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.

Magnifiquement recréée par Alice Julien-Laferrière et son ensemble, la musique de Biber est apparue dans toute son originalité : vivante, mouvante, presque organique, respirant à travers ses tensions et ses passions.

La formation italienne et le pianiste français ont fait étalage de leur habileté dans un programme intégralement russe.

Au concert inaugural du Klarafestival 2026, la pianiste chinoise a alterné avec justesse pianisme athlétique et jeu mystérieux, volant la vedette à un Esa-Pekka Salonen en retrait.