Bach: The Complete Keyboard Concertos
There's real spark running right through the disc, and it comes as much from the partnership with the Britten Sinfonia as from Esfahani himself — urgent, alive, full of colour.
Listen once and you'll hear something new in music you thought you knew backwards. I certainly did, and I've been living with these concertos for the best part of forty years.
Classical Music: For Cello, By Cellists
The six pieces could hardly be more different from each other — some barely a few minutes of melody, others built from movement and gesture as much as sound — and yet what emerges is not six unrelated experiments but something closer to a group portrait: one instrument, caught from six entirely different angles.
Classical Music: Guys And Dolls
John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London continue their survey of Broadway's golden age with Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls — and if any show in the catalogue merited this treatment, it is this one. It opened in 1950, ran for 1,200 performances and carried off the Tony for Best Musical, its book drawn from Damon Runyon's short stories of the 1920s and 30s: tales of gangsters, gamblers and Broadway lowlifes, told in a dialect entirely Runyon's own, in which formal, contraction-free English collides with the choicest New York slang.
Gen Z Sets Out Its Terms Of Engagement With Classical Music - As RPO Launches New ‘Revealed' Concert Format
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New research from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) suggests young people are increasingly interested in exploring classical music, but they want barriers to be removed from concert going, to make it more welcoming and accessible.
Albums: The Proclaimers - You May Offend
There is humour here, but it is rarely lightweight; beneath the wit sits a sharp eye for hypocrisy, politics, relationships and the absurdities of everyday life. The Reids remain masters of turning conversational language into songs that land with considerably more weight than their simplicity might initially suggest.
Poem Of The Week: Among The Talk And The Laughter By Norman MacCaig (1910-1996)
Among the Talk and the Laughter Why does he fall silent? Why does that terrible, sad look tell he has gone away? He has died too often.
Albums: Dexys Midnight Runners - LOVE
There was always something gloriously unpredictable about Dexys Midnight Runners. Kevin Rowland never seemed particularly interested in giving people what they expected — and on LOVE, he still isn’t.
Wild Pages Turn: Nature Writing's Biggest Night Crowns Birds And Lost Worlds
Two illustrated books — one a plea for Britain's vanishing birdlife, the other a journey back through deep time — have taken the top honours at the UK's foremost nature and conservation writing awards, in a year the judges said proved storytelling can still be "a powerful step towards awareness, action, and ultimately, hope".
Understanding The Stone: The Green Parcel By John Challis
Visiting a medieval country church whose bells were forged during the reign of Elizabeth I, and whose tones must have tolled the passing of the Civil War and the Napoleonic dead, we were reminded of another form of commemoration, in the numberless wedding celebrants who also passed this way over the intervening centuries.
Northern Ballet & Leeds Hospitals Charity Bring Dance To Young Patients Through Virtual Reality
Ilkley Literature Festival Has A Stellar 2026 Line-Up
The north’s longest-running literary festival, Ilkley Literature Festival, has announced its 2026 line-up. A host of household names including politicians, national treasures, journalists, novelists, poets, historians, comedians, and academics head to the spa town across 17 packed days from Friday 2 to Sunday 18 October.
The Anastasia File: Imperialism, Evil, Fact And Fiction
The Anastasia File is a disturbing drama and sober reminder of an horrific evil act which shook the world and ended the Russian monarchy - and three centuries of the Romanov Dynasty. ...or did it?
Northern Ballet Announces National Tour Of Robin Hood, A New Ballet For Children
Northern Ballet’s beloved ballets for children return with Robin Hood, an adventurous retelling choreographed by Northern Ballet Soloist Heather Lehan. Friendship and bravery lead the way as Robin Hood and Maid Marian try to outwit the greedy Sheriff of Nottingham. Facing unexpected challenges, they discover that kindness and determination can be just as powerful as strength.
Stellar Line-Up For Raworths Harrogate Literature Festival
Raworths Solicitors are delighted to announce the full programme for the Raworths Harrogate Literature Festival 2026 which brings together a vibrant mix of big names and compelling stories – covering everything from gardens and The Beatles to crime fiction and memoir.
Mama Mia - Here I Go Again!!
I’m sure that everyone at some time or another has been to the theatre to see some show or other and left pondering the meaning of life, but with Mamma Mia the audience all must leave with smiles on their faces whilst humming the famous Abba tunes as they travel home.
Marillion Enlighten York In Live Return
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Marillion understands the art of emotional slow-burn better than most bands. More than four decades into their career, they remain masters of turning a concert hall into something approaching a shared state of mind – intimate one moment, overwhelming the next.
