Throughout his career, Nimbus has faithfully chronicled George Benjamin’s output. The label has nearly all his major works in its catalogue, and now releases Benjamin’s fourth opera with a libretto by Martin Crimp, which was first performed at the Aix-en-Provence festival in July last year, where this recording was made. By the time the production of Picture a day like this reached Covent Garden’s Linbury theatre two months later, the cast had changed and Benjamin was no longer the conductor, so it is good to have the chance to hear it with the original Aix lineup. That was headed by Marianne Crebassa as the Woman who, seeking a miracle to return her child to life, has a day to find someone who is truly happy, while Anna Prohaska is Zabelle, who tends the garden in which the Woman finds, if not the miracle she is looking for, then a way of coming to terms with her loss.
The artwork for Picture a Day Like This. Photograph: Nimbus Records
Both singers seem to inhabit their characters effortlessly. Right from the unaccompanied recitative with which she opens the opera, Crebassa combines determination and steeliness with a suggestion of vulnerability as she undertakes her fruitless quest, while beneath her serenity, Prohaska manages to convey that Zabelle’s path to acceptance has not been an easy one. The other members of the cast take multiple roles in the Woman’s search: Beate Mordal and Cameron Shahbazi are a pair of lovers, and a composer and her assistant; John Brancy a collector and an artisan; all three are excellent.
If the fairytale ambiguity of Picture a day like this is much closer to Benjamin and Crimp’s first collaboration, Into the Little Hill, than it is to the fierce, stark tragedies of Written on Skin and Lessons in Love and Violence, then the beauty of Benjamin’s instrumental lines, every colour and every texture so precisely imagined, and the easy grace of his vocal writing, which always preserves the integrity of the text, have been constants throughout. There are moments when the action could move more quickly, and its basic premise seems a little too mechanical, but the jewel-like precision of it is always impressive.
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As soon as she arrives at the headquarters of Rosas de Ouro, a popular samba school in São Paulo, Leci Brandão apologises for being late. Coupled with the megacity’s usual traffic, her agenda at its legislative assembly kept her busy longer than expected. “My mission is trying to solve other people’s problems,” she says after greeting school staff. A lawmaker with Brazil’s Communist party since 2011, Brandão – who turns 80 on Thursday – is the first Black woman to occupy a seat in São Paulo parliament this long and only the second Black congresswoman in its history.
While she had never imagined herself in office, institutional politics unfolded as an extension of her music. Brandão is also a trailblazing samba musician, one of the first female composers in the male-dominated genre, breaking through in 1976 with politically engaged songs that exposed and opposed the conservatism and inequalities of Brazilian society.
Until the early 1980s, progressive songs were often censored as an oppressive military regime run by Brazil’s armed forces had been ruling the country since 1964: composed in 1978 but unreleased for seven years owing to tensions with her label, which thought her music too heavy, Brandão’s Zé do Caroço tells the true story of a favela leader who helped raise his community’s political consciousness. It remains a resistance anthem to this day.
Writing political songs “results from my life condition”, says Brandão. “I was born as a Black girl who grew up poor. I felt the need to express what I witnessed and experienced. If it weren’t through songs, maybe I’d be a journalist,” she says, sipping water and touching up her red lipstick.
Brandão’s 1978 album Metades
Brandão’s was a working-class home in Rio de Janeiro’s outskirts, where her father’s record player set the cheerful tone of family life. “We never ran out of music,” she says. Her mother and grandmother, meanwhile, were members of the Mangueira samba school, and her father’s eclectic 78rpm records – from Nat King Cole classics to Jacob do Bandolim’s choros to Bienvenido Granda’s boleros – inspired her curiosity for music. But her father died when she was 19 years old, prompting Brandão to work jobs such as telephonist and factory operator to help make ends meet; for years, she lived in the back house of various public schools in Rio with her mother, who worked in them as cleaner, janitor and cook.
“I felt really sorry for my mom,” Brandão says. “She had to clean classrooms in the morning, afternoon and evening, so I helped her do the hard work. Serving people has, somehow, always been part of my life.” When elected for the first time, she immediately called her mother to tell the news. “I told her that the janitor’s daughter had become a state deputy of São Paulo. We both cried.”
Brandão taught herself singing and percussion, and heartbreak inspired her to write her first song at the age of 21, a bossa nova-like number that ended up not getting recorded. “I discovered I was a composer because of this longing, this suffering,” she has previously said. But her music soon grew closer to samba, and to progressive politics.
In 1972 she became the first female composer at the samba school her mother and grandmother had attended, one of the most traditional in Rio, and earned renown from winning a TV singing show and participating in the famous samba nights at the Opinião theatre – a headquarters for left-leaning resistance in Rio at the time. Come 1974, Brandão launched her debut album with songs such as Preferência, which satirised the arrogance of an evening with the Rio bourgeoisie in contrast with the generosity and spontaneity of a gathering in Mangueira.
From then on, “people would question why I composed so many songs about social issues,” says Brandão, whose music shed light on themes as diverse as Afro-Brazilian religions, Black feminism, freedom of expression and the Amazon: “I wrote about things that messed with my head. My songs talk, above all, about human behaviour.” In the late 1970s, she was questioned by military authorities as one of her songs encouraged people to watch plays to understand Brazil’s political scene. This atmosphere stirred tensions between Brandão and her label at that time, Polygram, which refused many of her songs. Under growing pressure, Brandão terminated her contract in 1981; it would be more than four years until she released new music.
