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2024-04-25
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2024-03-16 09:57:00
From Early Music to contemporary: the Royal Festival Hall organ is 70 and organist James McVinnie is celebrating with a Southbank Centre residency
James McVinnie performing at the Royal Festival Hall organ with Bedroom Community - Sept 2015The Royal Festival Hall organ is 70. Built from 1950–1954 to the specification of the London County Council's consultant, Ralph Downes, it was restored and re-configured by Harrison & Harrison as part of the hall's reconstruction during 2005-2007 and it was re-inaugurated on its 60th anniversary in March 2014. Now, to celebrate the instrument's 70th birthday, organist James McVinnie has a residency at the Southbank Centre featuring organ recitals including a wide range of repertoire as well as an appearance by the James McVinnie Ensemble.Though James had played the organ once before the rebuild, he was not familiar with it until he came to play it as part of the 2014 celebrations. But he spent two years as an organ scholar at St Albans Cathedral where the organ was also designed by Ralph Downes and built […]
2024-01-24 07:29:00
Norfolk-based arts writer, Tony Cooper, enjoys a musical heritage tour to Leipzig, a relaxing and inviting city to visit awash with so much musical history.
The Gewandhaus at the Augustusplatz in Leipzig-Mitte with the Mendebrunnen at night (2016)(Photo: Wikimedia - By Ichwarsnur - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0) Come 2025, the Leipzig Gewandhaus will be staging a major international festival in honour of Dimitri Shostakovich marking the 50th anniversary of his deathA frequent visitor to Germany attending Ring cycles here, there and everywhere, Tony Cooper recently enjoyed a short break in Leipzig taking in a concert by the Gewandhausorchester conducted by Alan Gilbert featuring Shostakovich’s 10th symphony whilst also enjoying a rare performance of Thea Musgrave’s opera, Mary, Queen of Scots. With so much musical history and knowledge wrapped up in Leipzig’s cultural portfolio, Tony also took adventurous steps by way of trekking the Leipzig Music Trail stopping off to visit the Bach-Archiv, conveniently situated opposite St Thomas’ Church and the Mendelssohn House Museum not forgetting, of course, the Schumann House while soaking up the city’s illustrious […]
2023-10-29 14:00:33
2023-10-29 14:00:00
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