Tableaux vivants with notes inégales at Kings Place

I love eating out, yet I hate cooking programmes. It is perhaps for the same reason that I’m suspicious of ‘Music and Conversation’ events. Whilst interested in the process and the thoughts of composers, I’d rather these were presented on their own without feeling that the ‘conversation’ part of the concert explains the ‘performance’ part.

I was fortunate to see Wayne McGregor’s choreography set on the San Francisco Ballet several years back, so I was eager to see Random Works, which was performed this past weekend in Kings Place’s Hall One. Random Works wasn’t McGregor’s choreography, but rather the work of ten young choreographers. McGregor is listed as the programme’s curator.

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”, goes the familiar phrase, and that can be applied in life to any number of things, including music. Were the father of harmony, Johann Sebastian Bach, still alive today, he would be beyond flattered.

Mario Brunello recorrió obras de Bach y Weinberg en una interpretación plena de personalidad, cuyo carácter unitario mostraba voluntad por ofrecer una experiencia viva.

Ell Grup Instrumental de València presentó un programa de marcado carácter narrativo en homenaje al compositor György Kurtág.

Philippe Herreweghe ofreció una versión de la Pasión según san Mateo al frente del coro y la orquesta Collegium Vocale Gent de notable factura, emocionante y extremadamente expresiva.