https://www.scmp.com/rss/3580/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com In 2005, Rye Bautista of Ballet Philippines went from the Manila Cultural Centre to the stage at Hong Kong Disneyland, before landing on the counter at Volume, a bar in Sheung Wan. Dazed and exhilarated, Bautista emerged from this (sadly now closed) cocoon for the gay community as the irreverent, irresistible and impeccably dressed La Chiquitta, self-proclaimed daughter of Hong Kong, the city’s undisputed Queen of Drag. The journey to becoming La C, she told me, involved mastering the art of... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3278261/how-hong-kong-based-drag-queen-la-chiquitta-was-rainbow-over-victoria-harbour?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3278261/how-hong-kong-based-drag-queen-la-chiquitta-was-rainbow-over-victoria-harbour?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 14 Sep 2024 08:15:07 +0000 Jonathan Douglas, well-known Hong Kong broadcaster, actor, musician, theatre producer and director, died peacefully in London on August 26 after a protracted battle with cancer. For 30 years he presented classical music on RTHK Radio 4, which he joined in 1986. The high quality of his programmes played an important part in developing Hong Kong as a leading Asian centre for music and the arts. His signature show, Artbeat, kept its finger on the pulse of the Hong Kong cultural scene. A consummate... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3191083/consummate-broadcaster-jonathan-douglas-rthk-classical-music?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3191083/consummate-broadcaster-jonathan-douglas-rthk-classical-music?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 04 Sep 2022 03:45:15 +0000 William Bolcom Songs of Innocence and of Experience (Naxos) American composer William Bolcom's setting of the 46 poems of William Blake's much-loved Songs of Innocence and Experience is a massive musical hybrid that gives each poem a different musical treatment - classical, jazz, contemporary atonal, country and western, choral, operatic and rock. Conducted by Leonard Slatkin, this vast work is fluently shaped over its nine movements, each given its own distinct emotional parabola. Blake... https://www.scmp.com/article/505054/william-bolcom?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/505054/william-bolcom?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 18 Jun 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Angela Gheorghiu Puccini (EMI Classics) When Angela Gheorghiu recently performed some of the arias from her new CD, Puccini, the London crowd gave her the rapturous reception that they famously used to give Maria Callas. The Romanian still has some way to go before being crowned as Callas' successor, but she shares with the Greek diva a darkness and intensity of voice and a dramatic potency that's perfect for interpreting Puccini's tragic heroines. This CD is a powerful showcase for... https://www.scmp.com/article/503236/angela-gheorghiu?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/503236/angela-gheorghiu?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 04 Jun 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Unsuk Chin Akrostichon-Wortspiel (Deutsche Grammophon) When South Korean-born, Berlin-based composer Unsuk Chin won the Grawemeyer Award last year, only one of her works had been recorded - a single piece on a compilation released 10 years ago. Which is why the recently released Akrostichon-Wortspiel (Acrostic Wordplay), played by the excellent Ensemble Intercontemporain, is all the more welcome. As well as the title piece, which Chin composed between 1991 and 1993, the disc contains her... https://www.scmp.com/article/500690/unsuk-chin?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/500690/unsuk-chin?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 14 May 2005 16:00:00 +0000 So Percussion Steve Reich Drumming (Cantaloupe) Drummers are famously a breed apart, temperamental and individualistic, so to have a group like So Percussion made up solely of drummers, four in all, is an intriguing prospect. Happily, they play 'as if with one mind'. Scored for nine percussion instruments, including bongos, marimbas and glockenspiel, Drumming is a multi-track recording of one of Steve Reich's minimalist masterpieces that demonstrates the young musicians' expertise across... https://www.scmp.com/article/497937/so-percussion?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/497937/so-percussion?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 23 Apr 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Yu Qiang Dai Opera Arias (EMI Classics) Beijing-based Chinese tenor Yu Qiang Dai is a young singer with a big, old-fashioned lyrical voice - listening to him evokes memories of the young Jose Carreras. Opera Arias is a collection of 12 much-loved arias mainly from the standard Italian Romantic repertoire with six by Puccini, including the ubiquitous Nessun Dorma which he sings with compelling commitment, carrying the aria through to a truly thrilling climax. One of the strengths of Dai's... https://www.scmp.com/article/496897/yu-qiang-dai?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/496897/yu-qiang-dai?