Brandão also chafed against prevailing conservativism when she came out as gay in a late-70s interview; she also regularly sang about homophobia and the dignity of LGBTQ+ people in songs such as Ombro Amigo, Assumindo and As Pessoas e Eles. While some people were shocked, Brandão was supported by her fellow composers at Mangueira. “People questioned the directors for having me there after I gave that interview. But I stayed in the group as I have always respected everyone and they respected me back,” she says.
And in 1985, the success of her self-titled comeback album kept her as part of the samba institution. In the 1990s, she won the Brazilian Music award for best samba singer, received honorary titles from the city councils of Rio and São Paulo, and became a popular commentator for Brazil’s biggest TV channel’s coverage of samba school carnival parades.
Leci Brandão singing in 2022
Brandão’s links with the world of party politics took root in the 2000s, when she became a councillor on race equality and women’s rights for President Lula’s first government. She performed at his second-term inauguration in 2007, and then, two years later, the Communist party of Brazil invited her to become a candidate for the São Paulo legislative assembly. Brandão built her agenda based on themes she had already spoken about as an artist, including Black culture, gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights. In 2010, she won.
Taking office, however, wasn’t easy in the beginning. “The fact that a samba artist became a lawmaker astonished people,” says Brandão, recalling pejorative comments she often heard in her first term. “Journalists and parliamentarians would ask what the samba gatherings were like in my cabinet!”
But she has persisted, and has spent her political life fighting for progressive artistic expression: in March, Brandão authored and helped approve a bill that adds hip-hop culture to the intangible heritage of São Paulo state. “Hip-hop artists have the wisdom to approach our social problems in a strong, beautiful way,” she says.
Brandão says she hopes to stay healthy for another term and continue a life mission where social justice is a common denominator between samba and politics. “I will keep on fighting for equality and respect,” she says. “I am not a celebrity. I identify as community.”
Peter Oundjian previously served as music director for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
DENVER — Colorado Symphony Principal Conductor Peter Oundjian will be elevated to music director.
Oundjian has agreed to a four-year contract beginning in the 2025/26 season, the Colorado Symphony Association (CSA) announced Monday.
Oundjian joined the Colorado Symphony as principal conductor prior to the 2022/23 season. He served as the orchestra’s principal guest conductor from 2003 to 2006 and has been a frequent collaborator.
"For many years, it has been my great pleasure to work with the extraordinary musicians of the Colorado Symphony, first as a frequent guest conductor and most recently as their principal conductor," Oundjian said.
"I am profoundly honored to step into the role of music director and to continue our musical journey together," he said. "This new chapter is a thrilling opportunity to deepen our connection with our community, innovate and reach new artistic heights as an orchestra. I look forward to building on our shared successes and bringing dynamic and inspiring performances to Colorado audiences in the years to come."
Oundjian previously had a 14-year tenure as the music director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and was at the helm of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra for six years.
With a career spanning five decades, Oundjian began as a solo violinist, and first violinist of the Tokyo String Quartet, followed by an international conducting career leading orchestras in nearly every major musical center in the world.
"We are absolutely delighted to announce Peter Oundjian as music director of the Colorado Symphony," said Mark Cantrell, CSA president and CEO. "Peter's exceptional artistry, visionary leadership, and deep commitment to our musicians and community have been evident throughout his tenure as principal conductor. His promotion marks an exciting new era for our orchestra. We look forward to the innovative and inspiring performances that Peter will undoubtedly bring, and we are confident that his leadership will continue to elevate the Colorado Symphony to new artistic heights."
"Peter Oundjian's appointment as music director is a significant and natural progression for the Colorado Symphony," said Anthony Pierce, chief artistic officer. "Since 2022, his remarkable musicality, dedication, and vision as our principal conductor have profoundly impacted our orchestra. Elevating Peter to music director acknowledges his exceptional leadership and the deep connection he has fostered with our musicians and audiences across Colorado. We are excited to continue this journey with Peter at the helm, inspiring us all to reach even greater levels of excellence."
An internationally renowned conductor who pulled out of the BBC Proms last year after punching and slapping a soloist has started a new orchestra and choir.
Sir John Eliot Gardiner apologised last August after assaulting William Thomas, 29, for allegedly entering the stage incorrectly at the Berlioz festival in France.
On Monday, Gardiner, 81, announced the Constellation Choir and Constellation Orchestra, under the umbrella Springhead Constellation, which will be led by him.
“Since my return to conducting in Montpellier in July, I have been deeply moved and inspired by the extremely warm and enthusiastic messages of support I have received from musicians, presenters and promoters alike,” he said.
“More than anything else, I am so excited and grateful to be working with such exceptional musicians once again, not forgetting the important lessons I have learnt and needed to learn from the past year.”
Gardiner withdrew from engagements and said he was seeking specialist help after hitting Thomas, an English bass who represented England in the Cardiff Singer of the World competition, at a performance of Berlioz’s Les Troyens with the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and Monteverdi Choir in La Côte-Saint-André.
