The end of an era

Sadly, the decision has been taken to end the Lark Reviews website. The site was founded in 2012 by Dr Brian Hick, one time deputy editor of Musical Opinion, editor Emeritus of The Organ, regular columnist for the Hastings & St Leonards Observer and educational consultant for many years. The aim of the site was to post well informed and succinct reviews within 24 hours of musical performances across the country, with an added focus on the Hastings area. Regular CD and DVD reviews were also included for major labels and distributors as well as smaller scale productions.

Before Brian’s death in 2021 we had already discussed the changing context in which we were operating. When the site was founded there were relatively few sites doing the same. Now that is no longer the case.

Since taking on responsibility for Lark I have been ably assisted by Susan Elkin and more recently further reviewers have been working with us. With limited time and resources, however, and wishing to concentrate more on my own performance and teaching work it seems that the best thing now is to end the website. I feel sure that Brian would support this decision, bringing the site to a proper end, rather than letting it gradually wind down.

The site will be archived with all content available for the forseeable future.

Thank you for visiting and supporting Lark Reviews

With best wishes
Stephen Page
Editor


Hastings International Piano Competition News

2022 Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition Countdown

Continues With Announcement of International Jury Chaired by Professor Vanessa Latarche
Also Announced is Patron of The Newly Established Royal College of Music Prince Consort Orchestra His Serene Highness Dr Donatus, Prince Von Hohenzollern.

With competitors from more than 40 countries, a record number of entries and two
orchestras accompanying both semi-finalists and finalists, the sixteenth prestigious Has-tings International Piano Concerto Competition will take place for the first time in both Rye
and Hastings from 24th February to 5th March 2022.

For more details see https://www.facebook.com/HastingsConcertoCompetition/

 

2022 Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition

The sixteenth prestigious Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition will take place for the first time in both Rye and in Hastings from 24th February to 5th March 2022.

Due to heating difficulties at St Mary in the Castle, which could not be sufficiently rectified and the lack of availability of The White Rock Theatre, Hastings International Piano have made the decision to move round one of the competition to Rye Creative Centre.

The second round, semi-final and finals of the competition will then return to Hastings and take place at The White Rock Theatre.

Hastings International Piano is delighted to announce that a unique partnership has been agreed with The Royal College of Music to create a graduate orchestra, administered in Hastings to offer Royal College of Music graduates orchestral training and paid
performance opportunities during the concerto competition semi-finals and throughout
the year. We are also thrilled that the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra will return to accompany our finalists during our two-night Final. Steinway and Sons, the most prestigious piano maker in the world was recently announced as the piano sponsor for the next concerto competition.

 

Tickets for all rounds of the competition at both venues in Rye and Hastings can be purchased from The White Rock Theatre Box Office from :

Monday 22 November: Presale for Friends & Patrons of Hastings International Piano

Wednesday 24 November: Public Booking Opens

 

 

Ministry of Sound Bring The Biggest Party On The South Coast To Sussex Next Month

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Ministry of Sound invites you to relive the greatest dance music of all time with a new live concert at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill on Friday 26th November 2021. Bringing the magic of timeless club hits, this show combines high-energy anthems with a full orchestra to create the ultimate party experience.

This breathtaking event is Ministry of Sound’s first ever fully produced classical music show. Alongside the biggest dance tracks reimagined by The London Concert Orchestra, there will be special guest live vocalists and a set from DJ Danny Rampling – one of the original founders of the UK’s rave / club scene.

All this against a backdrop of large screen visuals, lights, lasers, special effects and a live-scored documentary featuring Judge Jules, Paul Oakenfold, Brandon Block and key Ministry of Sound players including Justin Berkmann and Lohan Presencer.

The show spans chart-topping albums with huge tracks getting a never heard before classical remake. Expect to hear iconic club favourites such as Faithless’Insomnia, The Chemical Brothers’ Hey Boy Hey Girl, Darude’s Sandstorm, Fatboy Slim’s Right Here, Right Now, Moloko’s Sing It Back and so many more.

Edward Gilroy, Managing Partner of Coastal Events said “It’s been a tough time for most people over the past two years, especially those of us who are passionate about dancing to live music; that’s why we are so excited to be bringing this massive show to the south coast. The De La Warr Pavilion is a stunning venue and I can’t wait for the people of Sussex to get their raving buddies together for this awe-inspiring event; clubland classics meets classical in this high-energy concert that is going to be endless fun!

Tickets for Ministry of Sound Classical at De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill can be purchased online via dlwp.com and coastalevents.co.uk.

Oxford Lieder Concert Series, Fairlight Hall 7th November 2021

Oxford Lieder Concert Series return to Fairlight Hall, Hastings this November with a concert from James Atkinson Baritone and Sholto Kynoch (piano).

