Verdichtungen das bekannteste Musikstück Rachmaninows überhaupt ist, ein Meilenstein in ihrer persönlichen Diskographie. 2017 hat Khatia Buniatishvili ihre Interpretation auf CD hinzugefügt. Die 31-jährige georgische Tastenkünstlerin hat sich als „junge Wilde“ mit viel Furor in die Weltelite der Klavierszene gespielt. Zum Jahresbeginn ließ sie bei ihrem umjubelten Gastspiel in der Philharmonie „den Steinway in den hellsten Farben gleißen und glitzern“ (Süddeutsche Zeitung). Nun kehrt sie mit Rachmaninow nach München zurück, begleitet vom Orchestre National de Lyon und dessen Chef Leonard Slatkin.

Orchestre National de Lyon
Khatia Buniatishvili, Klavier
Leonard Slatkin, Leitung

The performance of Khatia was absolutely amazing. Added benefit was having Anne-Sophie Mutter in the audience, tomorrow more about this concert....

A picture of last night...

3/11/18 O2 Arena.  The actual hightlight for me was Anastasiya Petryshak. She is a supreme violinist. You could hear a pin drop when she played and basically everyone in the arena cried. Sound was poor though. Don't really like the O2.

Bert Schurink posted:

She played Rachmaninov Nr 2 in a marvelous manner. As usual in the beginning the orchestra was overpowering her. But it got better into the concerto, and she played really well. The rest of the program was also great, while the soloist wheren’t 100% sharp in the Mussorgsky piece, but overall very enjoyable...

Kurt Vile, Vicars Street, Dublin. Excellent musicianship, not a great stage persona but the crowd didn’t seem to mind. As his says on one of his songs, a one trick pony, but it’s a damn fine trick.

.sjb

Last night we went to the Royal College of Music to hear the RCM Symphony Orchestra and Chorus under Jac Van Steen perform Faure's Requiem. 

Hearing a full orchestra and chorus perform such a gorgeous work is a rare treat, and the RCM rose to the occasion.  However, the real highlight of the evening for me was in the first half, with some of the short orchestral pieces; Franck's Les Eolides, Boulanger's D'Un stir triste, and best of all, Dutilleux's Sur le meme accord, a piece originally composed for violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter.  On this particular evening, the latter piece featured Wei-Ting Wu on violin and was a revelation to me.  Anybody who tries to tell you that there's no such thing as a soundstage or the ability to pinpoint instrument positioning, depth etc.. in a real live concert needs to hear this piece - the sense of playing within a space and the inter-relationship between the various parts of the orchestra was remarkable.  

We had Oysterband in Emsworth last night, on their 40th anniversary tour. It’s amazing how the years fly by! It was a sellout, which is great.

hungryhalibut posted:

We had Oysterband in Emsworth last night, on their 40th anniversary tour. It’s amazing how the years fly by! It was a sellout, which is great.

Having taken a look at the Wemsfest site, you are so fortunate to have such a vibrant music and arts scene on your doorstep. Presumably you have tickets for Pentangle next week?

Hi Tim

I’m one of the group who work with Mark, director of Wemsfest, to run the thing. We are all volunteers and last night involved dishing out our web tickets, looking after the band, making tea washing up and generally running about. It was Strawbs last week, Oysterband last night and I’m doing the same for Pentangle next week. It’s great to meet these people. The Oysterband were great, but Strawbs were a miserable bunch. And last year I didn’t recognise any of Fairport and asked for their tickets. Oops. Any surplus we make goes to local good causes. It’s all great fun, though hard work at times! Mark has promoted music for about 40 years and seems to know everybody. We had a much newer group, Imar, a couple of weeks ago: they are worth checking out if you like Celtic stuff. They were really nice too, and I was selling their CDs for them as well as everything else. 

hungryhalibut posted:

Hi Tim

I’m one of the group who work with Mark, director of Wemsfest, to run the thing. We are all volunteers and last night involved dishing out our web tickets, looking after the band, making tea washing up and generally running about. It was Strawbs last week, Oysterband last night and I’m doing the same for Pentangle next week. It’s great to meet these people. The Oysterband were great, but Strawbs were a miserable bunch. And last year I didn’t recognise any of Fairport and asked for their tickets. Oops. Any surplus we make goes to local good causes. It’s all great fun, though hard work at times! Mark has promoted music for about 40 years and seems to know everybody. We had a much newer group, Imar, a couple of weeks ago: they are worth checking out if you like Celtic stuff. They were really nice too, and I was selling their CDs for them as well as everything else. 