In a statement last year, Gardiner apologised unreservedly saying: “I make no excuses for my behaviour and have apologised personally to Will Thomas, for whom I have the greatest respect. I do so again, and to the other artists, for the distress that this has caused …
“I know that physical violence is never acceptable and that musicians should always feel safe. I ask for your patience and understanding as I take time to reflect on my actions.”
A representative for Gardiner said the conductor was suffering from extreme heat in France and suspected a recent change in his medication may have provoked behaviour he now regrets, the Slipped Disc classical music website reported at the time.
In July, the Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras' (MCO) board said it had decided Gardiner would not be returning to the organisation as leader and artistic director.
After he left, more than 100 musicians from the orchestra asked for his return, which the MCO branded a “dirty tricks campaign” against it by a small group.
Gardiner, a two-time Grammy winner, said on Monday: “I made clear when I parted company with the MCO earlier this summer that I was not in any sense ready to retire. I said I would be focusing on a rich variety of new projects.”
Among the players joining his tour will be principal oboist Michael Niesemann, principal viola player Fanny Paccoud, and lead violinist Kati Debretzeni.
They will perform a series of concerts at five venues in Germany, France, Austria and Luxembourg this December, before planning to tour throughout 2025 and into 2026.
The tour is Gardiner’s response to direct personal invitations from the venues to assemble musicians and singers and “bring his unique style and quality of performance to their audiences”, a press release said.
Gardiner was chosen by King Charles, who is a friend, to lead the first 20 minutes of music at the coronation last May.
Girl in Red is nothing if not refreshingly direct. The Norwegian singer-songwriter’s breakthrough track of 2018 was I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend, a tortured plea for something more from a platonic relationship. “I don’t wanna be your friend, I wanna kiss your lips,” she sang lustfully.
Another early song called Girls spelled things out even more clearly. “I’m not talking about boys, I’m talking about girls,” she specified. It wasn’t long before “do you listen to Girl in Red” became a code to discreetly establish sexual orientation. Marie Ulven’s merch stall still sells cute T-shirts asking the same question.
The title of Ulven’s long-awaited second album, released in April, is also unequivocal, perhaps to a fault: I’m Doing It Again Baby! A track called Doing It Again Baby opens this exuberant arena gig on a strange note that sounds unlike any music she has made before – an awkward attempt at art-funk that climaxes in a banjo breakdown. Charitably, the track’s job is to signal a new era. Ulven jumps around in a baggy suit and tie like a one-woman Boygenius as her all-male band do their best to sell it.
Both the overexcited title and bluegrass swerve can be forgiven, given the context. Three years separate Girl in Red’s debut, If I Could Make It Go Quiet (2021), from its follow-up – an aeon in pop time. Not to pit women against one another but to flesh out the scene: Olivia Rodrigo (pop-punk, relationship angst) and Chappell Roan (queer girl bops) are two not-dissimilar artists who have blossomed in Ulven’s absence.
A quiet song called I’m Back, sung at a bright red plastic block that conceals a piano, explains Girl in Red’s hiatus succinctly: “I was gone for a minute cos I went to get help.” Mid-ramble about pop star Charlie Puth, Ulven messes up the start of the song, quickly forgiving herself. “This song is literally about fucking up and being good again.”
She may have become an instant LGBTQ+ icon, but Ulven also set out another early stall singing about her own anxiety and intrusive thoughts. It brought her a constituency beyond queer young gen Z women. Serotonin, her ubiquitous 2021 hit, contained another series of typically brave, bald statements. “I’m running low on serotonin,” she sang. “I’m terrified of what’s inside.”
A lot transpired in the 36 months that separate Quiet from Baby! As well as taking time out to tend to her mental health, Ulven fell in love, got a dog and said “yes” to invitations more often, a habit that climaxed in opening for Taylor Swift on last year’s North American leg of the Eras tour. It gave the confessional bedroom pop-punk queen a taste for the bigger halls.
Girl in Red in command at Ovo Arena Wembley. Photograph: Isak Jenssen
The messaging on this new album is: I’m so much better now, thank you. And although Ulven still reaches for her old indie-rock toolkit from time to time, I’m Doing It Again Baby! takes Girl in Red’s sound more mainstream.
The new songs send stylistic shoots out in several directions, not quite nailing the difficult second album problem. A complete aesthetic overhaul – like the one Billie Eilish performed for her happier (but not really) second album – might have landed more authoritatively. Judging from the activity in the crowd, most people’s allegiances remain with Girl in Red’s older work.
But Ulven’s songwriting nous remains undimmed; there are plenty of keepers here. New Love tries on 80s pop-rock with panache, examining an ex’s perspective. Pick Me is bang on brand, a piano ballad in which she angsts about male competition in love. Everyone waves their phone torches in approval.
Girl in Red’s pop glow-up is perhaps best summed up in the unexpected Sabrina Carpenter guest spot on You Need Me Now?, a dissection of a relationship gone wrong. Tonight, Ulven mock-introduces Carpenter – who isn’t here – then shouts “psych!”, getting the crowd to sing Carpenter’s part.
As the performance rolls on, it becomes less about Girl in Red showcasing her new record and more about Ulven herself – remaining charismatic, scatty and fan-friendly despite the uptick in seating. She signs someone’s tie while security attend to an ailing audience member. Three fan phones spell out “PLAY FOUR AM” on their screens – and she does. A handful of tributes make their way successfully to the stage: homemade flags, a hand-drawn portrait of Ulven, and a tie that contains a graphic image of “a lady spreading her legs” folded up inside. Ulven sticks the picture to the piano. “I can’t read sheet music but I can read this shit,” she guffaws.
Her set still ends with I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend, and a journey into the maw of the crowd. Girl in Red’s is, perhaps, the least lethal “wall of death” – a divided moshpit clashing together on command – in rock, but it’s one that restores your faith in other people. As Ulven disappears, still singing, into a tangle of arms and phones, it’s clear she is going to be OK on more than one level.
La Scala‘s new 8-language subtitles, photo Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2024
When La Scala reopens its doors tomorrow after the summer closure the audience will find tablets fitted in front of their seat. This means behind the seat in front, in most cases.
It is part of a series of improvements and enhancements coming twenty years after the theatre’s major refurbishment which concluded in 2004.
The mini-screens used until July could only show two languages, and spare parts to repair them were no longer available and so some remained dark. The new system will offer five languages – Italian, English, French, German and Spanish – with the possibility of arriving at eight languages in total. Chinese will be added for the titles broadcast by LaScalaTv in China.
The new system employs 8-inch touchscreen tablets. There will be 1,944 in the auditorium – 680 in the stalls, 784 in the boxes, 480 in the galleries, as well as 6 monitors for those in standing room in the second gallery. To avoid disturbing patrons nearby, the screens have a black background with a polarised filter to allow front vision while limiting side viewing. The new tablets will be able to be used before the show and during intervals to provide information for the public and with interactive features such as booking at the box office or ordering at the bar. In addition, as part of the theatre’s inclusion policy, there will be audio access for deaf spectators.
Work in the lower part of the theatre has been completed, but a ‘LED wall’ for subtitles has been suspended above the stage until the entire theatre has been fitted out.
La Scala has been undergoing much work to improve acoustics, to renovate the seats in the stalls and some parts of the foyers, with new seats in the theatre’s boxes. Work has also started on restoring the façade of the theatre which will last a year.
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Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan, aka ‘Gramilano’. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times. He wrote the ‘Danza in Italia’ column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on ‘Codice Carla’, 2023’s documentary on Carla Fracci.
It’s a brave composer that goes head-to-head with Anton Bruckner in his bicentenary year, especially when a German band is in town. That Thomas Adès’s Aquifer, led by Simon Rattle making his first Proms appearance as chief conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, held its own is a testament to two of Britain’s most consistently original talents.
Aquifer, here receiving its UK premiere, takes its name from an underground layer of permeable rock through which water seeps and flows. Adès’s music duly oozes and gushes, with string lines that echo waveforms, brass tectonics that slither and slide, and woodwind that seems to bubble up through the cracks.
Rattle unerringly located the music’s sweet spot, teasing out its effervescent hues – like the propulsive opening dappled with tubular bells and vibraphone – and honing its climaxes. It can be urgent, but it can be jaunty too, with a recurring horn theme that John Williams might be proud to call his own. One thing that’s certain, though, it’s seldom still. And for all the surface flamboyance, it’s a rich, rewarding and thoroughly mature work that feels tantalisingly familiar even when it’s being entirely novel.
Rattle’s subsequent onstage presentation of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s gold medal to the deserving, yet endearingly taciturn composer capped a memorable first half.
Performances of Bruckner symphonies can sometimes feel predictable, the only question being just how loud and drawn-out do you like your climaxes? Not here. Rattle has peered deeply into the score of the “Romantic” Fourth Symphony and discovered something fresh and new. The result was an interpretation that was light on its feet and imbued with a grace and lucidity rarely associated with this composer.
Instead of channelling Wagner, whose influence looms over Bruckner’s Third Symphony, Rattle brought out the Brahms in the Austrian composer’s music, his knack for orchestral balance and musical storytelling impeccable. The orchestra was elegance personified, their elfin touch sending shivers up the spine in what must be some of the most daring pianissimos ever heard in the Albert Hall, let alone in a Bruckner symphony. And yet the tension never flagged in a truly remarkable performance that held the audience spellbound.
The competition watchdog has launched an investigation into the Oasis ticket sales fiasco.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will investigate Ticketmaster’s handling of sales for the band’s upcoming tour, including how “dynamic pricing” may have been used to adjust the price.
Initial excitement about the Gallagher brothers’ reconciliation soon gave way to dismay and outrage last weekend after fans complained that the prices for the 17 shows were increased without warning.
The CMA had said on Tuesday it was “urgently reviewing” the use of dynamic pricing after criticism of the “scandalous” price inflation. The brothers said on Wednesday that they had no input into how the tickets were priced.
The CMA’s investigation will consider whether Ticketmaster had engaged in unfair commercial practices and if clear and timely information was given to explain that the tickets could be subject to so-called “dynamic pricing”.
It will also examine if consumers were put under pressure to buy tickets within a short period of time – at a higher price than they understood they would have to pay.
On the CMA’s website, fans are being asked to provide their evidence and, where possible, to include any screenshots they may have taken as they progressed through the buying process. Evidence can be provided using an online form.
The authority said it would now engage with Ticketmaster and gather evidence from various other sources, which may include the band’s management and event organisers.
A furore erupted at the weekend after fans of the Manchester band told of their anger after queueing online for hours only to find that the price of the £135 standing tickets had risen to £355 for upcoming Oasis reunion shows.
Sarah Cardell, the chief executive of the CMA, said: “It’s important that fans are treated fairly when they buy tickets, which is why we’ve launched this investigation.
“It’s clear that many people felt they had a bad experience and were surprised by the price of their tickets at checkout.”
“We want to hear from fans who went through the process and may have encountered issues so that we can investigate whether existing consumer protection law has been breached.”
It should not be assumed that Ticketmaster has broken consumer protection law, the CMA stressed.
The review was welcomed by the prime minister, Keir Starmer, according to his spokesman, who said that No 10 would await its conclusions.
“Ticketing platforms should be transparent with customers over how they price their tickets so people can make informed decisions,” said a Downing Street spokesman.
Ticketmaster has been approached for comment. The company, which is owned by the US entertainment giant Live Nation, has previously defended its dynamic pricing model – similar to that used by hotels and airlines – and said it did not set any ticket prices.
The firm has argued that the system is designed to discourage ticket touts by setting prices closer to market value.
“You pay a monthly membership fee … that entitles you to attend however much you’d like. As with a gym or a streaming service, some people may go often; some, not at all. Regardless, the orchestra receives steady revenue, and you have full control of your calendar.” – The New York Times
The new Royal Opera season opens with a revival, the production’s 10th, of David McVicar’s 2006 staging of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, conducted by Julia Jones. As on many previous occasions, McVicar has rethought and reworked it, carefully moulding it to his new cast, and subtly shifting points of emphasis. Huw Montague Rendall’s Count, attractive if predatory, is more insistently sexual, less prone to violence than some of his predecessors. We’re also more aware here than in the past of the Countess’s (Maria Bengtsson) attraction, albeit unacknowledged, to Cherubino (Ginger Costa-Jackson). Bartolo (Peter Kálmán) and Marcellina (Rebecca Evans) are now finely rounded characters, funny without resorting to caricature. And you’re more conscious of the rest of the Almaviva household, the servants and retainers, observing, reacting to and indeed, on occasion, participating in the central action: just occasionally, though, it now also seems fractionally too busy as a result.
A real stage animal … Huw Montague Rendall as Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro at the Royal Opera House. Photograph: Clive Barda
There are some superb individual performances. Figaro and Susanna are played by Luca Micheletti and Chinese soprano Ying Fang. He is handsome, warm-voiced, morally aware and prone to anger, squaring off with tremendous dignity against Montague Rendall’s Count, who seems tellingly afraid at times of this man he is contemptuously lording it over. Fang, making her Covent Garden debut, is a curiously reflective Susanna, less immediately spirited than some, but the voice is lovely and Deh Vieni Non Tardar sounds exquisite in its sensual poise. Her silky tone is at times not unlike Bengtsson’s, so the subterfuges and mistaken identities of the final scenes seem entirely credible.
Bengtsson, a great artist, meanwhile, lays bare the Countess’s anguish of soul with understated intensity, and is meltingly beautiful at the end as she forgives her husband. Rapidly emerging as one of today’s finest baritones, Montague Rendall is real stage animal, who combines patrician finesse with dramatic fire. Costa-Jackson makes an appealing Cherubino, Evans’s Marcellina hides a touching vulnerability beneath all that brittle bravado, and Kálmán sounds really imposing in his vengeance aria.
Jones conducts with fierce energy and drive, but could on occasion hold back more. Dove Sono, for instance, propelled urgently forward rather than nostalgically reflective, feels fractionally too fast. The orchestra is on occasion slightly too prominent, sometimes obscuring the voices, but the playing is consistently fine, and Jones is right to place the emphasis on Mozart’s often extraordinary powers of orchestration.
I was working at Granada in the 1980s when I came across a photograph of Astrid Kirchherr and Stuart Sutcliffe while going through the station’s Beatles archive. They looked confident and interesting and I wanted to know more about them. I’d heard about the Beatles becoming a great live band while playing the clubs in Hamburg, but not the background story of Stuart, the group’s first bass player, and Astrid, a brilliant German photographer. Stuart died just on the eve of the Beatles becoming big, having left the group to pursue his art and be with Astrid. I was keen to get into feature films and had been kicking a few ideas around. This story, I decided, was the one I wanted to tell.
Stuart’s mother, Millie, lived in Sevenoaks, Kent – I think she was the fifth “M Sutcliffe” I found in the phone book. She and Stuart’s sister, Pauline, showed me some of his work and helped me make contact with Astrid, who was managing a wine bar in Hamburg. Over the years, I think a lot of people had tracked her down in search of Beatles gossip, but I told her that wasn’t what I was looking for.
Astrid invited Klaus Voormann along to our meeting – he was the boyfriend who had dragged her to see the Beatles in the first place, and he went on to be in the Plastic Ono Band and play bass on the Imagine album. I spent 10 days with them recording interviews which became the basis for the screenplay.
Ian Hart came on board early and would come in to read John Lennon’s lines opposite potential Stuarts and Astrids. I liked the idea of casting the two best-known actors in the film in those roles – Stephen Dorff and Sheryl Lee brought a movie-star quality to the characters the audience would be least familiar with. Ian had already played a slightly older Lennon in The Hours and Times, but that wasn’t the character I was after – I knew people who had met John in the early days and described him as angry, insecure and sometimes cruel. It wasn’t until I met Ian that I saw he could provide that energy. A lot of people say Ian looks just like John Lennon – he doesn’t really. It’s just that he embodies him so well.
For the soundtrack, we needed someone who could put together a band with star power. Producer Nik Powell was sitting on the toilet reading a music magazine when he saw the right name for the job. He ran out yelling: “We need to get Don Was!” Don put together this supergroup – Dave Grohl, Mike Mills from REM, Thurston Moore, Soul Asylum’s Dave Pirner, Henry Rollins and Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs. I said to Don: “Don’t let them listen to the Beatles’ versions. Just let them kick the crap out of the songs.”
Ian Wilson was a very experienced cinematographer. For the sequence where the band arrive in Hamburg and drive down streets near the Reeperbahn, we’d asked club owners to turn off all their 1970s and 1980s neon signs and leave on the 1960s ones. Instead, they did the opposite and demanded more money. Ian said: “Get the actors in the van and be ready to go in 15 minutes – trust me.” He got a camera assistant to go round the clubs saying: “Could you leave the 70s and 80s lights on and the 60s ones off?” Again, they did the opposite of what they were asked – and we got the shots we needed.
There were certain moments in the script that Astrid didn’t particularly like, where she thought people behaved in ways they wouldn’t have in real life. I said: “Wait until you see the film – I want you to be happy with it.” I sat beside her at the screening, a little apprehensive. She waited right to the end of the credits, when the screen went black, then turned to me with tears in her eyes and hugged me.
Stephen Dorff, played Stuart Sutcliffe
I thought: “How am I going to do the Liverpool accent?” I was auditioning against lots of English actors, but I’d just done a film where I played a British kid living in South Africa, and for that I had an incredible dialect coach called Julie Adams. She taught me a lot and I ended up working with her on this movie too and I still use her tricks now.
After I was offered the part, I spent a few weeks in Liverpool with Ian Hart, who had grown up there. I visited the pubs the Beatles used to drink in and John and Stu’s old art school. Ian was my right hand, my brother. He’s also a much better guitarist than me – I grew up playing piano, but I was perhaps better at playing bass than Stu might have been. I had to remember to occasionally hit a bum note or fall out of rhythm.
Star quality … Sheryl Lee as Astrid Kirchherr and Stephen Dorff as Stuart Sutcliffe. Photograph: Channel Four/Allstar
I met Astrid a couple of weeks prior to filming. She had quite an emotional reaction, which meant I did too. I was still a teenager and wanted to embody whoever I was about to play, and to be sure she believed in what I was doing. We stayed in contact afterwards – she was very supportive and always watched my movies.
I also became close to Pauline Sutcliffe, and even bought a couple of Stu’s original paintings from her. His work was reproduced for the film by artists – some of whom may even have studied under the same teachers as he did. I know recreating art in movies can come off a bit hokey, but I had people showing me what moves I needed to do and I just tried to get in the zone and convey his pain and passion in closeup.
Nine or 10 years after the movie came out, I met Clash frontman Joe Strummer in a club. He said: “You’re the geezer from Backbeat!” We ended up hanging out until the sun came up, drinking beer on the street out of brown paper bags. It’s an awesome memory. That’s what he kept calling me: “The geezer from Backbeat.”
More than a quarter of a century has passed since the day a young violinist with the reputation of wunderkind (or enfant terrible) strode into the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s executive offices in Martin Place and gave an impromptu display of his virtuosity with the opening bars of Paganini on a borrowed violin.
“Will you buy this for me?” Richard Tognetti asked an astonished David Murray, the then CEO of the bank.
The price tag for the 1759 Giovanni Battista Guadagnini instrument was a mere $1.2m.
Was it Tognetti’s prodigious talent and unaffected charm, or the favourable economic conditions of an Australian economy having just risen from the ashes of the recession we had to have? Either way, Murray said yes.
“And then a bit later, we got another call,” Tognetti says. “‘We’ve got this Stradivarius...’”
A glamour shot of a 20-year-old Tognetti, styled by David Bowie’s makeup artist Richard Sharah. Photograph: Greg Barrett/ACO
Today the Australian Chamber Orchestra, through its patrons, benefactors and an ACO fund encouraging supporters to invest in an instrument ownership bank, is the custodian of nine of the world’s most valuable string instruments from the golden age. They are kept not behind humidity-controlled glass shrines in museums, but played and heard nightly on the stages of Australia’s and the world’s most prestigious concert halls.
The jewel in the crown, according to the ACO managing director Richard Evans, is the circa 1580 Gasparo da Salò bass played by double bassist Maxime Bibeau, which was discovered intact in a bombed out Augustinian monastery in northern Italy after the second world war.
“The wood from the instrument dates back to the late 1400s … it makes you think, how many hands has it been through,” Evans says. “It’s incredible to think of the kind of world events these instruments have seen, the survival stories these instruments must have.”
Tognetti’s Guadagnini has now been passed down the line to ensemble member Liisa Pallandi; these days Tognetti plays a 1743 Giuseppe “del Gesù” Guarneri violin, with the apocryphal backstory that it was once owned by Paganini himself, who lost it in a gambling game.
