PrettyInScarlett

This time it didn't rain! After a few years' gap we returned to Hebden Bridge for another sellout Piano Festival concert. I left it so late that we almost didn't get tickets for headliner Anna Tsybuleva! Understandably a sellout as Anna is the winner of the 2015 Leeds International Piano Competition. A pretty impressive biography listed on the festival website - and the concert programme was equally impressive: Beethoven - Fantasy Op. 77 ; Schubert -  'Der Wanderer' Fantasy in C, D.760 ; Brahms -  '7 Fantasies' Op.116 ; and Liszt -  Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12 .  Described by Jonathan Biss as a little odd, the Fantasy Op. 77 is a multi-key, multi-meter, many-tempoed smorgasbord of writing, clearly showing Beethoven's genius as an improviser. Certainly parts of the Fantasy felt like a musical puppet show! Anna displayed the piece superbly (especially the quieter sections).  Suitably warmed, we headed for the intense dark/light of the '...

Two years on from her last visit, Basia Bulat returned to Leeds touring her new album Good Advice . On Record Store Day no less (16th April). Yet another good beer venue - this time she played Headrow House. Good Advice is a bigger sounding album, in many ways, than Tall Tall Shadow , so understandably Basia wanted to tour it with a band. The efficient option, as it transpired, was to have her support band as her backing band. The Weather Station (trio led by Tamara Lindeman) played a 30 minute set to a small and rather chilly audience (maybe Headrow House had forgotten the heating....). The Weather Station has a big-open-space instrumental sound (I definitely heard the soundscapes reminding me of looking at Ontario's landscape from the train); whilst Tamara seems to be a pretty respected songsmith, 30 minutes was too short a time to get into her lyrics. They were, however, much more engaging than the support from 2014. Basia and backing musicians played a shorter set t...