Memoirs of a Pear-Shaped Life: the essence of Satie

By Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres, 03 November 2016

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Reviewed at St George's Bristol, Bristol on 1 November 2016

Satie, Memoirs of a Pear-Shaped Life (dramatised piano recital)

Anne Lovett, Piano

William Gaminara, Actor

Max Hoehn, Director

Gothic Opera allows Offenbach’s Die Rheinnixen to shine in Battersea

Nick Boston, 2nd November

Gothic Opera's seventh outing is a powerful performance of Jacques Offenbach’s little known Die Rheinnixen at Battersea Arts Centre.

****1

Musical performances keep WNO's new Così afloat

Mark Valencia, 6th March

Max Hoehn takes Così‘s subtitle, La scuola degli amanti (The School for Lovers), and connects it to Monty Python’s sex education sketch in The Meaning of Life. What larks, eh?

***11

WNO’s Figaro revival crackles with humour and exudes joie de vivre

Alice Hughes, 16th February

A solid Figaro in Cardiff, in which individual performances are a joy, and humour abounds.

****1

Concertos – for violin and for orchestra – from the Hallé

Peter Connors, 22nd March

Viktoria Mullova is a superb soloist in Brahms' Violin Concerto, while an orchestra full of soloists play Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra with Kahchun Wong presiding.

*****

Guitars, electronics and ancient treatises: the JACK Quartet at 92NY

Kurt Gottschalk, 20th March

At 92NY, the JACK Quartet performs four new works developed in their JACK Studio, including a commissioned premiere from the electrifying Tristan Perich.

****1

Kristiina Poska makes an exciting return to conduct the RSNO

Simon Thompson, 20th March

Kristiina Poska directs the RSNO in gripping Tchaikovsky and Pärt, but words and music only occasionally match in Elena Langer's new song cycle.

***11

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Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres

Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres is a Bristol-based film composer and classical electronic artist. Alexandra's passion in scoring and as a performer lie in the duality between the classical and electronica worlds, moving picture and her love for the piano. Her music has been described by The White Room Magazine as “majestic, at times monumental…the force and vastness of nature”.