A S H Smyth

Eshantha Peiris, piano, Lionel Wendt Theatre A piano, a pianist, and a soft white light. Good, I think. Good. Neat. Clean. Then I see the banner projected onto the backcloth. It is 15ft by 6, at least. It says ‘EVOCATIVE’.  The pianist begins to play. The banner remains. Sort of. Now it plays a slide-show […]

In a programme frankly unimaginable by any orchestra not at the very top of its game, it was depressing to see the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka open last Sunday’s concert with a return to ‘form’, another slack and soupy rendition of their own national anthem. The second national anthem was rather rousing – the […]

In the first of the Great Artist Series, presented by the Chamber Music Society of Colombo, acclaimed French pianist Jean-Bernard Pommier performed three meisterwerk sonatas to a sell-out Goethe-Institut crowd. Mozart’s Sonata in D Major is a lightish confection, perhaps slightly more icing than cake, from an era when pianos were still quite piano and […]

Glowing review of the SOSL Guest Conductor concert, 2010. [In which we learn, also, that it is better to file one’s copy at the absolute last minute, thereby precluding the editor from tampering with the text.]

The CMSC Bicentennial Concert 2009, reviewed.