Under-Represented Writers Explore 'Fears, Joys, Anxieties And Place In The World' As Winners Announced For Creative Future Writers' Awards 2026
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The winners of the Creative Future Writers' Awards, the UK's only national prize for under-represented writers, were announced this week, with £25,000 in cash and development prizes shared among fifteen winning entries spanning fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction.
Think Outside The Canvas: Octopus Energy Challenges Young Artists To Reinvent A Greener Future
Budding artists across the UK are being invited to put their creativity to work and imagine a greener future, with the chance to win cash, internships and the opportunity to see their work displayed across the UK.
Hugh Bonneville To Headline Fundraising Evening For Ripon Theatre Festival
Downton Abbey and Paddington star to appear at Holy Trinity in November, with all profits supporting the volunteer-led festival Hugh Bonneville is coming to Ripon for a fundraising evening in support of Ripon Theatre Festival, appearing at Holy Trinity on Saturday 21 November at 7pm for a conversation spanning his career on screen and in theatre.
…And All That: Bayeux Tapestry The Epic Poem By Martin Kiszko
The Bayeux Tapestry, a seventy-metre long embroidery, which tells the story of the French invasion of Britain and the Battle of Hastings in 1066, is a masterpiece. It has also come to the UK for the first time in nearly one thousand years, to be displayed in the British Museum, from September ’26 to July ’27, and tickets to see it are selling fast.
Live Review: Jane McDonald, AO Arena, Manchester
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Very few people could have anticipated quite how much acclaim Jane McDonald would experience in the wake of 1998’s BBC series The Cruise. Yet, more than a quarter of a century later, the show’s standout star remains as popular as ever.
Albums: Airbourne- Airbourne
Airbourne has never been a band particularly interested in subtlety. Seven years after Boneshaker, the Australian hard-rockers return with their self-titled sixth album – and they have absolutely no intention of reinventing the wheel.
Team Dresch: “Our Queerness Is A Dreamland Full Of Feral, Playful Joy”
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In 2026, good news feels increasingly precious, so Team Dresch’s return is worth celebrating. Thirty years after their last full-length, the legendary queercore punks are back with Furthermore, out via Jealous Butcher Records on 18 September.
Opera North Announces Two Key Leadership Appointments
Opera North has announced two significant appointments as it continues to ensure opera remains a vital part of the cultural offering in Leeds and further afield. Garry Walker will step down as Music Director at the end of his current term in August 2028 to be succeeded by Patrick Lange.
Classical Music: Notes From The Living Room
There are worse places to sit with a new recording than a terrace above Cascais, the Atlantic gleaming below, a lighthouse standing sentinel over the fishing boats and the marina traffic beneath it. I had gone there for the view. It was the music, in the end, that did the travelling — from Kingston to Port of Spain, Tokyo to Skopje, Paris to small-town America, all before the lighthouse had finished its next sweep.
Classical Music: Beethoven For Three Series Symphony No. 3 ‘Eroica'
There is real rhythmic pulse and energy here, and a textural detail in Ax's piano playing that is a constant pleasure — every inner line audible, every line singing, with a beauty in the phrasing that never tips into preciousness. The Leonore Overture in particular sounds astonishingly orchestral in this reduced scoring; the changes of tempo are superbly judged, the observation feels authentic rather than merely careful, and the playing throughout is slick and fabulous in its precision.
Enescu: String Octet, Piano Quintet Reference
There are recordings that arrive with the changing season and feel exactly right for it, and Chandos's new account of Enescu's Octet for Strings, released this week and played by the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, is one of them. I went in expecting a curiosity. I came out delighted.
Classical Music: Heartstrings
There is a particular pleasure in hearing pieces you already know intimately played as though for the first time, and that is exactly what violinist Sonia Lee and Grammy-nominated pianist Benjamin Loeb achieve on Heartstrings, a programme of favourites and encores that most collectors will already own in one guise or another, scattered across a dozen different discs, but rarely gathered together as satisfyingly as this.
Classical Albums: Quartetto Gelato Flight
Quartetto Gelato Flight Rodeo and Juliet Suite - A. Copland, P. Tchaikovsky, S. Prokofiev, N. Rota, arr Charles Cozens; Summer (Four Seasons) - A. Vivaldi. arr. M. Pulkki; Brahms' Polka - J. Brahms, arr. C. Maier; Intermezzo in A - J. Brahms, arr. Eun-Chul Oh Passacaglia - Handel 'Halvorsen; Song Of the Birds - P. Casals, arr. M.
One More Time In Ibiza
As the Mediterranean sun shines down from a cloudless azure blue sky when walking out of Ibiza airport there is something else that catches the eye: the huge advertising hoardings. These, however, are not directing you to the nearest burger restaurant or shopping mall but to a more thriving prospect that has become part of the summer landscape on this Balearic island – the Superstar DJ.