Are you planning to attend Imogen Cooper’s farewell tour?
I would very much like to but unfortunately I can’t make the dates
ah. After I have heard that this will be her last tour I booked this gig. Great program. I love her Impromptus! 
Turandot last night at the Royal Opera House. Absolutely splendid, a wonderful Liu who brought a tear to my wife and I.
Riveting.
A nice opera buff sitting next to us told me of a small opera venue in Hackney, somewhere near Arcola Street, which I aim to check out.
After the opera, a late cocktail then on to a totally different (free) gig at Stone Nest in Shaftesbury Avenue: a gathering of various musicians in a kind of open jam session (including Ese and some of her Vooduu People, though her set had ended by the time we got there, she was still dancing around and joining in. Nice to see some old friends and faces). Some cool players & singers made for a funky, jazzy, hiphoppy end to the night. Bus home in the early hours…
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Had the privelige of seeing another concert with the diva Martha Argerich. Her playing was still on a high level. It’s also amazing to see how these artists still travel and play to audiences at that age.
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Just home from a nice concert in Bamberg with the Orchestra and Julia Hagen on cello.
Dvorak’s cello concerto, a concert piece from a female Tsjech composer and the 2nd symphony of Martinu. Nice program well played…
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La Traviata at the ROH this evening. It has great reviews and it is a very traditional production. The sets were wonderful. I think that the first act was a little uneven but it improved significantly in the two last sections and was very fine. However I think my view of the first act was very definitely a minority view.
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We were supposed to see it on the 31st January, but had to cancel as Mrs Q having a hip replacement on the 20th 
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I’m sorry to hear that I trust that Mrs Q recovers quickly and is fully mobile soon. I know little about opera really but La Traviata is one of my favourites so I know the music well. I have a number of productions on CD and I tend to like the productions that drive the story rather than show off the singer, especially Violetta. And appreciate that it is Verdi and a bell canto role but still I listen more often to the ‘simpler’ versions. Here Ermonela Jaho revives her role, done twice before and the production as a whole is wonderful. For me, Jaho just wasn’t there in the first act. She could do the full bodied singing and the flourishes wonderfully but the more delicate lines were just lost. Now I was sitting in the Gods and the projection would have been to the stalls and so maybe it was wonderful there but to me, it was a bit lost! In the later acts she was fabulous but it was just the first one. Alfredo and Alfredo’s father were fab throughout and as I say, the sets were fab too. And as everyone else seems to be raving about her performance, it is only me, so do go and see it if you can. You have a few weeks yet.
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Wish her well👍
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My first concert of 2026 opens with Schumann Violin Concerto at Tivoli Vredenburg Utrecht.
I had no knowledge Schumann even wrote a violin concerto. I think it will take more than a few listen to sink in. It is very different from a typical Schumann where all romantic and impassioned. This concerto felt bit cold and Faust’s muscular playing added an extra edge to the piece. I have read that it was written just before Schumann went AWOL and Josef Joachim ( concerto’s dedicatee ) and Clara Schumann decided not to publish for 100 years. It was said to be very difficult piece to play and most fiddlers could not play it.
Performers
Radio Philharmonic Orchestra
Thomas Guggeis conductor
Isabelle Faust violin
Program
Schumann Violin Concerto
Brahms Variations on a Theme by Haydn
Beethoven Symphony No. 8
A young German conductor was new to me. He raced through both Brahms and Beethoven 8 with good energy and galloping pace.
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Caught the final afternoon of this year’s Bath Jazz Weekend, 3 very varied groups covering a wide range of progressive British Jazz.
After the mesmerising electronica of Elliott Galvin’s ‘The Ruin’ it was the post-bop quintet headed up by pianist/vocalist Emily Tran - sounded to me somewhat influenced by Dave Holland Quintet but with very much its own vibe.
Big credit to Nod Knowles and his team for putting on another cracking event at welcoming venue that is Widcombe Social Club.
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Biffy at Nottingham Arena
Edit - Well Biffy were to quote one song ‘Biblical’, they go loud, the staging is just awesome. There’s subtlety along the way, but they are a force to behold. The second time I’ve seen them and whilst I’m not a great fan of arenas, they know how to use them.
Currently the only gig booked or planned this year….
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Went to see Steep Incline at the Peer Hat in the Northern Quarter. Bit weird for myself and Mrs. H. as it’s our offspring on drums. Band has now been together a year. We saw them in Stockport in April when they were a trio, drunk, angry (rightly) and ragged. Enjoyed them but we were only familiar with the one song and only when reviewing the video of that night did we begin to appreciate that, underneath what was clearly not one of their better nights, there were some proper songs.
Some mates from my old workplace Album Group came along last night as did the offspring’s cousin who hadn’t heard them until we started playing three tracks on the way in. Despite having sent him video and audio, one of my fellow Album Group members hadn’t got around to listening to anything and so came with no expectations. He brought with him a mate from Chorlton who turned out to have links to Manchester Confidential.