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Apr 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Tonight A NEW season of Songbirds begins with the first of nine new drama serials to be broadcast over the coming year. In Songbirds, which teaches English through drama, comprehension questions will be asked before each episode and the answers given at the end. This will be followed by a section in which language in the drama is highlighted and explained. There will be recorded student comments on topics raised in the drama and some easy-to-listen-to classical or folk music to help you... https://www.scmp.com/article/495701/feast-drama-fans?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/495701/feast-drama-fans?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 06 Apr 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Lang Lang Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No 2 (Deutsche Grammophon) Fanatical followers of pin-up Chinese pianist Lang Lang hail him as a keyboard messiah. Detractors think he's all show. Deutsche Grammophon has cleverly brought together Lang Lang, Russian dynamo Valery Gergiev and the Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre in a live recording of two of Rachmaninov's best-loved works: his Piano Concerto No2 and the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. This is certainly Lang Lang's best recording... https://www.scmp.com/article/494442/lang-lang?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/494442/lang-lang?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 26 Mar 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Turning brushstrokes on canvas into movements in space fascinates Hong Kong's reigning queen of choreography, Helen Lai, of the City Contemporary Dance Company. In an earlier work, Frida, Lai took five paintings by the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo and translated them into a ravishing dance piece that evoked the artist's extraordinary life. Kahlo's paintings are naive and easy to read, far removed from the abstract technicolour works of Hong Kong artist Yank Wong Yan-kwai, whose... https://www.scmp.com/article/493551/colours-leap-canvas-and-pale-significance-stage?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/493551/colours-leap-canvas-and-pale-significance-stage?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 19 Mar 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Stories change as they are repeated and this is what happens in Pipa's Ring, tonight's Songbirds drama on RTHK Radio 4 (FM 97.6) at 9.30pm. Pipa finds a ring and shows it to Wendy who tells Gemma about it. Gemma tells Mimi and Mimi tells Pansy until finally the story of Pipa's ring has very little to do with the truth. Below is an extract from tonight's episode for you to read either before or while listening to the radio programme. Pipa: Hey, Wendy, look what I've just found! Wendy: A ring!... https://www.scmp.com/article/493151/story-doesnt-ring-true?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/493151/story-doesnt-ring-true?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:00:00 +0000 In the final episode of the drama V-Card Romance, Nicky decides to confront Prakash about the Valentine card after a disastrous date with Ben. Nicky wonders how a boring boy like Ben could have written such romantic words in her Valentine card. Later, Nicky's friend Tina speculates that maybe it was Ben's friend Prakash who wrote the card as she remembered seeing both of them in the card shop. Nicky is still mesmerised by the words in her Valentine card and she decides to ask Prakash... https://www.scmp.com/article/492089/disaster-waterfall?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/492089/disaster-waterfall?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 09 Mar 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Romance is in the air in tonight's Songbirds drama episode, V-Card Romance. Nicky has received a Valentine card and is swept off her feet by it. The mystery writer has asked for a date that night in Kowloon Park by the waterfall. But that evening when she waits for her mystery boy by the waterfall she bumps into her classmate Ben. Nicky think that Ben is boring and she is afraid that he might spoil her mystery date, so she tries to get rid of him. But Nicky does not know that it was Ben who... https://www.scmp.com/article/491102/nicky-meets-secret-valentine?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/491102/nicky-meets-secret-valentine?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 02 Mar 2005 16:00:00 +0000 At the last minute, I gave a spare opera ticket to a friend who had little chance to understand what she was about to see. During the interval, she said that she'd spent the whole of the first act trying to make sense of 'an operatic riot of lesbian passion'. There is, of course, no lesbianism in Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito, but there are two central travesti roles, Sesto and Annio - a travesti role being a male role sung by a woman, sometimes referred to as a 'pants' or 'trouser'... https://www.scmp.com/article/490527/when-women-wear-trousers-mozart?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/490527/when-women-wear-trousers-mozart?