Russian Art And Music In London

BBC Concert Orchestra Сconductor  Edwin Outwater MonicaMancini, guest vocalist Rachel John, vocalist Oliver Tompsett, vocalist This was the first performance conducted by Edwin Outwater as the BBC Concert Orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor. This season the BBC has reached out to an ever wider audience of music lovers; fewer concerts of what we think of as ‘true’ classical music and more of every genre of popular music, but all played by 'classical' orchestras. Last night it was the turn of the BBC Concert Orchestra to play in the Nightclub  the BBC had created in the Albert Hall . We were presented with lounge music particularly featuring Henry Mancini, it being the hundred year anniversary of his birth, but also  Bert  Bacharach and many others who learned at the feet of Mancini. Mel Giedroyc, excelled as our host. She led us from tune to tune in a very light-hearted manner. Throughout the show she had a brilliant repartee with Edwin Outwater, in which he never a...

Orchestra: Berliner Philharmoniker Conductor: Kiril Petrenko Conductor: Owain Park   This concert was a performance of Bruckner’s work showing his talents to the full. It highlighted his religious devotion; as heard in the three choral motifs and the towering 5 th  symphony. The BBC singers started the concert with the three stunning choral motets; Os Justi, Locus ist and Christus factus est. The simplicity of the human voice, the exquisite highs and lows of emotion echoing in the hall, all this transports one back into the transept of a medieval cathedral. These motets were sung beautifully by the BBC singers, their voices lyrical and resonant, in praise of God. Just heavenly and sublime, a tremendous contrast to what was about to come.   Bruckner’s 5 th  Symphony in four movements. The whole orchestra brings the first movement alive from its modest introduction; then moving into to a swell of violins with the wind section high and crisp.  The middle drops into...