Truth be told, I am almost apprehensive when watching or reading the morning news these days. Front pages and screens are full of yet more atrocities against humanity, and the death of innocent people from around the world is treated

Anna Bolena (Donizetti) MusicaViva Hong Kong City Hall, Concert Hall 8,9, 10 Dec 2023 Drawing inspiration from the shadowy corridors of power and passion, Donizetti’s wildly popular Anna Bolena shines a spotlight on the queen of England who met a

When Camille Saint-Saëns died of a heart attack on 16 December 1921 in Algiers, his body was taken back to Paris for a state funeral at the Madeleine. His career had spanned 70 years and five continents. He performed as

The early to mid-19th century was more than just a time of waltzes, it was also the polka and the galop that held the floor. The most important dancemen came from Vienna: Johann Strauss I and Joseph Lanner. A group

Clarinet superstar Martin Fröst has been described as having “a virtuosity and a musicianship unsurpassed by any clarinettist, perhaps any instrumentalist, in recent memory.” In 2014 he received the Léonie Sonning Music Prize, one of the world’s highest musical honours,

In Korean, the name “Bomsori” basically means “the sound of spring,” but professionally, the violinist Bomsori Kim has earned the nickname “Competition Huntress.” Indeed, she has won a long list of competitions, including the 62nd ARD International Music Competition, the

Thomas Guthrie’s new arrangement of Schubert’s Die Schöne Mullerin with the Alehouse Boys released on Rubicon Classics kicks off/marks the 200th anniversary of this song cycle, bringing back the playful, reinvention the composer and his friends could/might recognise. Guthrie BaS

In 1734, Johann Sebastian Bach was at the top of his game. His compositional powers were simply out of this world, and he composed six musically and textually interrelated cantatas for the twelve days of Christmas. He called the collection