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 26 Feb 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Don't miss the start of tonight's new Songbirds drama, V-Card Romance, on RTHK Radio 4 at 9.30pm. The 'V' in the title stands for Valentine. Valentine's Day is approaching and Nicky cannot decide who to send a card to. Finally she and her friend Tina decide to send one to the least likely boy in the class. Meanwhile, Ben tells his friend Prakash that he has a crush on Nicky and confesses that he finds it difficult to talk to girls. So Prakash suggests sending a Valentine card to Nicky. Ben... https://www.scmp.com/article/490207/love-air?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/490207/love-air?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 23 Feb 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Comparisons were inevitable when Prokofiev's thrilling Third Piano Concerto was played twice by different performers in the same week - and hawkish London audiences were looking for a loser. The first performance was south of the river at London's Royal Festival Hall by the veteran Italian-American pianist James Tocco. The second was north of the river by young Simon Trpceski from the Republic of Macedonia. Backing Tocco on the conductor's rostrum was Mikhail Pletnev, a Russian pianist... https://www.scmp.com/article/489661/duel-purpose-key-players-concerto-clash?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/489661/duel-purpose-key-players-concerto-clash?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 19 Feb 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Flirting individually with 2,000 people would seem to be a tall order, but cheeky opera divas Barbara Bonney and Angelika Kirchschlager did just that in a concert of duets at London's Barbican to promote their new CD, First Encounter. Think of the most famous opera divas in the world and London-based US soprano Bonney and Austrian mezzo Kirchschlager would come close to the top of the list. So, to have both on stage together, along with pianist Malcolm Martineau, was an occasion not to be... https://www.scmp.com/article/488814/synchronised-songbirds-too-saccharine-be-sweet?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/488814/synchronised-songbirds-too-saccharine-be-sweet?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 12 Feb 2005 16:00:00 +0000 John Adams mounted the conductor's rostrum in London's Barbican, turned to the audience with a whimsical smile and said, 'I'd like to apologise to Mozart for sandwiching his Third Violin Concerto between two white slabs of American bread' - the slabs of bread being My Father Knew Charles Ives and Naive and Sentimental Music, works he composed during the past six years. Adams is one of the US' foremost living composers, best known for his operas, Nixon in China and The Death of... https://www.scmp.com/article/488385/slice-american-pie-even-brits-adore?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/488385/slice-american-pie-even-brits-adore?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 05 Feb 2005 16:00:00 +0000 The current Songbirds drama serial, Brother-Sister, Sister-Brother, is unusual. It sees a sister dressing up as her brother and taking his girlfriend out on a date. In tonight's episode at 9.30pm on RTHK Radio 4 (FM 97.6), Chris recovers from his illness and finally goes out with Michelle. But he is very nervous and behaves in a rough, boyish way which Michelle does not like. In fact, this is Chris' first date and, deep down, he is terrified. Below is the first part of tonight's... https://www.scmp.com/article/488049/date-turns-sour?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/488049/date-turns-sour?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 02 Feb 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Written at the beginning of the second world war, Michael Tippett's popular oratorio, A Child of Our Time, was never meant to be staged. But last week at London's Coliseum, Jonathan Kent presented a dramatised version as part of the English National Opera's contribution to Tippett's 100th birthday celebrations. The staging of the oratorio was also in tune with current commemorations of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, which is being marked by events including a concert... https://www.scmp.com/article/487547/staging-choral-work-tips-scales-bleakness?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/487547/staging-choral-work-tips-scales-bleakness?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 29 Jan 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Tune in to RTHK Radio 4 (97.6 FM) at 9.30 tonight for the fourth episode of the Songbirds drama series Brother-Sister, Sister-Brother. In last week's episode, Christine dressed up like her brother Chris to go on a date with Michelle. Tonight, you will hear how on the day after her date with Chris(tine), Michelle's friend Serena suggests that the sensitive Chris(tine) could be gay. Meanwhile, Christine tells her brother about the date and Chris asks his sister to speak to Michelle if she... https://www.scmp.com/article/487177/suspicions-grow?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/487177/suspicions-grow?