Steve Reich describes his Music for Pieces of Wood (1973) as an attempt ‘to make music with the simplest possible instruments’. At the Bridgewater Hall five performers stood in a pool of light, each holding a pair of claves: plain sticks of wood. At first, unsurprisingly, it’s all about rhythm. Patterns weave and dissolve, building
For nine years Dwight Pile-Gray was proud to be a guardsman, one of the soldiers who march at Trooping the Colour. Then a junior colleague’s derogatory attitude exposed a culture of racism in the army. Now he is speaking out A report by Janice Turner for The London Times. In July 2021, Lance Sergeant Dwight…
A review by Ivan Hewett for London's Telegraph. As the audience shuffled back into South Bank’s Queen Elizabeth Hall for the second half of Friday evening’s programme, Joan Armatrading lingered discreetly at one of the entrances to the auditorium. Having just witnessed the world premiere of her first classical composition – the appropriately titled Symphony…
Armatrading’s first symphony, premiered by Chineke! conducted by Andrew Grams, was underdeveloped and dull. Neither composer nor ensemble come out well from this