Journalist, photographer and social commentator.
The versatility of Winston Churchill (1874 – 1965) knew few bounds; a man of many talents, he could have found success in any number of other disciplines. His stories about his ¨Indiana Jones-like¨ capers in the Boer war made him […]
Gustav Mahler was a Bohemian by birth, but the family moved to Iglau in Moravia when he was only a few months old. It was a largely German-speaking town, and Mahler never learned to speak Czech very well. For Mahler, […]
Cádiz is situated on a narrow peninsula that you approach on a road flanked by wetlands, beaches and water. The alternate access, via Puerto Real, is the Constitution of 1812 Bridge – one of Europe’s longest. Whichever way you enter, […]
In his short life, Georges Seurat (1859 – 1891) finished approximately 45 oil canvases. Just over half of these were created during his visits to the Channel coast. Seurat’s seascapes, however, seldom receive the attention they deserve when displayed alongside […]
Herbert von Karajan had a habit of conducting concerts with his eyes closed. He knew he could trust his players to follow him blindly. For some players this was a slightly unsettling experience, yet the concerts offered an incredible sense […]
Noone, not even Monet, could paint the nuances of different kinds of snow as evocatively as Pekka Halonen Pekka Halonen’s snow landscapes are symphonies in white, rooted firmly in the Finnish home key. He rendered the textures and tonal variations of […]
Can there really be a production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro that is, in nearly every respect, perfectly staged and superbly sung? I wouldn’t have believed it myself – until I recently experienced Opéra National de Paris’s performance of […]
Light on drama and heavy on formulaic plot solutions, La Rondine sits well outside Puccini’s top-tier operas, but it proves perfectly enjoyable thanks to the strong performances of a cast led by the Albanian prima donna Ermonela Jaho, all under […]
The reggae forefather and Jamaican icon Jimmy Cliff died at 81 on Monday 24 November. Jimmy Cliff was a pioneering reggae artist, briefly an actor, a music rebel, and a very generous interviewee. He lived what he preached. He may […]
Is the AI revolution going to have as profound an effect on society as the Industrial Revolution had on the Midlands toward the end of the 18th century? Were people at that time as aware of a changing job market […]
The exhibition Gallen-Kallela, Klimt & Vienna at The Finnish National Gallery suggests that Akseli Gallen-Kallela’s more mature mythical style was influenced by his encounters with the Viennese Secession movement. His paintings, it’s hinted, in turn made an impact on Gustav […]
The Finnish Baroque Orchestra presented Haydn’s final great masterpiece, the oratorio Die Jahreszeiten (The Seasons) in Helsinki, Bern and Zürich together with the Zürcher Sing-Akadenie and three world-class soloists. Florian Helgath, widely recognised as one of the world’s leading choral […]