The evolution of the solo percussionist has advanced dramatically over the last couple of decades and among the superstars of the hardware that can be struck and pounded or caressed and stroked is the flying Scotsman Colin Currie whose profile has steadily grown since becoming the first percussionist ever to reach the finals of the BBC Young Musician of the Year in 1994. In 2005 he received a coveted Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award enabling him to both to extend his commissioning activities and to raise awareness of the percussive revolution in which he plays such a major role. Currie talks here to Edward Seckerson about the far-reaching benefits of that award, about the way in which both the instruments and the means of their deployment has evolved. He talks about the collaborative nature of his commissions, the plusses and minuses of a field in which any and every object is a potential instrument; he talks about the logistics of being a percussionist – the kit, the travel, the intensive practice, the neighbours!

Currie will be contributing a masterclass to the three days of concerts and talks celebrating 10 years of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust – Queen Elizabeth Hall 17-19 May 2013. On 18 May he will be one of the panellists in a provocative debate Is Talent Enough? at the Southbank Centre.

http://www.bbtrust.com/bbt10/

In 2007 the English tenor, Ian Storey, made a dramatic and highly visible debut as Tristan in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at the season opening of La Scala, Milan, conducted by Daniel Barenboim and directed by Patrice Chereau. It was seen by millions on TV, in cinemas, and on DVD and marked a big development in this singer’s career. This year he will be singing Siegfried in Götterdämmerung, again under Barenboim, as part of a complete bicentennial Ringcycle at the BBC Proms. Storey eschews the heldentenor label preferring to call himself a “dramatic” tenor but whichever way you look at it his voice type or fach is a comparatively rare one. Physically he has been described as having the build of a lumberjack with the face of TV’s CSI leading man William Peterson – a good fit for super heroes – but it’s the voice with its subtle lyric/dramatic blend that drew Barenboim’s ear and led Placido Domingo to facilitate his American debut in Domingo’s signature role, Verdi’s Otello. In this illustrated audio podcast with clips from Storey’s debut album on the newly launched ARC (Artists Recording Company) label supported by Northampton University he talks to Edward Seckerson about his operatic journey so far from the emergence of a voice of exceptional range through to that steep and unforgettable learning curve of studying Tristan with Barenboim.

The 36th Dresden Music Festival has a big title and even bigger ambitions – EMPIRE – a theme which Artistic Director Jan Vogler hopes will embrace not just the cultural achievements of the British Empire but the broader implications of the word. The Brits are coming for sure with a range of music stretching from the Renaissance via Purcell to Elgar and Britten. The Americans are coming, too, with the New York Philharmonic “in residence” under their Chief Conductor Alan Gilbert. And 2013’s big anniversaries – Wagner, Verdi, Lutoslawski, Britten – will be celebrated in style.

Jan Vogler, who has been very actively involved in the fabric of Dresden’s musical life and was for a time principal cellist of the Dresden Staatskapelle, says he feels “like Dresden’s Foreign Minister for Cultural Affairs” and in this exclusive audio podcast with Edward Seckerson he speaks about opening up this historic city and welcoming the world to its many and varied and extraordinary venues to experience the cream of international music talent. Last year he and Brit Ivor Bolton created a Festival Orchestra to trawl the archives of Dresden’s early music history. They created a great deal of excitement which they hope to build on this year. All this plus the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, with Wagner as nobody ever imagined they would hear it, and Rufus Wainwright, too.

http://www.musikfestspiele.com/cms/en/home/

Vasily Petrenko’s highly acclaimed cycle of the Shostakovich Symphonies with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra reaches an important chapter in what Petrenko himself calls a “biopic” of the composer’s life and times. The 7th Symphony “Leningrad” chronicles one of the most shameful episodes in the annals of man’s inhumanity to man – the 900-day Nazi siege of Leningrad. It was written in the midst of unimaginable suffering and comes directly from the front line of defense like a series of musical dispatches. There was no more important piece written anywhere in the world in 1941. Microfilm of the score was smuggled out of the besieged city and flown to Teheran where it continued its onward journey to Britain and America where Henry Wood (founder of the Proms) and Arturo Toscanini respectively gave Western premieres. A native of Leningrad/ St. Petersburg, Petrenko feels especially close to the work’s humanistic spirit, its defiance and resilience, and marvels as do we all at the highly-personalised message of the most original slow movement the composer ever penned.

The place is the elegant One Aldwych hotel and in a suite kindly provided by the management Broadway star Betty Buckley is in post workout mode chatting to Edward Seckerson about her return to the London stage in Jerry Herman’s charming but much-misunderstood show Dear World. Restored to an intimacy only previously imagined by Herman, Gillian Lynne’s vision for the piece is about as far as it’s possible to get from the show that Herman and the original star, Angela Lansbury, felt had been hijacked at its 1969 Broadway premiere. It was, says Herman, supposed to be a boutique on an avenue of superstores but the Broadway money-men were hungry for another Dolly or Mame. In this informal “Live & Uncut” podcast Texas-born Buckley recalls her beginnings as Martha Jefferson in Edwards and Stone’s musical 1776 – a job she got on her first day in New York – through the London run of Bacharach and David’s Promises, Promises – a West End debut at only 22 years of age – to her triumphant Broadway Grizabella in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats (where she met Lynne) and equally acclaimed Norma Desmond in the London production of Sunset Boulevard. It’s a measure of Buckley’s status in Broadway circles – she was recently inducted into the Broadway Hall of Fame – that Liza Minnelli was dropping in to see Dear World that evening.

Dear World is currently playing at the Charing Cross Theatre

http://www.charingcrosstheatre.co.uk/