There are two versions of The Proms in the popular imagination — the common (and false) perception is of bow-tied poshos waving Union Jacks while bobbing along to Land Of Hope And Glory. The less well known, but true, perception is of people seriously passionate about their music. Passionate enough, in fact, to queue up …
Big noise, star quality and exotic delights. That’s what I’m looking for when I open the programme for a new concert season. By those measures the 2024-2025 programme dropped by The Glasshouse this week promises to be spectacularly good — in fact it might be the best we’ve seen for many years. I can’t be …
We should, by now, have got over any novelty in the idea that women write great music for orchestra and small ensemble alike. Too much of it has simply been neglected unfairly. Caroline Shaw’s modern song cycle Is A Rose was a highlight of last year’s Royal Northern Sinfonia season and Thea Musgrave’s stature in …
I defy you not to be thrilled by Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. It is a defining icon of western music, an energetic, graceful and tactile masterpiece threaded through our cultural DNA. And this month you have not just one but three chances to hear it live in North East England: Royal Northern Sinfonia perform it …
There was a ‘wow!’ moment from The Glasshouse this week with the announcement that the Philip Glass Ensemble is performing there on September 26, on a rare UK tour. The group were founded in New York in 1968 by Glass himself, the composer who upended classical and film music in the last century with his …
Film music plays a leading role among April’s musical highlights in the North East. Royal Northern Sinfonia will be bringing the Charlie Chaplin silent classic Modern Times to noisy life at The Glasshouse on April 18, before the music of Harry Potter illuminates the vast spaces of Durham Cathedral on May 3. Looking (far) ahead, …
There’s an urban myth about a star solo violinist asked to stand-in at the last minute for an unwell colleague, who only discovers the concerto he is playing is Mendelssohn not Mozart after the lights go down and the orchestra strikes up the opening note. This is a musician’s in-joke based on the fact that, …
Rumour has it that The Glasshouse bosses were nervous nobody would turn up, having programmed an entire weekend of music by a cultish but heavy-going Austrian country boy born 200 years ago. Forget the nerves – the Big Bruckner Weekend pulled in packed houses drawn by the unique opportunity to hear the composer’s final three …
Anton Bruckner’s music has never been used to advertise after shave or motor oil or even soap. Nor has it appeared in the opening credits of a weepy movie or sci-fi spectacular. Maybe that’s the real reason for its intimidating reputation with concertgoers. The late 19th Century Austrian composer wrote nine symphonies each clocking up …
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