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 26 Jan 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Finding audiences for contemporary classical music is problematic: people are wary, unprepared to gamble the price of a ticket on an evening of music that may be cold, incomprehensible and even depressing. In pursuit of an audience, new music is often slipped in between classical or romantic favourites - an ostrich surreptitiously released into a field of thoroughbred stallions. This was what happened to a piece by 30-year-old Scottish composer James MacMillan in a 1990 Saturday night London... https://www.scmp.com/article/486575/ticket-heaven-stops-all-stations?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/486575/ticket-heaven-stops-all-stations?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 22 Jan 2005 16:00:00 +0000 A sister dresses up as her brother to go on a date with his girlfriend. This is the amazing story of tonight's Songbirds drama on RTHK Radio 4 (97.6 FM), Brother-Sister, Sister-Brother. In tonight's drama at 9.30pm, Christine agrees to dress up as her brother Chris and go on a date with Michelle. Things go very well - it seems that Michelle and Christine have a lot in common. Next day, Michelle speaks to her best friend Serena about the date and, for various reasons, Serena becomes suspicious... https://www.scmp.com/article/486246/date-stirs-suspicions?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/486246/date-stirs-suspicions?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 19 Jan 2005 16:00:00 +0000 London is caught up in a determined drive to collect money to help victims of the tsunami disaster. The extensive classical music scene has joined in the spirit, with collectors standing by the exits of the capital's many concert and recital venues shaking donation buckets as audiences head for home. The London Handel Players gave a charity performance of Handel's infrequently performed Opus 5 at the beautiful Edwardian home of two of its principal players, flautist Rachel Brown and her... https://www.scmp.com/article/485748/london-gets-handel-aid?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/485748/london-gets-handel-aid?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 15 Jan 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Tune in to Radio 4 tonight for the Songbirds drama series Brother-Sister, Sister-Brother. It tells the story of a sister who dresses up as her brother to go out on a date with his girlfriend. Chris has the flu and is too sick to go out on his first date with Michelle. Chris does not have Michelle's phone number, so his sister Christine offers to meet the girl and explain that her brother is ill. But Chris is worried that Michelle will think this is an excuse. Christine jokingly offers to... https://www.scmp.com/article/485353/dating-game?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/485353/dating-game?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 12 Jan 2005 16:00:00 +0000 It's been estimated that a seat in the stalls for the whole fifteen-and-a-half hours of Wagner's four-part Ring Cycle at London's Royal Opera House will cost more than GBP600 ($8,800). But already the houses are full and crowds are flocking to Covent Garden for their operatic fix of Teutonic mythology. This surge of enthusiasm has, perhaps, been stoked by the absence this year of a new cinematic episode of that other ring cycle. It seems Londoners can't get enough of these epic Wagnerian... https://www.scmp.com/article/484819/london-flocks-genius-wagner?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/484819/london-flocks-genius-wagner?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 Jan 2005 16:00:00 +0000 If you WEre a boy, could you imagine your sister taking your place on a date with a girl, dressed as a boy? This brother-sister date-swap is the story line of a new Songbirds drama serial called Brother-Sister, Sister-Brother that begins tonight at 9.30pm on Radio 4 (FM 97.6). Chris and Christine are twins who look alike except for the fact that Chris is a boy and Christine is a girl. They are very close to each other and when Chris is too ill to go out on a date with a girl, he arranges... https://www.scmp.com/article/484458/chris-dating-dilemma?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/484458/chris-dating-dilemma?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 05 Jan 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Two Gilbert and Sullivan operas on stage in London at the same time - The Pirates of Penzance, a large, colourful affair for the English National Opera (ENO) at the Coliseum, and The Mikado boxed into the intimate venue of the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond - offered a jolly way to start London's musical new year. Pirates is a co-production with the Chicago Lyric Opera staged by Elijah Moshinsky. Written in 1878 and performed in New York the next year, it was the fourth of William Gilbert... https://www.scmp.com/article/483936/piracy-and-oriental-pitch?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/483936/piracy-and-oriental-pitch?