PrettyInScarlett

The last 12 days have been an enjoyable musical experience. If anything I'd say that this year's concerts were even better than 2011. My highlight of the festival definitely goes to the four-part cycle The Rivered Earth created by Vikram Seth and Alec Roth . It's always good to hear new and different works alongside more 'regular' repertoire, and these four works were stupendous: Songs in Time of War ; Shared Ground/Ponticelli ; The Traveller ; and The Seven Elements/The Hermit on the Ice . The first two are available as recordings on the Signum label. They are predominantly vocal-led works, but varying between small and large choirs and tenor solo; the accompaniment from violin, harp, guitar, small string ensemble and piano. The solo violin suite Ponticelli and violin/piano suite The Seven Elements are amazing. Ponticelli is available on CD or download and would appeal to lovers of Ólafur Arnalds or Amiina .  In other concerts, Menahem Pressler was wo...

Starting this Wednesday I am blogging for Music and Beyond during their 2012 season. With 80 events there are lots of exciting concerts to come! I am particularly excited about the four-part series The Rivered Earth and An Equal Music , all featuring Vikram Seth. Furthermore, Rachel Barton Pine is back! This year's 'Heavy Metal Violin' concert features here full band, Earthen Grave . I listened to their 2012 album (self-titled) on Spotify the other day and it's pretty good! Posts during the festival are on the Music and Beyond blog . Also coming up this week is The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring live at the National Arts Centre . Something to keep film fans happy until The Hobbit, Part 1 comes out in December, the concert features the film on a 60ft screen with over 200 musicians providing the score. Fantastic!   

Something of an intriguing concert to which I was alerted by a friend. I have heard opinions about over-familiarity with the full orchestral versions of Chopin's E minor (op. 11) and F minor (Op. 21) Piano Concertos, however it was very interesting to here them in the 'piano with string quartet' arrangement. The programme notes indicate that Chopin himself performed the E minor Concerto in this arrangement. Certainly a performance in this manner gives the listener an opportunity to hear a far more intimate performance than usual.  Zuzana Šimurdová and Mazurka String Quartet With that in mind - plus the enticement of an 1888 Weber 6' 3'' piano - I and slightly less than 100 others went to Southminster United Church on 2nd June. Sadly the concert didn't seem to have been widely advertised (I saw a very small advertisement in the OSCAR as well as my friend's email) as I had expected more people for an Embassy-sponsored event.  The two concer...