With a contract at Berlin’s Komische Oper extended to 2030, conductor James Gaffigan is soon to take up the music directorship at Houston Grand Opera from 2027. We talk about how he does it all...
The Finnish conductor talks about becoming Music Director at Singapore Symphony from 2026 – and creating programmes for the unique cultural melting pot that the orchestra sits at the centre of.
From fulfilling funerary functions, to eulogising friends and fellow artists, or lamenting the waste of war: here are some of the finest examples of music written in mourning.
With fifty years passing since his death in 1975, what does Shostakovich’s music mean for us today? Stephen Johnson outlines six lessons from this multifaceted composer – who might just be playing with us...
The LSO’s Principal Guest Conductor talks about his passion for two titans of Russian and Soviet music – and how to decode Shostakovich’s more cryptic and troublesome symphonies.
The iconoclastic Spanish director talks about a new production of Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina in Geneva – and the messy, anarchic, utopian struggle of directing opera.
Mark has been a Bachtrack editor since 2014. He is also an experienced critic, writing hundreds of reviews for the site, as well as a freelancer writing for other magazines and newspapers. He also writes programme notes and blogs on Substack. Mark has a particular passion for the operas of Verdi as well as Russian and French repertoire. Outside the concert hall and opera house, Mark enjoys cooking and travel and is probably at his happiest let loose in a French patisserie or a Viennese coffee house.
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