Varied sounds of America expertly played in Liverpool

By Peter Connors, 30 November 2018

Loading, please wait...

See full listing

“Atherton’s clear bright voice was ideal”

Reviewed at Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool on 29 November 2018

Adams, The Chairman Dances

Higdon, Blue Cathedral

Barber, Knoxville: Summer of 1915

Dvořák, Symphony no. 9 in E minor, "From the New World", Op.95

Elizabeth Atherton, Soprano

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

Robert Spano, Conductor

Frank Dupree’s Liverpool debut has the audience crying out for more

Glyn Mon Hughes, 14th May

Frank Dupree’s debut with the RLPO celebrates the 250th anniversary of the USA, with Liverpool audiences treated to sumptuous Copland and barn-storming performances of Gershwin and Duke Ellington.

*****

Era-defining string sound in the Liverpool Phil’s Mahler 9

Rohan Shotton, 10th May

Domingo Hindoyan nears his five-year anniversary at the RLPO with Mahler's Ninth Symphony.

****1

Dazzling Prokofiev from Alim Beisembayev and the RLPO

Peter Connors, 26th April

In an all-Russian programme in Liverpool, Alim Beisembayev gives a breathtaking performance of Prokofiev's fiendishly difficult Second Piano Concerto.

****1

Dependable Mozart and Mendelssohn from the RLPO

Glyn Mon Hughes, 16th April

Aurel Dawidziuk and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra explore darkness and light, although the drama does not always bringing the audience to the edge of its collective seat.

***11

Paul Lewis balances delicacy with power in understated RLPO Beethoven

Glyn Mon Hughes, 12th March

Understatement is key in Paul Lewis' interpretation of Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic under Adam Hickox.

***11

Domingo Hindoyan's warm Bruckner 6 beguiles Liverpool

Peter Connors, 5th February

Schubert and Saint-Saëns provide an elegant first half before a change of tone and pace with Bruckner's Sixth Symphony.

****1

More reviews...

Peter Connors

Peter has been attending concerts and operas enthusiastically since his parents took him to see The Mikado in Liverpool when he was a boy of ten and to a “family concert” given by the RLPO a year or so later. Peter studied Modern Languages at Worcester College, Oxford and Law in Manchester. After spending twenty years as a pensions lawyer in Manchester, he retrained as a teacher of English as a foreign language, which took him to Germany and to Serbia. With the onset of the pandemic he returned to the UK and now works online and frequents concert halls and theatres in the North West of England.

Varied sounds of America expertly played in Liverpool under Robert Spano