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 01 Jan 2005 16:00:00 +0000 Silent films have provided fertile territory for contemporary composers. Last week, it was the turn of 49-year-old British composer Benedict Mason whose 1988 score for three of Chaplin's most famous comedies, The Charlie Chaplin Operas, was performed at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall. Visitors to Taipei may have caught an earlier performance of the work in January at the Chiang-Kai Shek Cultural Centre. Easy Street and The Immigrant were screened in the first half of the concert, and The... https://www.scmp.com/article/483354/sounds-silence-are-no-laughing-matter?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/483354/sounds-silence-are-no-laughing-matter?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 25 Dec 2004 16:00:00 +0000 Tune in tonight at 9.30 for the fourth episode of the Songbirds comic fantasy, The Oil Drum Genie. The genie has granted Marco and Sam three wishes. Marco wishes for two jumbo fish burgers. The genie makes a quick call on his mobile phone and a helicopter arrives and lowers down the giant fish burgers which Marco and Sam gorge on. When the genie asks Sam for his wish, he is too full of food to think clearly. Just then, Willy the Worm pops out with a wish of his own. Below is a part of... https://www.scmp.com/article/483093/boys-feast-burgers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/483093/boys-feast-burgers?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 22 Dec 2004 16:00:00 +0000 If you enjoy comic-fantasy, tonight's Songbirds radio drama, Oil Drum Genie, is just the thing for you. The episode starts at 9.30pm on RTHK Radio 4 (97.6 FM). Sam and Marcus have been waiting for hours to catch a fish on the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront. It is dark before they finally get a bite. They are very excited as they think they have caught a huge fish. But the 'big catch' turns out to be a rusty oil barrel with a genie in it. At first the boys are scared of the genie, but when... https://www.scmp.com/article/482379/big-catch-shocks-boys?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/482379/big-catch-shocks-boys?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 15 Dec 2004 16:00:00 +0000 Siberia calls to mind images of remote, glacial wastes, but after only a few minutes with Siberian sensation Maxim Vengerov, icy stalactites are soon melting under a flickering onslaught of musical flames. Hong Kong audiences lucky enough to catch his concert at the Cultural Centre last October can attest to that. The first half of his concert at London's Barbican last week was given over to Brahms, the Scherzo in C minor and the Violin Sonata No1 in G major. Vengerov is often compared to... https://www.scmp.com/article/481741/siberian-sensation-delivers-wow-factor?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/481741/siberian-sensation-delivers-wow-factor?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 11 Dec 2004 16:00:00 +0000 If you'D like to listen to a talking worm, tune in to Radio 4 tonight at 9.30 for Part Two of the Songbirds drama, The Oil Drum Genie. In tonight's episode, Marcus and Sam go to the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront with their bamboo fishing rod. They prepare to fish, but the worm secretly persuades Sam to let him off the hook. Sam casts the line without the worm, which is hiding in his pocket. They wait for many hours for a bite. It is dark by the time they catch something, and they haul it... https://www.scmp.com/article/481437/worm-wriggles-out-tight-corner?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/481437/worm-wriggles-out-tight-corner?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 08 Dec 2004 16:00:00 +0000 The ochre-painted walls are smothered in oil portraits of powerful men in their golden years, silver-haired and bearded, many with grand pendants hanging from their necks like mayors, all looking thoughtful, wise and inspired. And gazing down from a high ledge that circled the hall were evenly spaced busts of yet more mature, heavily whiskered luminaries, pride of place being given to William Morris who looked down with a benign expression on his face at the young clavichordist Carole... https://www.scmp.com/article/480855/cerasi-leads-renaissance-clavichord?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/480855/cerasi-leads-renaissance-clavichord?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 04 Dec 2004 16:00:00 +0000 Tune in to Radio 4's Songbirds tonight at 9.30pm for the first episode of the comic fantasy story series Oil Drum Genii. It's the beginning of a long weekend and Sam and Marco have no money and no idea what to do with themselves. Marco suggests they go fishing. The boys find an old stick, some string and a worm to use as bait and cycle out to the harbour front to fish. But when they get there they realise they do not have a hook. Below is the first part of Oil Drum Genii for you to read... https://www.scmp.com/article/480417/boys-prepare-big-catch?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/480417/boys-prepare-big-catch?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 01 Dec 2004 16:00:00 +0000 John Tavener was there in person to take the applause at his 60th birthday concert at London's Barbican last week, rising up from among the audience, a spindly two-metre tall bohemian with lank, white-blond hair hanging down to the shoulders of his green velvet jacket. With the careful gait of the hammer-toed he trod centre stage in his soft shoes to receive the adulation and flowers being heaped at his feet. Tavener is a profoundly spiritual composer famous for his conversion, in 1977, to... https://www.scmp.com/article/479913/spiritual-composer-finds-fresh-inspiration-60?