My hope was merely that they showed they had the potential to do better than Stockport given the clear quality of the songs. I’m sure we can be accused of bias but (insert expletives) we left absolutely blown away. They were tremendous. A fact reflected by the audience response. First band were covers and they were okay. Second were originals. Some memorable intros but not really matched by songs. The Steepies blew them away. It feels very wrong to like your own child’s band let alone really like them but…
EDIT: to add the photo.
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Just back from tonight’s concert. Manfred Honeck conducting the Bamberger Symphoniker (he is one of the honorary conductors). And Truls Mork for the 2nd cello concerto of Shostakovich…. He played well, but the concerto is a bit challenging to appreciate and it was the first time I heard it….
After the break we got the 5th symphony of Tchaikovsky. And Honeck absolutely nailed it, never heard the 5th so well……
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Emmylou Harris at the Glasgow Arena last night. It’s her farewell tour (she’ll continue playing live in the US, but not play abroad after this). The voice hasn’t got its youthful crystalline clarity, but is if anything more beautiful, and she can still interpret a song like few others. The band were superb, as all her bands are. This was a romp through her career, I’d have done the trip from London just to hear Pancho and Lefty, but the rest of the set was magical as well. If I see a better gig this year I’ll be amazed, and incredibly lucky.
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Mahler Symphony 2 'Resurrection'
Performers
Netherlands Philharmonic
Laurens Symphonic
Lorenzo Viotti: conductor
Wiecher Mandemaker: choral conductor
Nikola Hillebrand: soprano
Marina Viotti: alto
I love Viotti and curious to see how he’s going to pull off Mahler 2. This is the first time I have heard the Symphony 2 live. I think he did a great job overall and soprano and alto were also excellent! ( Love Marina from Die Fledermaus last year ) Pity that at the end they did not bring the singers up front. They sure deserved it.
At Concertgebouw Groot Zaal.
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Mork is great. I bet his Shosty was good!
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Only just woken up after a remarkably quick journey back from Liverpool got us home just after midnight. Saw the offspring’s band at Liverpool Arts Club. Free gig and the students aren’t back yet so it was relatively poorly attended although those who were there were remarkably noisy. Fair to say it was a car crash of a day, which threatened to end really badly, but didn’t.
Lead singer, rhythm guitarist and songwriter had spent the previous night vomiting and had arrived looking like death and very subdued. Clearly very ill. Remarkable to see them so quiet as they’re one of the loudest most unfiltered people I’ve ever met. They spent the hours before the gig very quietly indeed.
Venue is lovely but had been very poor at communicating detail so there was much stress over sorting that out. One of the two support acts went awol and the other pulled out with 30 minutes to go after their grandparent died. Sound tech stepped in with his own electric guitar and was excellent.
In the meantime, my offspring discovered that the stage was so small they could barely get the kit on there. The bass player realised that if he tried his usual expansive dancing he’d soon be off the stage.
In the background lots of people who really wanted to see the band started dropping like flies. Friend in Maghull cried off ill. Friend in North Wales got home from work too late. My siblings lift to their first post cancer gig looked like it was falling through. My cousin cracked their head doing his daughter’s stairs and their daughter and new boyfriend were late getting out of the Delamere Forest. His wife appears to be down with Covid.
Remarkably they all made it bar Covid wife. Even more remarkably the gig happened albeit with the centre of attention functioning at maybe 20% of their usual energy. Aside from the poor positioning of the drum kit meaning a couple of lines were fluffed, a guitar strap failing mid song and the lead guitarist nearly taking the lead singers head off given the small stage, they again surprised. Having lost most of their energy the little the singer had left was focused on just singing and they were excellent.
Lovely to hear the reactions from people afterwards. Several themes keep coming up. People are generally shocked that they are watching an unknown band who clearly already have “the songs” and an entire set full of non duffers at that. The word which also keeps coming up is “tight”. Then there’s the shock that the singer is trans.
They’re off to Brighton for tomorrow night and then back to college but the venue had a long chat afterwards. The gist appears to be that they want them back when the students are back, will guarantee a better effort on the publicity front and want to fix them up with some more gigs in the North West. Victory snatched from jaws of defeat really.
No more gigs for me now until March as the Manchester Madi Diaz gig was pulled. I think Joan Shelley is next.
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Jerusalem Quartet plays Shostakovich
Program
Shostakovich SQ nr. 13 in B-flat minor, op. 138
Shostakovich SQ nr. 14 in F-sharp major, op. 142
Shostakovich SQ No. 15 in E-flat minor, op. 144
Once again excellent Shosty by these guys. Audience was unusually quiet in especially that goldend silence after No. 15 ended. It must have been about a minute noone made any sound!
New viola player Alexander Gordon was excellent.
@ Concertgebouw Recital Hall
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