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PREMIUM

Christopher Morley

CBSO celebrates 90 years in style
Retail & Consumer
The CBSO will celebrate its 90th birthday this year with some blockbusting performances, writes Christopher Morley.
The Rite of Spring brings a new dimension to ballet
Retail & Consumer
A 3-D ballet, the return of Sir Simon Rattle and Sakari Oramo are among the highlights of a busy classical season ahead in Birmingham.
Review: Birmingham Philharmonic Orchestra, at Adrian Boult Hall
Retail & Consumer
An intense, communicative account of Benjamin Britten’s regrettably rarely-heard Violin Concerto was the highlight of Sunday’s concert from a Birmingham Philharmonic Orchestra which otherwise seemed on less than its normally superlative form.
Bromsgrove Festival is young at heart
Retail & Consumer
Bromsgrove Festival is 50 years old but its spirit remains as youthful and fresh as ever.
Review: CBSO, at Symphony Hall
Retail & Consumer
The concert got off to an unpromising start, Andrew Grams presiding over a clattery, noisy Dvorak Carnival Overture.
Review: Roderick Williams, at St Mary de Lode Church, Gloucester
Retail & Consumer
Gloucester Music Society could not have dreamt of a more rewarding way to celebrate its 80th year: an audience drawn from all parts of the country crowding the atmospheric St Mary de Lode Church, and quadrupling the average attendance; a singer – Roderick Williams – at the top of his form; and the premiere of a work specially commissioned for the occasion.
Review: Academy Of Ancient Music, at Symphony Hall
Retail & Consumer
What looked a mouthwatering prospect on paper – an all-Mozart concert played on period instruments by the expert Academy of Ancient Music – turned out a huge disappointment, partly because of the venue.
Review: Antti Siirala/CBSO at Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Retail & Consumer
Travel disruption nothwithstanding, the Finnish pianist Antti Siirala made it to the CBSO at Symphony Hall to deliver an absorbing account of Mozart's C Major Piano Concerto K467
Review: Leon McCawley, at Birmingham Town Hall
Retail & Consumer
Two birthday boys were celebrated in BBC Radio 3's Lunchtime Concert from one of the most thoughtful of our young pianists, Leon McCawley.
Reaching for the stars in Stratford with a space odyssey
Retail & Consumer
Children from all walks of life are breaking barriers with a collaborative community opera, writes Christopher Morley.
Review: CBSO/Andrew Grams, at Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Retail & Consumer
  CBSO/Andrew Grams, at Symphony Hall, Birmingham Wednesday's concert got off to an unpromising start, Andrew Grams presiding over a clattery, noisy Dvorak Carnival Overture. But, wow, didn't the young American conductor earn his spurs through the rest of the evening, ending with an account of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition which was both confidently flowing and dramatically paced - the whip-crack during "Gnomus" came as a thunderbolt out of the ether, for example. Every detail of Ravel's virtuoso orchestration was brilliantly articulated, Grams wisely liberating the orchestra to play to its many strengths, Jonathan Holland, to single out one, magnificent in all the varying demands for the principal trumpet. But even better than this was the compact accompaniment Grams secured for Isabelle Faust's searching, brave reading of Beethoven's Violin Concerto.
Double date in Birmingham for violinist Isabelle Faust
Retail & Consumer
Christopher Morley speaks to the German violinist Isabelle Faust ahead of a performance in Birmingham
A musical vision at Dortmund's Konzerthaus
Retail & Consumer
Dortmund’s concert hall is the catalyst for inspiring perfomances and the rebirth of an area.
Classical Review: Squares, Circles, Labyrinths at Q Club, Birmingham
Retail & Consumer
To be honest, the Birmingham University Department of Music could easily have mounted this concert, involving huge forces, within the Great Hall back at base – but I’m glad they didn’t.
Classical Music: Philharmonia Orchestra at the Symphony Hall
Retail & Consumer
Tuesday’s concert should have allowed us to relish the two greatest works in their respective genres, and both by Beethoven: his Violin Concerto and his Third Symphony, the Eroica, which broke every bounds imaginable and paved the way for everything else that was to follow.
Old and new requiems light up Birmingham
Retail & Consumer
Two requiems separated by 113 years are performed this week. Christopher Morley looks at their creation.
Classical Review: Tosca, Welsh National Opera at Birmingham Hippodrome
Retail & Consumer
Now creaking after 18 years, Welsh National Opera’s production of Tosca, when sung and conducted as disappointingly as we heard on Wednesday, does Puccini no favours.
Q Club ideal for University of Birmingham's huge concert
Retail & Consumer
University of Birmingham’s music department heads to the Q Club for a big concert.
Review: Tosca, by Welsh National Opera, at Birmingham Hippodrome
Retail & Consumer
Tosca, by Welsh National Opera at Birmingham Hippodrome
Review: Scoring a Century, at Crescent Theatre, Birmingham
Retail & Consumer
Eleven years after its composition, and with the disappointment of two cancelled proposed premieres since, David Blake’s opera Scoring a Century at last made it to the stage last weekend, and the excitement in the air was tangible.
New frontiers for Louis Andriessen in Birmingham
Retail & Consumer
Christopher Morley talks to composer Louis Andriessen about his love of vocal harmonies and his forthcoming city residency.
Review: Bach’s St Matthew Passion, CBSO/Sir Simon Rattle, at Symphony Hall
Retail & Consumer
Making a triumphant return to the orchestra he brought to international class, to one of the world’s finest concert-halls he did so much to create, and to the city whose centre has accordngly been regenerated, Sir Simon Rattle bestrode Symphony Hall like a colossus at the weekend.
David Blake's Scoring The Century gets world premiere in Birmingham
Retail & Consumer
An opera written more than a decade ago will finally gets its world premiere in Birmingham, writes Christopher Morley.
Review: Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, at Symphony Hall
Retail & Consumer
We know from long experience of the BBC Symphony Orchestra how efficient broadcasting orchestras have to be.