Have been quietly working away on the above with a lot of help and guidance from Simon Hewitt Jones, the founder of Musbook.com. It's a social networking site for amateur and professional musicians. I've been put in charge of the TV side of things. It's difficult to do on a shoestring - actually, we haven't even got one of them - but thanks to an awful lot of good will from various contacts, we've managed to put out a couple of filmed interviews that will be there for all to see on the site shortly, if not already. We're kicking off with an interview with the Russian conductor Semyon Bychkov. Running along side the longer interviews will be shorter pieces with 'movers and shakers' ie musicians, journalists, commentators administrators, that kind of thing. The cellist Zoe Marlew is our first interviewee.
It's got huge potential this even if though we have absolutely no resources (for now). It may take a while to find its feet but I think there might be something in this nichecasting thing...
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Thursday, 21 May 2009
The South Bank Show
Quite surprising how the demise of Melvyn's flagship arts programme continues to rumble on. Here's a recent FT article on the subject.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/85db4f02-40dc-11de-8f18-00144feabdc0.html
I don't know, lovely all the plaudits are for the SBS, I notice most come from blokes of Melvyn's age. Where are the younger commentators in all of this? Perhaps they have given up on TV. That's not a criticism but a sign of the times perhaps.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/85db4f02-40dc-11de-8f18-00144feabdc0.html
I don't know, lovely all the plaudits are for the SBS, I notice most come from blokes of Melvyn's age. Where are the younger commentators in all of this? Perhaps they have given up on TV. That's not a criticism but a sign of the times perhaps.
Friday, 15 May 2009
The Classical Brits/RAH
Domingo, Carreras and Kiri Te Kanawa were some of the big names at the RAH last night to help celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Classical Brits. It hasn't had the easiest of rides with the more established end of the classical world but ten years on I sense a mellowing of attitudes. Ultimately the Classical Brits don't do anyone any harm. Take it or leave it and enjoy your life...(I borrowed that from somewhere I'm sure).
Enticingly, the boy wonder of the piano, Lang Lang was on hand to duet with jazz legend Herbie Hancock in Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Although promising on paper it sounded a bit splashy and under rehearsed but the audience loved it.
Overall the show was as slick as ever. Despite the impressive roll call, it was relative newcomer Alison Balsom who stole the show. Playing the third movement of Hummel's trumpet concerto with pinpoint precision she even managed, in her wonderfully tight dress, to add the odd shimmy on her semi-quaver runs. Never seen that before. Only at the Classical Brits....
http://www.alisonbalsom.com/
Enticingly, the boy wonder of the piano, Lang Lang was on hand to duet with jazz legend Herbie Hancock in Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Although promising on paper it sounded a bit splashy and under rehearsed but the audience loved it.
Overall the show was as slick as ever. Despite the impressive roll call, it was relative newcomer Alison Balsom who stole the show. Playing the third movement of Hummel's trumpet concerto with pinpoint precision she even managed, in her wonderfully tight dress, to add the odd shimmy on her semi-quaver runs. Never seen that before. Only at the Classical Brits....
http://www.alisonbalsom.com/
Sunday, 10 May 2009
Aldeburgh Music Campus
Snape Maltings, home of the Aldeburgh Festival that was founded by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears many moons ago, opened its doors this weekend for a housewarming to celebrate the completion of its new music campus. Like the much older Snape Maltings Concert Hall, the new spaces have been converted from existing buildings on site which had long fallen out of use. Funded with generous support from the Arts Council and private donors, the centrepiece of the campus is a brand new concert hall, Studio 1. Seating 340 its main purpose is as a rehearsal space for the Britten-Pears School - a year round scheme that nurtures the musical talents of young and old professionals. I myself was lucky enough to play with the orchestra way back at the tail end of my trumpet playing 'career'.
It's an attractive venue that has preserved many of the building's rougher edges - if you've been to Wilton's Musical Hall, you'll know what I mean. Interestingly, when the architects Howarth Tompkins first took on the project they discovered Britten had drawn up very similar plans for the site himself. I'm sure then he'd be delighted with the outcome albeit four decades on. My one quibble is that the extensive use of large planes of wood chip all over the place gives the venue a temporary rather than contemporary look if you get my meaning. And although I was immensely impressed with Rebecca Blankenship's performance in Schoenberg's Erwartung, the acoustic didn't strike me as being particularly helpful to her or the excellent Apollo Orchestra. However, I was fiercely overruled by my colleagues on this vexed issue.
It's an attractive venue that has preserved many of the building's rougher edges - if you've been to Wilton's Musical Hall, you'll know what I mean. Interestingly, when the architects Howarth Tompkins first took on the project they discovered Britten had drawn up very similar plans for the site himself. I'm sure then he'd be delighted with the outcome albeit four decades on. My one quibble is that the extensive use of large planes of wood chip all over the place gives the venue a temporary rather than contemporary look if you get my meaning. And although I was immensely impressed with Rebecca Blankenship's performance in Schoenberg's Erwartung, the acoustic didn't strike me as being particularly helpful to her or the excellent Apollo Orchestra. However, I was fiercely overruled by my colleagues on this vexed issue.
Friday, 8 May 2009
The South Bank Show
Sorry but I'm going to blow my own trumpet.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/tomserviceblog/2009/may/07/south-bank-show-handel-messiah
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/tomserviceblog/2009/may/07/south-bank-show-handel-messiah
Thursday, 7 May 2009
The South Bank Show, Semyon Bychkov/Musbook.com
End of an era. It was my bread and butter for twelve years and I loved it. Melvyn was a good boss even though I never stopped feeling slightly intimidated by him, more my problem than his. He was very fair, constructive and encouraging who allowed us to take risks. I badgered him for weeks about this exciting young jazz pianist called Jamie Cullum. Eventually he came round to the idea even though ITV was breathing down his neck about ratings. But he really went with it, capturing the zeitgeist as he so often did and was rewarded with very good viewing figures. That and many other fond memories were rudely cut short after reading the vitriolic comments about him and the show on the Guardian's website today. God almighty, what did Melvyn ever do to poor old Guardian readers?
My first head to head interview for Musbook.com today. I interviewed Semyon Bychkov, currently conducting Lohengrin at ROH. Excellent speaker who thankfully doesn't do pompousness like other 'maestros'. Great insights into the world of a conductor. The finished result should appear on the musbook.com tv channel early next month.
My first head to head interview for Musbook.com today. I interviewed Semyon Bychkov, currently conducting Lohengrin at ROH. Excellent speaker who thankfully doesn't do pompousness like other 'maestros'. Great insights into the world of a conductor. The finished result should appear on the musbook.com tv channel early next month.
Tuesday, 28 April 2009
Coraline
Based on Neil Gaiman's book of the same name, this treat of a movie centres around a little girl called Coraline. Lonely and unimpressed with her new home, not to mention her non-communicative parents, she is lead into another world behind a disused door where all the wrongs of her current situation are made right. Or so we think...
It's an intelligent, understated handling of the story by director Henry Selick which brings to mind Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are and the more recent Pan's Labyrinth. As ever, Coraline conquers the challenges set before her but not before many a scary encounter. The fact that this film is in brilliant 3D only adds to its beautiful dreamlike vibrancy. Terrific.
It's an intelligent, understated handling of the story by director Henry Selick which brings to mind Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are and the more recent Pan's Labyrinth. As ever, Coraline conquers the challenges set before her but not before many a scary encounter. The fact that this film is in brilliant 3D only adds to its beautiful dreamlike vibrancy. Terrific.
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