Skip to main content

Ólafur Arnalds at the Royal Albert Hall

Continuing the music theme and fresh from GNUF, next stop the Royal Albert Hall! What a way to experience my first RAH event than with Ólafur Arnalds

Just going in to the building, there was an incredible atmosphere. Stopped off at the Berry Bros & Rudd bar en route to our seats. 

A short support set by composer/percussionist Manu Delago, who was very impressive. Initially I thought he was playing some variant of steel drums, but in fact it was an array of Hang, which are great! A really lush, warm sound.

Ólafur's mix of strings, piano with multimedia felt at home in the 'orchestral' setting of the Hall (nearly Proms season!), in particular given that the set was all instrumental pieces. It was interesting to see the sheer variety of people who all have being an Ólafur Arnalds fan in common.  I find that a lot of Ólafur's magic is in the silences and spaces in between notes, and a few times there were audience interruptions - but also, a lot of times when the whole hall was completely still and silent. The set was a mixture of new new songs (so new only re:member is currently available - streaming and YouTube), along with older and newer recorded material. All equally brilliant. A lot of the new technology on set involved algorithms matching the lighting setup with the songs. The atmosphere was both big and intimate, although a different intimacy from that of his 2013 Barbican show.



Even though it was all brilliant, one of the best of the best bits was the final encore -  Ólafur played Lag Fyrir Ömmu alone on stage with his band playing the string parts offstage almost as an echo. Just gorgeous.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Angela Hewitt Week, 14th-20th May 2012

I just received information from a friend about Angela Hewitt Week in Ottawa, 14th-20th May as declared by Mayor Jim Watson. Ms Hewitt is performing with Chamber Players of Canada on Friday 18th May; there will also be An Afternoon With Angela Hewitt on 20th May at the National Arts Centre hosted by the Canadian Friends of the Trasimeno Music Festival .

Pigeon Funk

Notes on a very random purchase. Earlier today I acquired Venetian Snares 'Rossz Csillag Alatt Sz ü letett ' purely on the basis of the language and artwork. Its certainly something different - and most definitely not pop. After a bit of searching: Venetial Snares is, according to Wikipedia, the performing name of Aaron Funk, who seems to specialise in experimental tracks in odd time signatures. Article here . The sleeve notes for this album (whose title is Hungarian for 'Born under a bad star') poses the question: what if, for just a day, we could both be pigeons? Interessant. Apparently this concept (a day in the life of a Hungarian pigeon) is non-typical of Venetian Snares sound, but one could ask, does Mr Funk do 'typical'? On first listening, the sound of this CD mixes classical/traditional Hungarian sounds and breakbeats. but aside from that? Definitely a 'listen for yourself' artist; try the website , fan site or myspace .

Mini update

I have finally sorted out my site links to reflect some new/renewed interests and my current location. We have something of a National Arts Centre bonanza shortly: I had already booked to see Angela Hewitt on 16th Feb but found a good ticket offer on LivingSocial.com to see Radu Lupu this coming Wednesday, 26th. In addition to all that, New Yorker music critic Alex Ross (his recent book, Listen To This , is excellent, as well as his previous tome, The Rest Is Noise ) is giving a talk there on 13th February. This is all followed in March by a complete about turn to the Bronson Centre to see Finnish band Apocalyptica . They have been somewhere on my radar for a while but I was spurred on to book tickets after a bout of nostalgia. M and I were regular visitors to Wolverhampton UK to see various bands at Civic Hall/Wulfrun Hall; a few months ago a mutual friend posted on that there Facebook thing about seeing said Apocalyptica at Wulfrun Hall. Nostalgia for the venue and renewed intere...