The enchanting Itinéraire Baroque festival, held across picturesque venues in the Dordogne region, presents a vibrant celebration of Baroque music and arts. It showcases a diverse array of performances ranging from chamber music and cantatas to theatrical comédie-ballets. The 2025

Stinsford church, near Dorchester in Dorset in the south-west of England, just a short distance from Thomas Hardy’s birthplace at Upper Bockhampton, and the place where his heart is buried, provided the perfect setting for A Beautiful Thread, a new

Where most productions of Turandot focus on the glory of the Imperial Court, NGO’s new Turandot doesn’t even get in the front door. Part of this is due to the setting, in the Greek amphitheatre of The Odeon of Herodes

Every summer, the tranquil villages of France’s Périgord Vert awaken to the vibrant strains of Baroque music, transforming the serene countryside into a hub of cultural and musical activities. Decades ago, the world-renowned musician Ton Koopman and his wife, harpsichordist

Last November, I had the privilege of listening to Krystian Zimerman play Chopin’s Piano Sonatas No. 2 and 3 in two consecutive evenings. You might wonder: why am I writing about it more than half a year later? That, precisely,

What are the odds of hearing the entire cycle of Shostakovich’s Preludes and Fugues performed live in one evening? That is precisely what pianist Hannes Minnaar presented for his Hong Kong debut. Inspired by Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, Shostakovich employed

The second opera of Richard Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen, Die Walküre, is the most frequently performed of the cycle and contains some of the best-known music. Nevertheless, it demands directorial genius, musical finesse, as well as top-tier singers to bring

Franz Schubert is often described as possessing a deeply inward and introspective personality, a trait that profoundly shaped his music and personal life. Despite his prodigious talent and the emotional richness of his compositions, Schubert was known for his shyness