PrettyInScarlett

Following on from my recent post, last night was our first visit to the National Arts Centre for pianist Radu Lupu 's show Rapture and Fire. The pieces performed were: Peter Paul Koprowski 's In Memoriam Karol Szymanowski ; Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor, Op 54 ; and Brahms Symphony No 4 in E minor Op 98 . We went early for the pre-show talk 'Constant Farewells' by music critic Jean-Jacques Van Vlasslaer. Something of a new concept for us, but it was interesting and helpful to have a short explanation of the evening's programme, complete with audio samples. Van Vlasslaer was describing the social and musical links between Schumann and Brahms revolving around (amongst other themes) Schumann's musical theme for his wife, Clara. Following the talk, we headed into Southam Hall, and were very pleasantly surprised both by the near-capacity crowd and the broad range of people attending. For many of our visits to Cardiff's St Davids Hall and Wales Millen...

A special solo trip to the Norwegian Church arts centre on 9 th March to see Icelandic band hjaltalín together with support from Dry The River. I heard about the show via email lists from the people behind Swn (join the list/ Facebook group if you haven't already). Partly from lack of time, I treated the evening as a 'random gig number 3' so wasn't sure what to expect! Turns out it was an excellent evening (shades of last year's Woodpigeon gig) & pretty much a capacity crowd. A note for cake lovers -the cafe/bar at the Church was still selling foodie bits along with drinks, had a hard time resisting! Dry The River were very good. I don't know much about their background (plenty of scope online as they have both a website and myspace ), but their set (all new stuff - believe the debut album is currently being recorded) seemed to me to show shades of William Elliott Whitmore , Jeff Buckley; lo fi indie ish with a bit of modern folk thrown in. Very int...

Something of a first on a few counts. I stumbled across the legendary Peter Green 's tour dates a few weeks back. Slightly surprised as I was under the impression he was no longer around!! I wanted to go to tonight's (24 th February) show at The Globe, but it was (somewhat unsurprisingly) sold out. Fortunately, Green's 23rd February show at Huntingdon Hall in Worcester still had tickets available. Huntingdon Hall was originally built in the 18 th century as a Methodist chapel but has been a live venue for a while now. It's certainly one of the more unusual live music venues we've seen. First visit for both of us, somewhat different to have a church pew for one's seat! Looked like a sell our or near sell out on the night. Also interestingly, the show/door times operate more like a theatre than a live venue - show started at the advertised time which nearly caught us out! The support act was a local singer-songwriter called Dan Whitehouse (not forgetting Tom ...

Something of a quiet start to the year for us for one reason or another, so I picked a random band off the Clwb Ifor Bach website and came up with Strange News from Another Star , playing last Friday 5 th February. First time at Clwb Ifor Bach for a while, and it was full (too often there's been an audience just in double figures!) - though as all bands (2 supports, Goodtime Boys and Panic Basket) were local that's not too surprising. I won't waste much time on the dire Panic Basket except to say that screaming "12345678" does not constitute a song! Goodtime Boys were better but neither much our thing. The main guy from SNFAS , Jimmy Watkins, has a good line in banter, starting the gig with a poem about the residents of St Mellons , and with printed flyers satirising David Cameron! Again, the style of music is probably not our thing (more in the line of my earlier student taste) but certainly interesting and worth checking out. They were described as '...

That is, musical highlights! Firstly, M and I went promenading at 2 Welsh Proms concerts. The first, on Monday 20th July, was the Revolutionaries Prom. Most obvious revolutionary - Beethoven (the concert featured his 'Overture, Les Franc Juges' and the Third Symphony (Eroica), famously almost dedicated to Napoleon. Those pieces were appreciated, & well played by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales , although we were bored by the other work, Berlioz' suite of songs 'Les Nuits d'ete'. Maybe this piece was the reason why the Revolutionaries Prom had not sold that well - plenty of empty seats. A much better atmosphere, and indeed, interesting set of works, on Friday 24th for the Romantic Prom. The Philharmonia this time, playing Beethoven's 'Overture No 3 Leonora', Dvořák's Cello Concerto and Sibelius' Symphony No 5. The Cello Concerto was excellent (reminiscent of a previous Welsh Proms cello performance -Saint-Saëns' Concerto No 1), fe...

A highly anticipated evening of entertainment for M and I, we headed to St Davids Hall to see the conductor of the moment, Gustavo Dudamel , conduct the Philharmonia Orchestra . Highly entertaining, too, and the place was pretty full, though possibly not sold out. We had anticipated the first piece to be Antonio Estevez' 'Mediodia en el llano', but a last minute change meant the first work was (I believe - the posters up in the venue were rather short on info!) Berlioz' Roman Carnival. Initially we may have been a tad disappointed but the replacement work was excellently peformed, cue many smiles. Unfortunately, the smiles soon evaporated, as the second, and for us, least interesting piece, was Mozart's Piano Concert No.17 K453 with Emanuel Ax on piano. M described Ax as mellow, I described him as dull. That may be because neither of us are really into Mozart, but compared to previous visits to St Davids Hall to see pianists Noriko Ogawa and Freddy Kempf, we really...