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/479913/spiritual-composer-finds-fresh-inspiration-60?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 27 Nov 2004 16:00:00 +0000 Things are getting spookier and spookier in the Songbirds radio drama serial Jill Came Tumbling After. Tonight is the last episode, so don't forget to tune in at 9.30pm. If you really want to spook yourself, try listening to the programme in the dark. The story is about a family who have moved to their new home on Peng Chau. But strange things have been happening ever since they moved in and, to make matters worse, a Number 8 typhoon is howling around them. In tonight's episode, you will hear... https://www.scmp.com/article/479530/spirit-makes-presence-felt?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/479530/spirit-makes-presence-felt?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 24 Nov 2004 16:00:00 +0000 Tickets were rare - but then Evgeny Kissin's concerts and recitals are always sold out. But for Kissin to play all five Beethoven's Piano Concertos back to back over two concerts at London's Barbican was something exceptional. The Moscow-born Kissin has stunned the world with the brilliance and precocity of his playing, but in recent years dissenting voices have been raised - can the emotional expression of his playing match his technical brilliance? Tales about Kissin's musical precocity are... https://www.scmp.com/article/478942/boy-can-he-play-where-earths-passion?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/478942/boy-can-he-play-where-earths-passion?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 20 Nov 2004 16:00:00 +0000 Things are getting very spooky on Peng Chau. The Lee family have just moved there, and with a typhoon raging, strange things start to happen in their new home. Eight-year-old Bonnie talks to a boy that no one else can see, and windows fly open by themselves with disastrous consequences. To find out what's going on, tune in to tonight's Songbirds on RTHK Radio 4 (FM 97.6) at 9.30 for the third episode of Jill Came Tumbling After. Below is an extract from tonight's episode for you to read... https://www.scmp.com/article/478595/boy-feels-full-force-storm?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/478595/boy-feels-full-force-storm?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 17 Nov 2004 16:00:00 +0000 When the English National Opera performed act three of Wagner's The Valkyrie to a capacity crowd at the Glastonbury pop festival last summer, plaudits were heaped on this daring initiative that brought classical music to a citadel of popular music. But when the Royal Ballet did it the other way around, bringing the music of rock legend Jimi Hendrix to the Covent Garden Opera House, tongues started wagging. Seattle-born Hendrix, a left-hander who played a right-handed guitar upside down, is... https://www.scmp.com/article/478073/hendrix-ballet-fires-debate-over-modern-performance?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/478073/hendrix-ballet-fires-debate-over-modern-performance?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 13 Nov 2004 16:00:00 +0000 If you enjoy a good ghost story, tune in to Radio 4's Songbirds tonight at 9.30 for the second episode of Jill Came Tumbling After which is set on Peng Chau during a typhoon. The Lee family have just moved into their new home on the top of a hill on the island. A typhoon is raging outside and strange things start to happen. Bonnie, one of the four children, tells her elder sister she keeps seeing a boy in the house. Bonnie's sister thinks she is imagining things, but then something... https://www.scmp.com/article/477719/theres-spirit-house?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/477719/theres-spirit-house?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 10 Nov 2004 16:00:00 +0000 Monteverdi's last opera, The Coronation of Poppea, first performed in Venice in 1642, crackles with a combustible mix of sex and politics. A recent semi-staging of the work, written when Monteverdi was in his 70s, by Concerto Vocale under Rene Jacobs gave great joy to the capacity audience in London's Barbican. The lively libretto, written by Giovanni Busenello, is based on ancient Roman history and tells the story of the emperor Nero's passion for the beautiful Poppea, a passion that leads... https://www.scmp.com/article/477201/minimalism-sets-stage-maximum-effect?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/477201/minimalism-sets-stage-maximum-effect?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 Nov 2004 16:00:00 +0000 Why is it that when Mr Lee and his family get to their new home on Peng Chau, Mr Lee cannot find the keys? Why is it that his little daughter Bonnie has them? Did she take them when he wasn't looking? Bonnie tells Mr Lee that a boy gave them to her. But who is this boy? As a typhoon lashes the island, Mr Lee and his family find that they have more than just a storm to put up with - strange things start to happen and, as time goes by, things get stranger and stranger. You can hear part one of... https://www.scmp.com/article/476822/keys-unlock-haunting-night?