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Celebrate the 225th Anniversary Of Mozart’s Death With A Magnificent Concert
Montserrat Caballé “Dove sono” – Le nozze di Figaro
The Difference Between Hearing And Listening
Sounds carry intelligence. If you are too narrow in your awareness of sounds, you are likely to be disconnected from your environment. Ears do not listen to sounds; the brain does. Listening is a lifetime practice that depends on accumulated experiences with sound; it can be focused to detail or open to the entire field of sound.
Octogenarian composer and sound art pioneer Pauline Oliveros describes the sound experiment that led her to found an institute related to Deep Listening, and develop it as a theory relevant to music, psychology, and our collective quality of life.
Architects appointed to design Shakespeare North theatre
Plans for a £19m theatre in Merseyside are one step closer to realisation, with architects appointed to oversee the project.
Shakespeare North, a 350-seat replica Shakespearean theatre and education hub in Knowsley, was awarded planning permission in April after councillors voted unanimously in favour.
London-based Helm Architecture will design the theatre and Austin-Smith: Lord LLB have been appointed as the supporting architects. Scale models, artists’ impressions and CGI images of the new theatre have been released.
Organisers hope the project in Prescot, a town in Knowsley, will join Stratford-upon-Avon and the Globe in London as one of three key destinations for Shakespeare lovers.
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Riccardo Chailly on Puccini’s first Madama Butterfly, soon to revisit La Scala
There is a small exhibition in La Scala’s museum which looks at the theatre’s previous productions of Madama Butterfly, an opera that had its world premiere at the theatre in 1904. What is surprising is that in all the many concepts and designs there has always been a kimono and fan when so many other operas have received the jeans and piercings treatment, or been given the high-tech and laser look. La Scala’s new production by the Latvian director Alvis Hermanis, which opens the season on 7 December, is similarly reserved and respectful; justly so for the return to Puccini’s original score which was reworked many times after its disastrous reception at La Scala at the beginning of the last century.
There are many reasons for this. Certainly, the culture clash between East and West, a 15-year-old seduced and abandoned by a ‘wicked American’, and the two acts instead of three, were all not liked. This was already something anticipated by Richard Strauss and not loved by a public used to the traditional three acts.
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Nicole Kidman on Roles She Turned Down
Of course there are roles that you’ve turned down and you think, “Hmm, if I’d have played that, where would I be now?” But that’s life … if I had done this or if I hadn’t done that. You know, you miss out on certain ones, and you’re given certain ones. It’s just the journey. You’re meant to play certain things and if it’s meant to be, then it just kind of happens. I suppose that’s just getting older, thinking that things happen when they’re meant to happen. So I say enjoy, be happy, keep it simple.
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Hear The Brilliant Guitar Work Of Charlie Christian, Inventor Of The Electric Guitar Solo