Sarah Urwin Jones Journalist, Writer, Broadcaster

With his new opera mining a rich seam of Bosnian music that ethnic cleansing could not destroy, Nigel Osborne tells Sarah Urwin Jones about falling in love with Sevdah. Continue reading ››

ABERDEEN is famous for many things - oil, granite, oil, maybe helicopters - but contemporary music is not one of them. Asked to pinpoint the locale for a festival in which you can hear a man playing a Celtic war horn one night - the indomitable carnyx - and the Black Lips strutting their Southern punk stuff the next, a cutting-edge chamber ensemble in one hall and a man ‘playing’ a laptop in another, it’s pretty safe to say you wouldn’t pick Aberdeen. This, after all, is the city where orchestras touring from the central belt traditionally remove the ‘contemporary’ item from their programmes in favour of a ’safe’ bit of Mozart. Continue reading ››

OPERA has inspired much of the theatre programme of the 2007 Edinburgh International Festival, but this has been a disappointing year for staged opera generally, with only two productions on offer - L’Orfeo from Barcelona, and the final week’s new production of Strauss’ Capriccio from Cologne. With £1m inherited debt and a very short time to put a festival together when the opera world is booked up years in advance, it’s perhaps no surprise, but with a festival director currently creating one of his own opera’s on film in Sydney as we speak, opera lovers can surely hope for more meat next year. Continue reading ››

When the Scottish Executive announced its plan in January 2006 to take direct funding control over the national arts companies, including Scottish Opera, a wave of apprehension rippled through an arts world which had enjoyed arms length funding since the Second World War. We could take the positive view that cuddling the Scottish arts to their bosom might make our political decision makers more culturally aware, but given the prevailing view of opera in the mind of the more unreconstructed MSP as unfashionable and elitist, I wouldn’t have put my life savings on it. Continue reading ››

ALEX Reedjyk, the new chief at the top of the revived Scottish Opera, is not a man to talk of the past. When dark years and staff cuts meander into conversation, he responds good naturedly, with a “Well, that was before my time,” or, “Luckily I missed that bit.” Continue reading ››