Showing 1 - 10 of 17
Jewish classic revisited
Life, John Clewley, Published on 25/10/2025
» Good news fans of klezmer music. The groundbreaking, award-winning klezmer outfit The Klezmatics have reissued their classic album Rhythm + Jews: Revisited (Piranha, Germany), which was recorded in 1990 and released in 1991. The reissue is part of the band's 40th anniversary celebrations.
A titanic evening of Mehler
Life, Stan Gayuski, Published on 18/10/2025
» Earlier in October, Somtow Sucharitkul informed this reviewer that he was about to conduct Gustav Mahler's Titan with the Siam Sinfonietta.
Fusing different musical worlds
Life, John Clewley, Published on 13/02/2024
» Klezmer is the music of Ashkenazi Jews, who created the music in Central and Eastern Europe in the 16th century. Although mainly instrumental, the music is usually sung in Yiddish. It was hugely popular before the destruction of Yiddish communities in Central Europe during the Holocaust. Professional Klezmer musicians who escaped to the US founded large klezmer orchestras in the first two decades of the 20th century, who competed with jazz ensembles and Irish big bands in New York.
Let the good times roll
Life, John Clewley, Published on 06/06/2023
» Last month, one of the great explorers and producers of American vernacular music, Chris Strachwitz, passed away. He was 91 years old. He was the founder and co-owner (with Tom Diamant) of Arhoolie Records which since its first release in 1960, Texas Sharecropper And Songster by Texan bluesman Mance Lipscomb, has put out an astonishing 44,000 records.
When East meets West
Life, John Clewley, Published on 17/01/2023
» In 2017, the Japanese band Minyo Crusaders released their debut album, Echoes Of Japan (P-Vine, Japan), to great acclaim. The band's reworking and updating of Japanese folk music, or minyo, on a rhythmic bed of Caribbean, Latin and Afrobeat was truly inspired, and perhaps pointed the way for other fusion bands in East and Southeast Asia. The aim was to revive minyo as "music for the people", as quoted by World Music Central.
What is love?
Life, Michael Proudfoot, Published on 08/11/2022
» Thai composer Somtow Sucharitkul's opera Helena Citronova had its European premiere in Hof, Germany, late last month, and it was a stunning success.
Sounds from the silver screen
Life, Published on 02/12/2020
» Has there ever been a more miraculous tunesmith than film composer John Williams? Following a fantastic evening of complete immersion in his best-known movie themes in the company of the marvellous Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra under the commanding baton of resident conductor Dr Vanich Potavanich, the answer last week was surely an unequivocal "No!". In yet another sold-out concert at the Thailand Cultural Centre on Nov 13, there were indeed some terrifying moments when the "Dark Side" was unleashed, however, for the most part, this was an evening of unadulterated, joyful reverie and fond recollections of all those treasured moments when we experienced these magical soundtracks for the first time in the movie theatre. The RBSO truly revelled in "Movie Themes By John Williams".
Wander through the desert
Life, John Clewley, Published on 28/04/2020
» The Transglobal World Music Chart for April features one of the most popular of the so-called desert blues bands of West Africa, with Tamikrest in the No.1 slot.
Mature Musicality
Life, Published on 25/09/2019
» Somtow Sucharitkul and Siam Sinfonietta earlier this month gave a wonderful concert in the Czech Republic's capital, Prague, as part of their European tour. The event was significant for several reasons. It marked the premiere on the Old Continent of Voraprach Wongsathapornpat's piece Temples Of Kyoto, Trisdee Na Patalung's Restoration, and Somtow's Helena Citrónová suite. For many of the young musicians, the tour occasioned their first performance in Europe and "their first time encountering the particular warmth of the Czechs and the intensity of their love for music". The excited audience at Prague's Academy of Performing Arts (HAMU) bestowed a long standing ovation on Somtow and Sinfonietta for their mature musicality.
Musical archaeology
Life, John Clewley, Published on 10/07/2018
» James Cagney is regarded as one of the first gangster tough guys of Hollywood. Films like The Public Enemy (1931) made him a big star and his tough-guy persona belied his background as a dancer. If you look at the opening scene to his 1932 film Taxi, you'll hear him speaking fluent Yiddish, a "High German" language that originated with Ashkenazi Jewish communities and was later fused with other German dialects, as well as the Hebrew, Aramaic and Slavic languages.