GRAMOPHONE: From Where I Sit – July 2019
A number of years ago, during the run of my erstwhile BBC Radio 3 show Stage and Screen, I took to the stage of the Royal Opera’s Linbury Theatre with the soprano Renée Fleming for an in-depth…
ENCOUNTERS: Edward Seckerson talks to Broadway composer LUCY SIMON
Edward Seckerson sits down with composer LUCY SIMON – The Secret Garden, Doctor Zhivago – to reflect on her journey from homespun duets with her sister Carly to the stages of Broadway and the West End. From…
Howard Goodall in conversation with Edward Seckerson
Thursday 3rd October 2019 7.30pm Bishopsgate Institute. Howard Goodall is a musician of many facets – composer, writer and TV presenter. He’s the Emmy, BRIT and BAFTA Award-winning composer of classic TV favourites such as The Vicar…
GRAMOPHONE: From Where I Sit – June 2019
There is an undeniable thrill in hearing special talent from other cultures embrace our music as their own. A few nights ago (at the time of writing) I had the pleasure of hearing Vassily Petrenko power the…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Sondheim Company – 2018 London Cast / Follies 2018 NT Cast
We should celebrate the fact that within the space of a year London has played host to stagings of not one but two Sondheim masterpieces that have all but redefined them in theatrical terms. Dominic Cooke’s handsome…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Elfman Violin Concerto ‘Eleven Eleven’ – Cameron, Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Mauceri
In his liner note introduction to these stand-alone concert works Danny Elfman asks the question so often asked, namely why it is that audiences for movie music and classical music concerts are so markedly different when from…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Mahler Das Lied von Der Erde – Larsson, Skelton, Düsseldorfer Symphoniker/Fischer
Adam Fischer’s fascinating (if slightly eccentric) liner notes speak of the words of Das Lied von Der Erde being almost incidental to the mood, of the music being significantly more important than the texts that inspired it.…
Edward Seckerson talks to RENÉE FLEMING about The Light in the Piazza
Early in the development of Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas’ extraordinary The Light in the Piazza it was thought that Chicago Lyric Opera might be tendering a commission for the piece. It wasn’t to be. Broadway beckoned.…
GRAMOPHONE: From Where I Sit – May 2019
I was a little late to the party in respect of Vladimir Jurowski’s scintillating new recording of the original 1877 version of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia (Yevgeny Svetlanov’s orchestra) but…
GRAMOPHONE Review: Richard Rodney Bennett Orchestral Works Vol. 3 – BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Wilson
As each instalment of John Wilson’s recorded tribute to his friend and mentor Richard Rodney Bennett is revealed the realisation (to those of us who didn’t already know) that this extraordinarily complete musician could do absolutely anything…
