Music - Birmingham gigs, bands and concerts

Review: Noah Stewart, at Adrian Boult Hall Jun 01 2012

Having been impressed by Noah Stewart in a John Wilson concert last December at Symphony Hall, I was interested to see how this much-vaunted young American tenor would fare in the Adrian Boult Hall’s more intimate acoustic.Read

Review: CBSO, at Symphony Hall Jun 01 2012

Many of us would claim that Walton’s First Symphony is the greatest ever composed by a Briton, and Thursday’s performance by the CBSO would go a long way towards affirming that. Read

Review: Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, at CBSO Centre Jun 01 2012

The space Oliver Knussen fills in the world of music is immense, and not only because of his big, genial frame. Busy as a most probing, perceptive conductor (and not only of contemporary music), he still somehow manages to find time to produce compositions of fastidious clarity and engagement.Read

Review: Dracula, at Symphony Hall Jun 01 2012

Numerous film scores pay tribute to Philip Glass’s creative talents, not least this evening’s black and white film, Dracula from 1931. Read

Review: The Peacemakers, at Symphony Hall Jun 01 2012

Say what you like about his music, but Karl Jenkins is a phenomenon. From 1970s jazz-rock to advertising jingles and large-scale choral works, he is now, as his publicity trills, ‘the most performed living composer in the world.’Read

Review: Ex Cathedra, at Birmingham Town Hall Jun 01 2012

For over 40 years Jeffrey Skidmore and Ex Cathedra have gradually expanded their exploration of choral music, both backwards in time and forwards up to the present day.Read

Diamond Jubilee: Royally entertained with Elgar Jun 01 2012

A bumper week lies ahead to tie in with the Diamond Jubilee celebrations and a certain musical luminary's birthday. Christopher Morley gives us the lowdown.Read

Jazz Diary May 31 2012

* Of the many excellent jazz musicians to have come out of the West Midlands scene in the last decade or so, one of the most interesting and talented is, to my ears, Shabaka Hutchings.Read

Fifty years and still spellbound by Britten's War Requiem May 25 2012

It's half a century since Benjamin Britten premiered his masterpiece War Requiem at Coventry Cathedral. Christopher Morley recalls a young boy who was transfixed by the moment all those years ago.Read

Review: Chilingirian Quartet, at Grafton Manor Chapel, Bromsgrove May 25 2012

Difficult to know where the excitement lay for this concert in this year’s stimulating Bromsgrove Festival, whether it was for the opportunity to catch up with the Chilingirian Quartet (now in amazingly its 40th year) or to check out the progress of the brilliant young saxophonist Amy Dickson, winner of the Festival’s Young Musicians Platform in 2002.Read

Review: City of Birmingham Choir, at Birmingham Town Hall May 25 2012

This concert by the City of Birmingham Choir offered several points of comparison and contrast. A conventional enough programme (Classical Meets Romantic was the title) it partnered Beethoven’s Mass in C with Schumann’s little-known Requiem in an almost chalk-and-cheese musical pairing.Read

Review: Burman In Hollywood, CBSO at Symphony Hall May 25 2012

East met West for a tribute to one of the most famous 20th century Indian composers: R.D. Burman, creator of 300 legendary film soundtracks for thriving Bollywood, transforming Indian film music for ever. Much was familiar to the audience, but unusual for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s slightly reduced strength of 75 players.Read

Review: CBSO, at Symphony Hall May 25 2012

We can easily understand Britten’s composing ‘Our Hunting Fathers’. A pacifist under gathering war-clouds, as well as a passionate animal-lover, he responded gladly to the sardonic anti-Establishment poetry written and selected by W.H. Auden.Read