Penultimate go tonight at playing Strauss's Salome with @regentsopera.bsky.social at York Hall. I reckon the reduced orchestration (one viola!) imparts an angsty expressionism well suited to the bleak onstage action.
www.ticketsource.com/regents-opera
I know why Regents Opera performs in the original language - because that's how you tempt young singers who want to get a role under the belt - but a spiky English translation would have given this already striking Salome an extra boost. linkly.link/2gNHF
Enjoying a day off from fairly intense orchestra rehearsals for @regentsopera.bsky.social production of Salome, directed by Mark Ravenhill. But I'll soon be heading (ho ho) to York Hall in Bethnal Green as we prepare for Friday's opening night. 6 shows between then and 23 April.
When Zappa meets Ives meets... Jackanory? Spent yesterday rehearsing this piece of far-outery by Sean Noonan for its world premiere performance on Monday 30 March. At Milton Court, London; tickets still available!
Page from paperback with text reading "Her lips, a cupid's bow; her lashes, so long that he could have plucked them and used them to string a viola".
If only he had had one to hand! (From Nicola Barker, Reversed Forecast)
Tomorrow's concert: Ruth Gipps oboe concerto (ft Nicola Hands) and Avril Coleridge-Taylor Sussex Landscape, lovely stuff. Also Malcolm Arnold 7th Symphony. With St Paul's Sinfonia at St Margaret's church SE13 5DL.
www.stpaulssinfonia.com/2025-26/
Made a rare trip to the cinema today, to see Mascha Schilinski's Sound of Falling. More films like this!
It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that ding.
Jammed C Blues
Do you think there will be MP defections? And if so, starting when?
Yes, if I had to choose the music of just one composer for the rest of my days it might well be Tippett (after Bartok)
Slop feels harsh but take your pick of PG Wodehouse
This is such a beautiful essay with such a beautiful first sentence - such a beautiful first three words, even. Nobody writes it better.
Superb idea for an opera right here...
looking to speak to freelancers in the arts, culture, and heritage sectors for a story - if that's you, drop me a message! #journorequest
Did you hear Karthi Gnanasegaram's shoutout for Doreen Carwithen on the Today programme sports report this morning (at 2'28")?
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
Just back from a trip to see my parents, where I seem to have unearthed a fourth stanza of This Be The Verse:
As for us the die is cast:
We're fuck-ups along with all the rest.
There's no way forward in the past
Just love your neighbour and try your best
#larkin
He's a Daft Punk fan, isn't he? Think he missed a trick there...
I'm sure the feeling is not confined to musicians but there are times when I get anxious where my viola case is even though I'm carrying it in my actual hand.
If you can't spot the twist that means you are the twist
I have drunk
the Fosters
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
to celebrate your protegee being long listed for a prize
You could definitely do this! Though maybe don't use your Carte Orange photo as credentials.
Abscond to Marseille and sit in restaurants ready to translate the menu for English-speaking visitors. (This kind of happened a couple of times when I was there on holiday.) The restaurants would pay me in meals and perhaps characterful if temporary lodgings. (This didn't.)
Taking people for a walk. I know the directions, and also where all the best cafes and pubs are. And where the toilets are. We can talk about whatever they want.
I thought bratsche summer was last year
Halloween reminder that Beethoven's Ghost Trio doesn't have a WoO no., but Schumann's Ghost Variations does.
There was a king named Ozymandias
Whose visage was once Marlon Brandious
Now his statuesque legs
Were but truncated pegs
With nothing beyond his sad sandy ass
The hand is intended for conducting the choir - there's a lever in the organ loft to move it up and down. Not sure if it's ever used these days!
You probably know that one way of saying 'a fellow' in French is 'un bonhomme', so perhaps you could style yourself Mollie Bonbonhomme for the purposes