Sarah Urwin Jones Journalist, Writer, Broadcaster

THE Edinburgh Quartet are not usually known for their pioneering contemporary music repertoire, so this gala launch concert for their latest CD, Frontiers and Bridges, a project charting some of the early 21st-century protégées of the University of Edinburgh’s music faculty, and Professor Nigel Osborne in particular, was fascinating, and much enhanced by Osborne’s lively commentary. The Quartet play “new” with as much care and sensitivity - more even, perhaps - as their opening classic, Beethoven’s “young man’s” String Quartet in F, Op 18, No 1. Continue reading ››

NABUCCO, the tale of the Babylonian conqueror who sacks and burns God’s Temple in Jerusalem, only to be temporarily struck down by the Big Man himself, is a gift, you might think, for the Chisinau Moldovans whose “traditional” productions, under the aegis of producer Ellen Kent, field pyrotechnics, dry ice and livestock like a scattergun. Continue reading ››

YOU would have to have been living under a rock for the last few months to have missed the fact that it’s Elgar’s 150th birthday this year. And what better way to celebrate the life and work of one of England’s best known composers than with a bit of Pomp and Circumstance? That’s how the Scottish Sinfonia chose to open this tribute concert, but, gallingly, due to a transport mishap, I missed the whole of the rarely performed March No 6. Continue reading ››

Consortium5’s fare is about as far as you can get from painful school-day recorder recitals of Frère Jacques - they perform a considerable repertoire on a staggering range of instruments. The award-winning ensemble are all recent graduates of the Royal Academy of Music, bussed up to Scotland for the day (although two of the all-female group are natives) to inspire participants on a three-day course for young players. Continue reading ››

Another RSNO return visit for the flamboyant former principal conductor of the RSNO, Alexander Lazarev, with fellow Russian back-up from Boris Belkin, whose publicity shot seems bizarrely to date from his first appearance with the RSNO, circa 1977. Continue reading ››