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/476822/keys-unlock-haunting-night?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 03 Nov 2004 16:00:00 +0000 The International Piano Series at London's Royal Festival Hall is a who's who of piano greats: Olli Mustonen, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Richard Goode, Alfredo Perl, Lang Lang and Stephen Kovacevich, who recently held his audience spellbound with two Beethoven sonatas and Schubert's Sonata in B flat. Born in Los Angeles in 1941, Kovacevich moved to London in 1959 to study with Dame Myra Hess and has lived there ever since. Influenced by Hess, he discovered a deep love and... https://www.scmp.com/article/476188/pianist-has-great-composers-his-fingertips?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/476188/pianist-has-great-composers-his-fingertips?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 30 Oct 2004 16:00:00 +0000 Aesop was an ancient Greek storyteller who lived over two and a half thousand years ago. He told short, simple stories with a moral at the end - these stories are known as Aesop's Fables. Aesop was originally a slave but his fables were so good that he was eventually given his freedom. Tonight's Songbirds drama episode on RTHK Radio 4 (FM 97.6) at 9.30pm takes one of Aesop's fables and turns it into a short drama set in present-day Hong Kong. At the start of the episode, you will hear Aesop... https://www.scmp.com/article/475831/moral-story?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/475831/moral-story?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 27 Oct 2004 16:00:00 +0000 Chances to see Bela Bartok's only opera alongside one of his two ballets are rare, so the Hungarian National Opera and Ballet's double bill of Bluebeard's Castle and The Miraculous Mandarin at Sadler's Wells in London is an irresistible draw. Anyone lucky enough to have seen Robert Lepage's masterly production of Bluebeard's Castle in the 1996 Hong Kong Arts Festival saw a truly great production that has become a benchmark of excellence. In comparison to Lepage's masterpiece - which was... https://www.scmp.com/article/475354/hungarian-misfire-bartok-canon?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/475354/hungarian-misfire-bartok-canon?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 23 Oct 2004 16:00:00 +0000 Everybody loves a good ghost story and tonight Songbirds (Radio 4, FM 97.6) begins a four-part drama called Jill Came Tumbling After. The story revolves around a haunted house on Peng Chau. The drama begins with the Lee family about to move from their small flat in Kowloon to a large house on Peng Chau. On the day they are moving, a No 1 typhoon signal is hoisted. Despite the approaching storm, Mr Lee decides to go ahead with the move. On the ferry to Peng Chau, the typhoon worsens and on... https://www.scmp.com/article/475005/nightmare-moving?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/475005/nightmare-moving?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 20 Oct 2004 16:00:00 +0000 Having just returned to London from the start of the opera season in Venice, I couldn't resist the lure of a GBP10 (about HK$140) budget airline ticket to Berlin to see Martin Schuler's production of Rigoletto at the beautiful Komische Opera, with Jin Wang, a graduate of the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music and the Vienna Music Academy, conducting. Berlin, with a population of just over three million, has three permanent opera houses, whereas London, with a population of more than... https://www.scmp.com/article/474446/budget-flight-berlin-see-jesters-downfall?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/474446/budget-flight-berlin-see-jesters-downfall?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Oct 2004 16:00:00 +0000 Eric Poon is a loner, one of those shy boys who is either ignored or bullied. Eric escapes from his unhappy school life by daydreaming. In tonight's Songbirds on RTHK Radio 4, you can hear the final episode of The Secret Life of Eric Poon. In this episode, Mr Lam, the bullying physical education teacher, comes in place of Miss Kwok, who is ill. It is the first lesson on a Monday morning and Mr Lam is in a very bad mood - he is sarcastic to many of the boys in the class, including his... https://www.scmp.com/article/474075/loner-fights-back?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/474075/loner-fights-back?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 13 Oct 2004 16:00:00 +0000 Flying from London to other European cities is now so inexpensive and convenient that music lovers can easily include European operas and concerts in their itinerary. So it was that I found myself sitting in the front row of Venice's much-loved and recently rebuilt opera house, the Gran Teatro La Fenice, for the opening performance of the new season, a recital by world-renowned bass singer Ruggero Raimondi. Venice is a ravishingly beautiful city, a magical labyrinth of canals and side... https://www.scmp.com/article/473604/venices-beloved-opera-house-rises-ashes?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/473604/venices-beloved-opera-house-rises-ashes?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 09 Oct 2004 16:00:00 +0000