How I wish we had a similar scene down here. I simply wouldn't know where to start in the setting up of something like that, and I'm not sure there would be the demand in any event. Cornwall is a bit of a cultural desert I'm afraid. We both knew before making the decision to relocate, and mostly are content to have to travel for our entertainment, but it still doesn't prevent the occasional bit of wishful thinking!

Saw Roger Taylor's Queen Experience at G-Live this evening. Totally awesome. Superb musicians celebrating Queen's music. Roger came out after the encore to take a bow. EPIC!

The Effra Social is a new Brixton club, based in the old Conservative Club on Effra Road. The vibe is very much shabby-kitsch 70s, which is actually pretty hip these days in South London. The main room has all been kitted out with a PA, lights etc and makes a rather good 350-capacity venue (lots of pictures of Thatch and Churchill, which provides a rather nice .

The first act to play there (26th October) was Ese and her Vooduu People, playing a short but rather sweet set that marked the live debut of Jackson Baird (who played great keyboards on the album).

Setlist: Up in Smoke – I Don't Mind – Keep On – Alien – Grey – Fairytale – Silver Spoon.

The afternoon of 27th October, and to Trafalgar Square for the annual Africa On The Square festival, a Mayor's office-managed celebration of all things African, from food and clothes through to music and crafts. Rather curiously (given that of the band, only Ese is African [from Nigeria] is actually from the continent), Ese & The Vooduu People were offered a mid-afternoon slot.

Despite the freezing weather, a decent crowd of about 6,000-7,000 people turned up, and the band - Ese (guitar, lead vox), Basile (bass, b/vox), Jackson (keys), Sheena (b/vox) and stand-in drummer Joe (Pharoah was up in Sheffield playing with Seun Kuti) - put in a stonking set, rising to the occasion handsomely.

At one point I wandered out into the crowd and was really impressed with both the big screens and the power and quality of the sound system.

Setlist: Up In Smoke – I Don't Mind – Alien - Silver Spoon.

Video clip here:

Same day (27th October), down to beautiful Balham for another gig, this time at the BBC (that's the Balham Bowls Club) for another gig - this time it was the BBC's Hallowe'en party, kicking off at 7pm with a screening of Buffy: The Musical, followed by a 90-minute set from Ese & The Vooduu People, followed by a DJ set until 2am.

Setlist:

Buffy The Vampire Slayer Theme – Fairytale – Up In Smoke – Keep On – I Don't Mind – Peace of Mind – Grey – Dynamite – Where Did I Go Wrong? – Dub – Family Affair (Sly & the Family Stone song) – Police & Thieves (Junior Murvin song) – Alien – Fly Away (Lenny Kravitz song) – I Wanna Be Adored (Stone Roses song) – Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana song) – Silver Spoon – Valerie (Amy Winehouse song).

Kevin-W posted:

 

She looks great in skirt!

PERFORMERS
Muti/CSO

PROGRAM

Verdi Requiem Mass

The concert open with Muti asking the audience to have a moment of silence for yet another terrible shooting in California. This is getting to be a habit now as I recall he also did the same with Boston Marathon Massacre a few years ago before Bach's B Minor Mass concert.

Muti's Verdi is always a treat. I love his expressive and rhythmic direction. Out of those 4 singers tho, the only one I liked was that tenor Piotr Beczala ( 2nd from the right ). Bass Dmitry Belosselskiy I felt that wasn't quite filling the hall and so was the Korean soprano Vittoria Yeo. Much too much delicate and threadlike and whilst she controlled the piano pretty good but not enough projection and totally engulfed in 150+ chorus at tuti. Mezzo Daniela Barcellona made a Orchestra Hall debut. I rather liked her husky warmish tone but the transition from high to low register was not as smooth. Also contrasting with needle thin Yao's voice was not gelling as I would have liked in duet. 

This is a rehearsal from 2013.

I think Verdi's Requiem became my favourite along side Mozart's.

count.d posted:

3/11/18 O2 Arena.  The actual hightlight for me was Anastasiya Petryshak. She is a supreme violinist. You could hear a pin drop when she played and basically everyone in the arena cried. 

what did she sing?