La voix humaine: Barbara Hannigan and the LSO at the Barbican Hall

Barbara Hannigan’s quasi-miraculous and multifaceted feats in this concert with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Hall made me reflect on what it is and means to ‘conduct’ a…

Mesmerising performances from the LSO and Noseda at the Barbican

‘He liked to think that he wasn’t afraid of death.  It was life he was afraid of, not death.  He believed that people should think about death more often, and…

Exile and Isolation: Julian Anderson’s Suite from Exiles, the LSO and Simon Rattle

Often you go to concerts and the programming isn’t especially obvious – why are these works being played besides each other?  This is particularly the case with concertos and symphonies.…

Kirill Karabits conducts the LSO in mixed performances at the Barbican

Dedicated to the memory of Bernard Haitink, this Barbican concert with the London Symphony Orchestra could have been stymied by cancellations of conductor and soloist.  But Ukrainian-born Kirill Karabits (more…

Profound questions from Ondřej Adámek and the LSO, at the Barbican

An obvious risk, and frustration, in asking infinitely profound questions is that one knows they cannot be answered.  The title of Ondřej Adámek’s orchestral song-cycle, Where Are You?, poses one such…