Sunday 7 November 11am

Tickets £15 include coffee and cake and can be booked from fairlighthall.co.uk

Fairlight Hall concert series, in collaboration with Oxford Lieder, resumes with the outstanding young baritone James Atkinson. At Oxford Lieder’s online Spring Weekend in February 2021, The Times wrote of James: ‘This young man is still in his final year at the Royal College of Music, but so confident was his stage manner and command of Schubert’s music… that he proclaimed himself a natural lieder singer and linguist, savouring the words almost as idiomatically as a native German speaker, his lovely lyric baritone responding to the words with invigorating warmth. As a recitalist he’s clearly a name to watch.’

Bloom Britannia – St Mary in the Castle Hastings

St. Mary in the Castle, Hastings

Friday 22nd October 7.30PM
Saturday 23rd October 7.30PM
Sunday 24th October 4PM 

Composer: ORLANDO GOUGH
Librettist: STEPHEN PLAICE
Director: POLLY GRAHAM
Artistic Director: JENNY MILLER
Conductor: CHRISTOPHER STARK
Assistant conductor: MARK AUSTIN

We invite you to experience our new ‘people’s opera’ BLOOM BRITANNIA, an affectionate, comic opera bringing together influences from folk, pop and jazz. An opera, but not as you know it!

Music & Wine St Luke’s Brighton 15th October 2021

Allowing us deeper into Dinara

Dinara Klinton - square - blue dress space top & right Apr15
 Benjamin Ealovega - Compressed.jpgHer image has resembled a slavic warrior. Long black hair in luring waves beyond the shoulders. Darkish brown eyes in sometimes piercing gaze. Smiles brief and rationed. Frowns fleeting but frequent. Speech quick and penetrating.

Her most-feared weapons? A quiver-full of Liszt Transcendental Etudes and Prokofiev Sonatas, all 19 arrowheads tipped with a lethal dab of Chopinesque power and poetry.

Her trail of destruction? First, a summoning from the International Chopin Festival, by the world matriarch of explosively unsurpassable piano performance, Martha Argerich, to perform and demonstrate her deadliness at her Lugano Festival.

Second, a CD smelted and fired in the Mendelssohn-Salon of the Leipzig Gewandhaus (those 12 Liszt Studies) that had Sir Andràs Schiff and Stephen Kovacevich (once Argerich’s husband), BBC Music Magazine’s Record of the Month and other prestigious reviewings saluting the presence of a new force in that demanding and exacting repertoire. Specific recruitment by Schiff for his elite squad of outstanding new young artists attacking recital venues in Berlin, Frankfurt, Zurich and New York.

Next, a CD bequeathed to series The Fryderyk Chopin Institute of Complete Works on Contemporary Instruments.  Now her new release of all nine far-ranging Prokofiev Sonatas, forged and nailed in a Netherlands recording studio, further piling up her potent reputation among critics and soothsayers.

Is this young woman the leader of new breed of Brünnhildan Valkyries? Or is all this more realistic than operatic scenario? Is her training backstory – Ukrainian girl goes to Moscow Central School of Music, then the Russian capital’s Tchaikovsky State Conservatoire; London’s Royal College of Music and Britten Fellowship in Britain – a mere librettist’s concoction? It’s fun viewing through that lens, but I’ve nearly finished.

Dinara Klinton’s next concert in Sussex looks deceptively like voluntary disarmament. Having rained her arsenal onto the musical establishment battlements, and gained an assistant piano professorship at RCM as a prize scalp, she’s shedding her helmet and armour.

Her confiding programme of disclosure at Music & Wine series at St Luke’s Queen’s Park in Brighton on Friday 15 October (7.30) will be warming enlightenment for a westerner assuming Russian piano repertoire to be barely undetached in soul from in its concert-hall persona of hard-hitting, big-scale, virtuosic emotion-dumping, or else vintage ironic and sarcastic ideological obedience or subversion, with the odd film or ballet score protruding.

Dinara Klinton herself tells us what she has in store, and where her artistry has lately arrived:

“I welcome you to spend this Friday evening with me, enjoying not just the wine, but my taster for you of the most exquisite Russian musical bouquet. Some of my samples will be lesser known to you, but not any less delicious.

“These little pieces will walk you through the fruitful blossom of Russian romanticism with a futuristic aftertaste. From soft Lyadov Prelude on to racy ‘Lark’, herbaceous Medtner and beefy Taneyev. Then after a little social pause we’ll have smoky Scriabin, then heady Rachmaninov to end the evening.

“Come with your senses and prepared to be delighted!

The sensible advice seems to be: think not about chainmail , helmets or breastplates. Bring instead your hearts, palates and finer feelings – and uncover kindred Russian feeling!

Richard Amey

Dinara Klinton is an associate artiste of The International Interview Concerts