Blog posts by year and monthApril 2012
Posts (67)
Don't panic!
On Friday morning, before heading off to our Swansea concert, I picked up my music for this year's Vale of Glamorgan Festival (which commences this week). You always know it is going to be a complex week, when the office has to send a detailed floor plan, carefully labelled, so everyone knows ex...
Adam Walton playlist and show info: Saturday 28 April 2012
This week's show is now available via the BBC iPlayer. Please visit the link any time between now and the start of the next programme. This week's show is mostly about Cate Le Bon's otherworldly and exquisite new album, Cyrk (released on 30 April on Ovni). Cate's our special interview guest, ...
Canton Crawl, Cardiff, Saturday 28 April
Tucked away, a street back from the creative hubbub of Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff, is a new artist space and non-profit company: The Printhaus. Thanks to Sŵn Festival I was there on Saturday for the first Canton Crawl. We weren't exactly crawling anywhere, but it's another seed of an idea wh...
Lostprophets, Cardiff Motorpoint Arena, 28 April 2012
As a homecoming present to their Welsh audience, they said they'd play Start Something, their second album, in its entirety. They promised us a special show. They delivered, in spades. Ian Watkins of Lostprophets Lostprophets, touring their fifth album Weapons, have a formidable canon...
Welsh May Day customs
Wales has a wealth of May Day customs, superstitions and traditions that go back to the time of the Druids. Known as Calan Mai or Calan Haf, the first day of May was an important time for celebration and festivities in Wales as it was considered to be the start of summer. Marking neither an e...
Indian dance company make début Welsh tour
An Indian dance company from Bangalore embark on their début tour of Wales next week as part of an ongoing artistic relationship with National Dance Company Wales. Natya STEM Dance Kampni - STEM stands for Space Time Energy Movement - will visit Brecon, Swansea, Cardiff, Pontypridd and Wrexham...
Disaster off Freshwater West
On Easter Sunday 1943 (25 April), gale force winds and wild seas were lashing at the coast. Close to land, among the giant breakers and rolling waves of the storm, at the west Wales beach of Freshwater West a tragedy of monumental proportions was beginning to unfold. The sloop 'Rosemary'. ...
Cat Whiteaway's tips for tracing missing relatives
After my recent appearance on the BBC One's evening magazine programme The One Show I've been live on BBC Radio Wales' Jamie and Louise show this week helping to reunite a family. Keith Matthews from Workington had lost touch with his nieces in Wales after the death of his brother Terry...
Trouble brewing over Spain
Yesterday Tredegar in Blaenau Gwent was the wettest place in Britain with 41mm of rain. And so far this month 134mm of rain has fallen there. That's over 5 inches and more than the April average of 91.6mm! A few places saw the sun today and stayed dry but many others have been wet with heavy ...
Works from young whippersnappers
I have an overwhelming sense of despair as I try to avoid looking at all the music piled up on/beside/under/around my music stand at the minute. Over the coming weeks, there are an awful lot of dots to get securely under the fingers, and time seems to be slipping away very quickly. The Vale of Glamorgan Festival is almost upon us, which always means a virtual torrent of notes to be learnt and Messrs Hindemith, Strauss, and Debussy are waiting in the wings for their turns. This week's concert in Swansea's Brangwyn Hall, entitled Youthful Genius, has a number of interesting features. Firstly, in the Brahms Serenade No 2, we violas will once again prove that we are perfectly capable of coping without the violins telling us what to do. Scored for a standard orchestra, minus violins and brass (although the horns are included), it is, in some ways, an odd work. However, although it includes a movement that may possibly give the entire viola section tendonitis (see if you can spot which movement it is), the musical language is very typically Brahms. I am quite a fan of Brahms generally. My second interesting fact about this week's programme is that two of the works were composed by two of our most loved composers when they were only young whippersnappers. Strauss was only 18 when he composed his first horn concerto, probably for his famous horn playing father. Shostakovich was only 19 when he composed his first symphony as his graduation piece from the Leningrad Conservatory. I find the youth of the composers at the time of these works composition quite incredible, especially with regard to the Shostakovich. All the hallmarks of his later style and musical language are already apparent in this early symphony. It is really very dark in places. There is one bit of passage work in the second movement of the Shostakovich that I have been struggling a little with. I feel that unless I concentrate 200%, and refrain from blinking for its duration, I am in danger of either getting the bowing right (it involves a lot of up bows in funny places), or getting the notes right (it just doesn't 'lie' nicely), but not both. I will just keep practising it calmly with my metronome until it is secure! The third interesting feature of this concert is our guest conductor, Giancarlo Guerrero. Now the orchestra's website describes him as a 'dynamic Costa Rican' conductor, but I think that is perhaps something of an understatement. He has such enthusiasm and passion for the music that he almost sweeps you along with him. In rehearsals today, I genuinely forgot about all the notes I had to learn, I stopped stressing about that annoying bit in the Shostakovich and I really enjoyed making music in the Brahms. To me, that is a sign of a good conductor - someone who can make you leave your cares at the studio door, and enjoy making music. The BBC National Orchestra of Wales performs at Swansea's Brangwyn Hall tomorrow (Friday 27 April), starting at 7.30pm. Tickets are available by calling the Grand Theatre Box Office on 01792 475715, or from the door.