The Noisettes/Favela Chic

Uber trendy bar Favela Chic played host to Guy Chambers' Orgasmatron - a kind of variety show for up and coming music acts. I won't say too much about Hot Skank - I think the name says it all - but the night's headliners, The Noisettes are well and truly destined for great things. Fortunate then that they are the subject of a forthcoming BBC doc on song writing. Hifht http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRFHiBW9RE8

LSO Chamber Ensemble/St Luke's

UBS Soundscapes is a long standing concert series that takes place at the ever so attractive LSO St Luke's. With its emphasis on informality (you can drink alcohol basically) and musical eclecticism, most of the artists hitherto have been drawn from the jazz and world music circuit. Less in evidence have been classical performers which was partially rectified last night with a concert given by the LSO Chamber Ensemble.



Entitled 'Beethoven Plus', it allowed several of the orchestra's principals to strut their stuff in small ensembles and as soloists, an opportunity if ever there was for some unlikely corners of the repertoire to be explored. Chris Richards gave an immaculate account of Stravinsky's Three Pieces for Clarinet Solo which was preceded by a work for double bass, violin and piano by the little known composer Bottesini. It is, I'm told, a bit of a sacred cow in the double bass world that demands deft movement over the strings' harmonics. The soloist, Rinat Ibragimov certainly didn't disappoint, his performance getting the biggest cheer of the evening.





Beethoven's Septet in Eb rounded off an interesting night out, perhaps one for the musically curious than the layman. And if at times it felt a little like a school concert - one or two of the players need to work on their public speaking - it is hopefully the start of more regular appearances by this fine group of musicians.

Madam Butterfly/Royal Albert Hall

Puccini's arias have been the mainstay of every passing crossover act for so long it's easy to forget how masterful his complete operas are. I've got Raymond Gubbay to thank for this. What? The Gubbster, isn't he one of the bad guys, you know, singers with microphones, fireworks etc? Well, yes in some people's eyes, he's not exactly Mr High Brow, and I for one am rather pleased he isn't; it takes chutzpah to transfer a well loved work like Madam Butterfly from the opera house into the cavernous Royal Albert Hall AND make it work.



The fact is if you can use the Royal Albert Hall space effectively, as Gubbay and his team have, it gives opera an entirely new dimension. For a start, you can see it in the round, which can't fail to bring audiences closer to the action. And being the size it is, the RAH arena invites a greater scope for visual ambitions, in this case a large water garden (yep, real water) that surrounds Butterfly's house. But it's what this production achieves aurally that really hits home, in particular the humming chorus in Act II which wafts down magically from the gallery into a dimmed auditorium with only Chinese lanterns for light. Beat that Royal Opera.



There is a price to pay for this. The singers are miked-up and while this is a crime too far for some opera-goers, I don't see how it can be avoided in a large venue like the Royal Albert Hall. Sure, you do lose some purity of tone and at times a certain shrillness creeps in, particularly at the top end of the singers' range. On balance though, the theatrical gains far outweigh any reservations I have about the whole microphone issue.



So, Mr Gubbay, when are you going to do The Ring?

Milos Karadaglic/The Ivy Club

A lunchtime showcase for Milos Karadaglic, a twenty something guitarist from Montenegro recently signed by Deutsche Grammophon. Despite its ubiquity, the guitar's profile as a solo instrument doesn't match that of the piano or the fiddle. Presumably DG believe there is a gap in the market so who better to fill it than a Mediterranean dish like Milos.

OK, so it was only a show case but it would have been more refreshing if he had come up with something other than Romance, you know, that tune favoured by buskers the world over? But it was Valentine's day, he reminded us.

Laydees, form an orderly queue....

Ivana Gavric/The Forge

Lordy, another new(ish) venue to check out. The Forge is a chapel sized concert venue located at the back of a flashy Italian restaurant in Camden. So far in its relatively short life it has played host to a healthy mixture of jazz, world and classical music, all done, it would seem, without a penny of public subsidy. Good luck with that!

Stepping into the beige coloured hall this weekend is Ivana Gavric, a young Sarajevo born pianist who has been doing great things since leaving the Royal College of Music in 2005. As curator of The Forge's mini Janacek Festival, In The Mists, she devoted an evening to virtually all of Janacek's solo piano works (there would be more, she told us, were it not for Janacek throwing them into a river in an unsatisfied rage). What remains is still some of the best music Janacek ever wrote. Gavric might have imposed herself on Janacek's angular rhythms more forcefully at the beginning but she settled into her role as story teller with great tenderness, helped, I'm sure by The Forge's welcome intimacy.

Blackbeard's Tea Party/The Good Ship

This lively folk-rock band (I'm sure I could refine this categorisation but it will do for now) have been having such a ball in their native York that it's only now they've ventured down to London. And not before time. Playing in the ever so slightly eccentric The Good Ship in Kilburn - the stage is downstairs and the audience is upstairs - the six strong band ran through their energetic set with barely a pause for breath. Eschewing the plethora of instruments that accompany some of their contemporaries, Blackbeard's Tea Party like taking things right back to basics. That's not to say they lack any musical expertise, quite the opposite, as ably demonstrated by the fiddle and accordion of Laura Barber and Paul Young, the focus of the band's distinctive sound. The audience loved them, some of whom were Londoners. So please, come again .

http://www.blackbeardsteaparty.com/index.html

Lore Lixenberg/Rich Mix

Lore Lixenberg is mezzo-soprano with a more interesting hinterland than your average opera singer. Although no stranger to the more conventional end of the operatic spectrum, she has made her name in more offbeat and experimental ventures like Jerry Springer - The Opera.

Tonight at Rich Mix in Shoreditch (no I've never heard of it before either) she performed - sometimes in person, sometimes on a pre-prepared recording - a selection of electronic plainchants some of which were beautifully effective. Jamie Telford's Gaudiamus Lixenburgos was particularly engaging. Based on a 16th century round multi-tracked by Lixenberg, he enveloped this celebration of Spring with wonderful bursts of colour by cleverly distorting the vocal line.

The remaining pieces lacked the same coherence as the Telford, coming dangerously close to unyielding wallpaper music.