The estimated value of the instrument – praised by its player for its rich weeping sound when it was bought for the ACO by an anonymous benefactor 17 years ago – was $10m.
Tognetti and the ACO in a 1991 recording session at the ABC in Ultimo. Photograph: ACO
The point of all this?
The ACO launched its 50th anniversary season this month, and 2025 will also mark the 35th year of Tognetti’s artistic leadership. For the better part of both of these milestones, the ACO has fought against the accusations of elitism; it sets adventurous and eclectic programs that appeal to a wider audience than the traditional classical concert-going audience, which is an undeniably ageing demographic; it collaborates with jazz and rock musicians, film-makers, cabaret artists and drag queens; and it operates an outreach program at a primary school in one of the most disadvantaged areas of western Sydney where each child entering year 1 is given a violin or a cello (not a Stradivarius).
But when it comes to the instruments played by the 17 core members of the ACO, Tognetti becomes immediately and unabashedly elitist.
“Yes, it’s elitist, and some say extravagant, but these instruments are among the most exquisite artefacts, works of art, masterpieces crafted by human hands,” he says. “We know best on this, and it’s an immutable fact that when you see the instrument up close and you feel it and touch it, then you really understand the intrinsic value of these things. These days, try buying a terrace house in Paddington for the price of one of these.”
Tognetti does not own a terrace house in Paddington. But it is something of a small miracle that since 1989 he has consistently made Sydney his home. When, at the prodigious age of 25 he was appointed leader and then artistic director of the ACO, his still being there at 30 seemed just as improbable to him as it was to his Australian audiences.
The ACO performing at Sydney jazz and cabaret venue The Basement in 1994. Photograph: ACO
He had already cemented himself as a familiar soloist with the Bern Symphony Orchestra, been guest concertmaster with the Basel Sinfonietta and won best graduate performer of the year from the Bern Conservatorium.
“Ninety per cent of us thought we’d be going back to Europe, and when I say back, that’s because most of us had studied in Europe or America, mainly Europe, and we thought we were just here for the short term,” he says. “Now we have musicians from Europe who came out here to experiment at first, to try a new life in a new world, and they’ve stayed.”
A decade into Tognetti’s leadership, Australia recognised the violinist’s commitment to stay by naming him, through a popular vote, one of the country’s National Living Treasures. He was one of just four Australians in the classical music sphere to receive the honour, alongside Dame Joan Sutherland, composer Peter Sculthorpe and pianist Roger Woodward.
Tognetti directing the ACO at the Sydney Opera House in 2012. Photograph: Paul Henderson-Kelly
A decade later, Tognetti – still firmly at the helm of the ACO – was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for his service to music.
Since then, it has been the promise of a purpose-built home for the ACO that has kept him determinedly Australia-based, a promise that was only delivered in late 2022, after almost two decades of political promises and backtracking.
The concert hall, rehearsal spaces and administration offices at Pier 2/3 at Walsh Bay are what Tognetti calls “our external instrument, our meta instrument” and now the orchestra must fill it with content.
British drag, cabaret, opera and musical theatre artist Le Gateau Chocolat. Photograph: Eli Schmidt
“I’d be kind of nuts to leave now,” he says.
Looking back over 35 years’ worth of programming, Tognetti is proud of how far he has taken both the orchestra and its audience out of its comfort zone.
“There’s no way we could have done Cocteau’s Circle 30 years ago,” he says of one of the highlights of the 2025 anniversary season: a homage to Le Bœuf sur le toit, the legendary cabaret bar of 1920s Paris, which will see the return of British drag, cabaret and opera artist Le Gateau Chocolat to Australia.
“Or make a movie,” he says, of the 2025 return of the 2017 cinematic collaboration Mountain, one of five films the ACO has co-created in an ongoing experimental exploration of music and nature.
Also on the 2025 program: the South African singing cellist Abel Selaocoe who combines his classical training with deep throat singing practised by the Xhosa people; performances of Beach Boys tunes; and a new work by the Australian composer Holly Harrison; and Carolina Eyck, one of the world’s foremost virtuosi of the first – and probably the weirdest – electronic instrument, the theremin.
Even by the ACO’s standards, it is an eclectic and adventurous program.
“But we’ve got a very adventurous audience,” Evans says. “We have what I like to describe as a lean forward audience … they want to learn, they want to be pushed and pulled.
“They’re not all going to love everything … but there’s a level of engagement that is nothing like the Friday night lazy let’s-go-to-a-concert-and-doze-off kind of thing. The bolder we are, the bolder they are.”
This article was amended 28 August. The ACO have 17 core members, as opposed to the 13 listed in an earlier version; that version also numbered the films they have created as three, rather than five.
