Alan Gray News
British musician
Commemorations 2025 (Birth: Alan Gray)
- organ
- United Kingdom, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
- composer, organist
Last update
2024-04-25
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2024-04-22 08:37:00
Mozart: Don Giovanni - Hurn Court Opera (Photo: Patrick Frost, BlackStar Pictures)Mozart: Don Giovanni: Sam Young, Samuel Lom, Lizzie Rydeer, Daniel Gray Bell, Hanna O'Brien, Harrison Chéné-Gration, Tilly Goodwin, William Stevens, dir: Joy Robinson, cond: Lynton Atkinson; Hurn Court Opera at Theatre Royal, WinchesterReviewed by James McConnachie, 11 April 2024A dedicated group of vastly talented singers – young singers – riding on the delight of an audience that was evidently as full of newbies as buffsEven lifelong opera-lovers can sometimes feel dispirited. Opera survives on the support and generosity and love of a generation born within 20 years of the war – but anyone looking around them in the stalls, or the grand tier, or the balcony or, frankly, even the amphitheatre of the Royal Opera House might be forgiven for wondering where the next generation is going to come from. Is it economics that is keeping out the […]
2024-04-16 12:38:00
The Empress Reawakens
OK, since late 2022 Sieglinde's been to a few more spectacles for sure, some in opera houses she'd never visited before. How can she restart this baby amidst this thrilling gloom? But the fire hydrant of life continues to spew experiences, her impressions rushing down the drain, emulsifying in the Gray soup. Posts from decades ago, here in this blog, relive traces of faces and sound. As she reawakens, she looks around and finds that some recent feelings are also worth encoding, for the time when all she will have are these words.
2024-02-16 07:46:00
Olawale Olayinka: Songs My Mother Taught Me
Olawale Olayinka is a young Nigerian classically trained violinist, currently based in London. If you have seen Brixton Chamber Orchestra or Chineke! then you may well have seen him. His performances with Chineke! include appearances last Summer performing Beethoven, Holst, Vaughan Williams' and Coleridge-Taylor, conducted by Kellen Gray, as well as with the orchestra at the 2023 Brit Awards at the O2 performing with Stormzy.Olayinka has just released a self-produced EP entitled Songs My Mother Taught Me, six tracks in which he plays traditional songs in modern versions with a mix of his solo violin and electronics. We begin with Oluronbi, just violin melody over ambient electronics, intriguing and engaging. The irregular phrase lengths in the music make it distinctive, whilst Olayinka's decision to not dress up the material pays dividends. The same approach applies to Labe igi orombo, with rather touching results and to the haunting Iwe Kiko. There is […]
2023-12-06 07:44:00
A lifetime's experience: John Nelson finally records Messiah in a finely engaged performance, with a fantastic quartet of soloists
[…] so that the regular alto solos, including 'He was despised' are all sung (very finely) by Potter. But Nelson does seem to have been fascinated by Messiah's history so there is a bonus section of eight variants, including the original 12/8 'Rejoice greatly', a selection of beautiful feet and even an alternative 'But who may abide'.Handel: Messiah - Lucy Crowe, Alex Potter, Michael Spyres, Matthew Brook, English Concert & Choir, John Nelson - Coventry Cathedral (Photo: Jamie Gray)Nelson's recordings have largely been on modern instruments, including his Berlioz series from Strasbourg and the very fine recording of Handel's Semele with Kathleen Battle in the title role, a recording which uses one of the longest versions of the work on disc. Here, he is conducting the period instrument forces of the English Concert. But his approach is pretty traditional, the speeds in the overture and the subsequent arias certainly do not frighten the horses, […]
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