Alongside the regular recital appearances and branching out into conducting, in the six months between December just passed and May this year, the baritone Benjamin Appl will have released three albums: one, out in February, of Kurtág songs intermingled with Schubert lieder, featuring a rare appearance of the composer at the piano for Schubert’s “Der […]
Author Archives: Hugh Morris
Hugh Morris is a freelance writer and editor based in London.
Posted inInterview
Indeterminate Acts
In 1959, the Smithsonian Folkways label released an album called “Indeterminacy,” a piece that features John Cage speaking, and David Tudor playing mashed-up material from the former’s “Fontana Mix” and “Concert for Piano and Orchestra.” Since comedian Stewart Lee and pianists Tania Caroline Chen and Steve Beresford first decided to perform “Indeterminacy” around 15 years […]
Posted inInterview
A Fast-Rising Star Reveals His Humble Origins
Tall, thin as a rake, with wispy hair and piercing blue eyes, Kurt Dirigent looks more like an imaginary character than the artistic director of the ground-breaking ensemble Lorem Ipsum. He orders a flat white at the Soho branch of London-based independent coffee shop Gail’s, with the pained look of a man who has seen […]
Posted inReview
Event
I. Start—quiet, holding space, a busy sold-out texture: cough, two pints drunk in perfect sync in front, mumble, breath, program scratch, sniff, distant train rumble, zip, cough, “This is like being at a wedding,” lights down. White, hooded, quickly veers. Blue, holds… Crash, conflict, laugh behind, chirrup of percussion (wish I could do shorthand). Red, […]
Posted inOpinion
Your Tiny Hand Is Invisible
Last week, English National Opera’s plans for Greater Manchester were unveiled in the Holden Gallery of Manchester Metropolitan University. The room was filled with many of the city region’s most powerful players. Sir Richard Leese, the former council leader who oversaw Manchester’s rapid regeneration after the IRA bombing in 1996, received a shoutout from the […]
Posted inBreaking
Ashley Wass announces his departure from the Yehudi Menuhin School
On Monday, Ashley Wass, director of music at the Yehudi Menuhin School, announced that he will be stepping down from his position at the end of the academic year. In an email sent to parents, Wass said that it felt “strange” to inform them of his decision. Though being part of the YMS community was […]
Posted inRankings & Roundups
Crisp Dinner
Picture the scene: Work finishes at 5, 5:30, maybe later. The concert starts at 7:30, and could go on for hours. What are you doing about eating? We asked people in the business of attending concerts exactly that. On the Whole Problem John Andrews, conductor Personally, I get ridiculously hangry if I don’t eat. I […]
Posted inInterview
Testimony
One Sunday afternoon last month, I attended the benefit concert Make Freedom Ring at St John’s Waterloo, an Anglican church near London’s South Bank. Under a striking painting of the crucifixion—one of many intensely colored murals painted for the Church of England by Jewish refugee Hans Feibusch, who fled Germany in the 1930s—the pianist Jayson […]
Posted inOpinion
Classical Music in the Enshittocene
I guess the moment it hit me was when Classic FM’s Alexander Armstrong was revealed to be getting into “NFTs tickets.” Whether or not these NFTs are just glorified QR codes—Curved Music, the company behind his new shows, didn’t respond by the time of publication—mere mention of those initials was enough to zap me back […]
Posted inReport
Played Off
Unless you’re one of about 20 or so leading composers worldwide, chances are you’re not making a living solely from your art. The barriers for entry into this group are incredibly high, and getting higher: dwindling commission fees, organizations with smaller commissioning pots buddying up to fund a shrinking pool of composers, a sharp, widely […]