Songs from West and East

It may not be the easiest time to sell American music in London, given the all-time low popularity of that president. But hey, he's going soon and it's no reason not to enjoy the fascinating music of Samuel Barber or the European premiere of a new song cycle by Ned Rorem, one of today's finest composers of art song. An team of excellent young musicians are presenting a programme that is exciting, fresh and (especially for the Wigmore Hall, which is largely back to its old conservative ways) new, on Sunday evening, spearheaded by prizewinning pianist Marisa Gupta.

The Rorem cycle is called Aftermath - Ten Songs on Love and War and sounds, to put it mildly, topical. Super baritone Thomas Meglioranza sings it, and Brilliant Sky, Infinite Sky by Aaron Jay Kernis. Those of you in Australia, by the way, can hear him soon in the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in Townsville on 9 July when he sings the baritone songs in our Turgenev-Viardot programme The Song of Triumphant Love. Programme also includes music by Gershwin arranged by Heifetz, with violinist Hayley Wolfe, and Barber's excellent Excursions.

Meanwhile Patricia Rozario is gearing up to a wonderful recital programme in the City of London Festival on 3 July, bringing together songs of longing for the East by Schubert, Schumann and Mendelssohn with some powerful Tavener (the Akhmatova Songs, written for her), a new cycle by Param Vir on poetry by Rabindranath Tagore (also written for her) and some folk songs from Goa. Read my piece about her in yesterday's Indy here.

Merci pour la musique!

And not only for the music. A thousand thanks to everyone who helped to make the Hungarian Dances concert yesterday a rip-roaring runaway success. Thanks to Vernon Ellis, Veronica Davies and the Queen's Gate Terrace Concerts for accepting us into the series and hosting the event in their beautiful salon, and for all their hard work. Thanks to Janine for some very "different" canapes: transforming Hungarian cuisine into finger food is no small order. Overwhelming thanks to Ilona for her sensational Austro-Hungarian biscuits, expert page-turning, and astonishing tranquility backstage throughout; ditto for Linn, who was able to keep her head when all about her might have been losing theirs; and ditto to Kate and Marissa from Hodder. Thanks to the team from omusic TV - more of which, I hope, in due course. Thanks to everyone in the audience for being so tolerant when I succumbed to brain-loss and forgot their names. And most of all to Philippe Graffin, Claire Desert and Tom, who pulled out all the stops on violins and piano and put up with me reading stuff in between the pieces.

I think Sir Alan would have been pleased.

Pictured, Philippe and Tom in full flood of Bartok Violin Duos.

Tomorrow...

...is the Hungarian Dances concert. Please excuse me while I go and have a quick shake. I'll be back later in the week. Anyone still wanting to book can do so by following the link in the sidebar.

An artist's choice: endorse designer gear, or play in a prison?

Here's a pseudo-profound thought for Sunday brunch. When someone makes the celebrity big-time as a classical musicians, should they popularise the face of classical music and making it look 'cool' by modelling designer gear? Or would they do better to take music where it doesn't usually go and show how much good it can do?

Opera Chic reports that Lang Lang has endorsed some Adidas trainers. You can wear his name in Chinese on your heels.

I remember the day - some years ago - when I went to heaven and back at Lang Lang's concerts. A Mendelssohn piano concerto, light as a hummingbird. A Wigmore recital full of variety and marvel and love. Hats off, folks, a genius, I said. Then it all went pear-shaped. No idea what happened, but he zoomed way off the deep end in a Rachmaninov concerto in Verbier, and it just hasn't been the same since. So if he fancies going down a different route to make money, that's fine with me. We should let all the megastar names who've made the big time and become warped in the process do their modelling and endorsing et al, and make way for the real musicians who are quietly working themselves into the ground for the sake of their art.

Tonight, one of the less-blingy artists who's in it for the music is indeed getting some prime media attention: our own violin heroine Tasmin Little is the subject of The South Bank Show! Tune in and see her playing everywhere from Stratford-on-Avon to a Brighton hostel for the homeless and Belmarsh Prison on her Naked Violin project.

Finally, just have a look at this article from today's Independent on singing for peace in Darfur. Music has that much power. So what are its most famous practitioners doing endorsing trainers?

Rant over. off to practise my readings for Tuesday now.

Return of the little black dress...

Mad props to whichever clever being at the Independent thought up the headline A SVELTER BELTER for my piece today about the glorious Deborah Voigt, who is back at Covent Garden next week after an eight-year absence to sing Ariadne auf Naxos, complete with THAT little black dress.

Here's one of the cuter promotional videos I've encountered: