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Category Archives: review

Round ’em up (head ’em out)!

Thursday, August 18, 2011

This week’s (Thursday – Wednesday) greatest hits from/by my colleagues at the nation’s finest critical website. — For theartsdesk

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Of Danes and Darfur

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Review of Susanne Bier’s In A Better World. — For theartsdesk

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Maiden voyeur

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Review of Iron Maiden, at the O2. (I did not see that coming.) — For theartsdesk

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Too much Sade, not enough de Sade

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Sri Lankan erotica comes of age (prematurely) Blue: stories for adults ed. Ameena Hussein It is practically impossible to write good erotica. By which we mean literary porn. By which we mean ‘even DH Lawrence couldn’t really pull it off’. In the UK there’s actually an annual Bad Sex Award, routinely won (‘won’) by mainstream […]

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An audience (with the Copenhagen Royal Chapel Choir)

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Matters spiritual aren’t really, as they say, my ‘thing’. (In all honesty, I’m not too hot on the temporal, either). But recently, what with a local recital under discussion, surprise correspondence from an erstwhile colleague at Hampton Court, and then, of course, The Wedding (watched grudgingly, I hasten to add, though I stood for the […]

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Old dog, New World

Sunday, March 13, 2011

SOSL New World Concert   Arriving at Ladies’ College at the seventh hour, game-faced and Chooty drawn, I was informed that the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka’s New World Concert was sold out.* While a few hundred rupees for an evening’s live music remains a pretty good deal, I have to confess this eventuality had […]

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Bach – plus bite

Monday, January 3, 2011

CMSC The Bach Concert 2010 When Glenn Gould said he’d take the music of Bach with him to the proverbial desert island he failed to specify which Bach. It’s fair to assume, though, he did not mean all of them. In a concert sponsored by – whom else? – the German Embassy, the Chamber Music […]

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Horses for courses

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

SOSL Première Concert Like a veteran sprinter in a distance race, the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka was quickly away, found stride of genuine grace and quality, travelled well, and then, all-too-predictably, weakened through the latter furlongs until eventually, but barely, making the finish. They came out of the gate with Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in […]

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Play us a dune!

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Sand: A Journey Through Science And The Imagination Michael Welland OUP, 320pp, £18.99 ISBN 978-0-19-956318-0 ‘Did you know that the Sand Mountain in Nevada emits a low C, while dunes in Chile sound an F, and those in Morocco a G#?’ Me neither. But that’s not the only thing you’ll learn about ‘the sand of […]

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Standing up to Scrutony

Monday, August 30, 2010

Understanding Music: Philosophy and Interpretation Roger Scruton Continuum, 244pp, £18.99 ISBN 978-1-84706-506-3 That any book might ‘appeal both to specialists of philosophy and musicology and also to the ordinary music lover’ is perhaps a little optimistic. In the case of Understanding Music, however, it is – through either authorial arrogance or editorial blindness – wildly […]

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