A lone horn call, then a brief, mighty climax, full orchestra playing fortissimo. The Symphony No 7 by Anton Bruckner, the 200th anniversary of whose birth falls on Wednesday, ends like an intake of breath. The noisy rampage of these final bars, which could go on at length as Bruckner often does, stops abruptly: one terse chord, a single beat in an otherwise empty bar. In a live performance, there might be a sense of surprise – is that the end? – though we can always rely on a keen (for which read maddening) bravo to tell us, several split seconds too soon, that yes, it is indeed all over.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conducting the Lucerne Festival Orchestra at the KKL concert hall in Lucerne last weekend, managed something exceptional. In a transparent, flowing but never hurried performance, he made Bruckner’s finale more than the usual exuberant close of a big romantic work. The momentum was so urgent, so intense, it became a glimpse into the abyss. Bruckner, typified as the lonely eccentric (the word simpleton has been used), was here seen as radical, daring, pushing all to the limit. Silence was the only retort. Nézet-Séguin, arms aloft, defied anyone, orchestra or audience, to move. We remained stock still, as we might at the end of a Bach Passion but not a Bruckner symphony. At last he dropped his arms, and the standing ovation erupted.
That might seem a long description for a mere 20 or so bars of music. Nézet-Séguin and his players deserve the attention. The Canadian, who is music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera, New York, is now among the tiny handful of top-rated conductors in the world. He was at the month-long Lucerne festival, one of Europe’s older such events, as an enthusiastically received guest of the orchestra. This ensemble of first-class musicians – orchestral principals, chamber players, a few soloists – abandon their usual commitments and gather in the summer to perform at the highest level. In the same concert the Italian pianist Beatrice Rana, who has recorded with Nézet-Séguin, was the nuanced and perceptive soloist in Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto.
‘A free exchange’: Plínio Fernandes and Sheku Kanneh-Mason at the Lucerne theatre. Photograph: Manuela Jans/Lucerne festival
Later the same night – events, many free, occur throughout the day, in different venues, by the lake, out in the street – the British cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, one of this year’s featured artists, gave a duo recital with the Brazilian guitarist Plínio Fernandes. The intimate Lucerne theatre, lights low, proved ideal for a late-night programme with a South American emphasis. Opening with Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Aria (Cantilena) from Bachianas Brasileiras No 5, they ended with two numbers from Astor Piazzolla’s Histoire du Tango, performing specially arranged repertoire in between. The free exchange of instruments, equal-voiced, proved novel and rewarding. Elegie à une mémoire oubliée, written for them by the Brazilian composer Rafael Marino Arcaro (b.1990), was delicate and affecting. All three studied at London’s Royal Academy of Music.
The visible part of this Swiss festival is the glamorous roster of orchestras and soloists. The bedrock of its activities, however, central to its purpose and vision, is largely out of view. The Lucerne Festival Academy (together with the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra), founded by Pierre Boulez and the festival’s director, Michael Haefliger, is 20 years old this year. It attracts young composers, conductors and musicians from all over the world – around 100 each year – supporting them financially and enabling them to experiment. The focus is music of today (today being a loose term extending back to the mid 20th century, bearing in mind Stravinsky, born in 1882, is still considered “today” in some circles).
Composers Unsuk Chin and Dieter Ammann at the Lucerne festival’s composer seminar. Photograph: Manuela Jans/ Lucerne festival
Concerts are given, workshop-style, and discussions held. Listen, don’t try to analyse, was the main message of the Swiss composer Dieter Ammann, running the composing seminar showcase in the absence of the influential German composer Wolfgang Rihm, artistic director from 2016 until his death in July. Ammann’s advice was vital. Hearing, as I did, four new orchestral works, with four different conductors, and three chamber performances by different players in the space of two days had the feel of a (highly enjoyable) Mensa test. The British conductor Joséphine Korda and British-German composer Eden Lonsdale, both with growing reputations, were among the lineup.
The last concert I attended was a recital by another of the festival’s star artists, the Georgian violinist Lisa Batiashvili. She was joined by two grant holders from the foundation she set up in 2021 to help musicians from her homeland. The 23-year-old Giorgi Gigashvili, a BBC New Generation artist and recipient of many international prizes – he also plays in an electronic band – is already a formidable performer. He was a sensitive partner to Batiashvili in César Franck’s Violin Sonata.
The other was Tsotne Zedginidze, who has just turned 15. I have come to him late in the day: his CV is already longer than most four times his age, and includes association with names such as Brendel, Rattle, Pappano, Barenboim. This prodigious young composer-pianist played a sparky, virtuosic, toccata-like work of his own, as well as preludes by Debussy and, with Batiashvili, the same composer’s Violin Sonata. Musically bursting with confidence but modest too, Zedginidze still studies with his grandmother. We will watch his progress, agog.
The ‘prodigious’ 15-year-old Georgian Tsotne Zedginidze at the piano, with violinist Lisa Batiashvili, in Lucerne. Photograph: Peter Fischli/Lucerne festival
At Zedginidze’s age, Alexander Goehr, who had the brilliance of wit and intellect to choose almost any profession, decided to become a composer. His conductor father, Walter, who had studied with Arnold Schoenberg, cautioned him against, in vain. Goehr died last week, aged 92, the oldest and longest surviving of a trio of composers who met in Manchester as students, the others being Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle. Together, though their paths separated, they changed the landscape of British music.
As well as leaving a body of fine compositions of his own, as professor of music at Cambridge Goehr taught a generation of composers, including Thomas Adès, Julian Anderson and George Benjamin. Benjamin will be working with the young composers in Lucerne this week. He may be poignantly alert to his new seniority in a lineage that, with only a couple of twists and turns, goes straight back to Bruckner.
