THE
INSTIGATOR
Art & Culture magazine
/NEWS
"Kagami" by Ryuichi Sakamoto - directed by Todd Eckert Tin Drum / Photo and Video © Courtesy of Zoltan Alexander
RYUICHI SAKAMOTO
KAGAMI
DIRECTED BY TODD ECKERT
NEW YORK
MANCHESTER
SYDNEY
TAIPEI
LONDON
Following its immense success in New York at the SHED, and at the MIF Manchester International Festival, in 2023, KAGAMI finally comes to London to the Roundhouse with a unique, mixed-reality performance of late Japanese musician, composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, directed by Todd Eckert of Tin Drum, New York.
Eckert always knows how to surprise us. He used a unique process of 48 cameras to capture a solo piano performance traversing Sakamoto’s decades-long career. The recording took over three days, and created a horrendous amount of data that needed five months to process.
Eckert introduced a technology that has never seen before, mixing Sakamoto’s dimensional virtual performance with the real world by using cinematographic MR mixed-reality, a view of the real/physical world with an overlay of digital elements, where physical and digital sequences interacted.
Sakamoto had unstoppable energy, and an enormous heart. He died in March 2023, at the age of 71.
A must-see production.
Full article will be published shortly.
“Kagami” by Ryuichi Sakamoto / Roundhouse, London (UK)
29 December 2023 - 21 January 2024
“Kagami” by Ryuichi Sakamoto / The Shad, New York (USA)
7 June - 2 July 2023
/ The Instigator
KAGAMI / SAKAMOTO
MADONNA
CELEBRATION TOUR 2024
RIO DE JANEIRO
There is only one word to say: Madonna, and the biggest crowd ever, with over 1.5 million people on Rio's Copacabana Beach.
Enjoy the video from last night / full concert.
(link has changed, we put the Madison Sq Garden's concert up)
“Celebration Tour” Madonna / Copacabana Beach, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
5 May 2024
/ The Instigator
Barbara Hannigan conducts / Photo © Courtesy of Musacchio & Ianniello
BARBARA
HANNIGAN
CONDUCTS
BACH
HAYDN
CLAUDE VIVIER
ALBAN BERG
BARBICAN
LONDON
"Who says women can’t be conductors? Well, men." says Barbara Hannigan.
Much acclaimed soprano Barbara Hannigan with unparalleled dramatic sensibility rolled up her sleeves, and picked up the baton.
She was barely 10, when she decided to be a musician but conducting wasn’t even considered. She spent years focusing on contemporary classical music, working with composers, and exploring the works of the 20th century.
Since, Hannigan became one of the most celebrated musicians in the world. Her concerts are constantly a sold out, and her performances are breathtaking, whether she wears high heels, evening gowns, gym sportswear or a punk outfit on stage. In any circumstances, she is comfortable in her skin and she is an enormously powerful woman.
“Being a soprano is, of course, a women-only field. With conducting I was expanding into a field dominated by men. I didn’t even know what sexism meant at the beginning but as time went by, I realised that “female” was now attached to the “conductor” label where it had never been attached to the singer label.”
Barbara Hannigan
Hannigan gave two concerts in March at the Barbican with LSO, the London Symphony Orchestra, reflecting her outstanding artistry as a curator, as well as a conductor, bringing together pieces spanning for four centuries from Bach and Haydn to 20th century with Claude Vivier and a violin concerto by Alben Berg. The latter was performed by violinist, virtuoso Veronika Eberle, and Vivier’s “Loney Child” by Greek soprano Aphrodite Patoulidou.
For the second concert in March, Hannigan returned to conduct in Gustav Mahler’s "Fourth Symphony".
Two exquisite evenings, two incredible concerts. If you missed any of them, you may watch the concerts on Marquee TV as they were recorded for future broadcast.
"Bach, Haydn, Berg" Barbara Hannigan / Barbican, London (UK)
March 2023 / September 2023
/ The Instigator
"7 Deaths of Maria Callas" Marina Abramovic Willem Dafoe Sophie Bevan - ENO The London Coliseum / Photo © Courtesy of Tristram Kenton
MARINA
ABRAMOVIĆ
7 DEATH OF MARIAS CALLAS
ENO THE LONDON COLISEUM
LONDON
Following the great success of “7 Death of Maria Callas” installation at Lisson Gallery London, in 202, contemporary artist Marina Abramovic, during CALLAS100 payed tribute to the Italian Diva, and staged her seven opera pieces at The London Coliseum ENO.
Abramović in bed on stage, eyes shut. She is Callas, dreaming in her deathbed of celebrated operas’ deaths-scenes.
For each scene, an aria is performed by seven opera singers. The background, a full-size giant video projections - mostly slow-motion and all exquisitely shot for the performance – show an imagined scene starring Abramović as Callas, with murderous cameos by Willem Dafoe. The performance has visually everything one would expect from a contemporary opera scene,
This unique production recreates seven of Maria Callas’s most powerful soprano arias from works by Bellini, Bizet, Donizetti, Puccini and Verdi. The show ends in a Paris hotel room, where Callas died in 1977, with herself singing Casta Diva to which Abramović acts with a voiceover.
“Vissi d’arte, Vissi d’amore” /
“I have lived for art, I have lived for love.”
Full article will be published shortly.
“7 Deaths of Maria Callas” by Marina Abramovic / Coliseum, ENO English National Opera, London (UK)
3- 11 November 2023
/ The Instigator
7
DEATHS OF MARIA CALLAS /
In a small street of Pigalle, Madame Arthur, a renowned cabaret from the late 40s, rolls out the red carpet for actor, cabaret singer Romain Brau.
As always, he has full control on his audience, and a master proficiency with his performance. Brau is liberating, and he is a breath of fresh air. He sings, interacts with his audience, and there is no escape from his charm, killing humour, and fabulous madness.
Here is a glimpse of his flamboyant aura at Madame Arthur. How dull Paris would be without him?
Read full article below.
Romain Brau, Madame Arthur / Paris (France)
26 January - 27 April 2024
/ The Instigator
ROMAIN
BRAU
MADAME ARTHUR
PARIS
Romain Brau on stage at Madame Arthur / Photo © Courtesy of Zoltan Alexander
"Stabat Mater" Vivaldi by Jakub Jozef Orlinski / Video © Courtesy of Warner Classics & Erato
JAKUB
JÓZEF
ORLIŃSKI
6 MINUTES OF EMPATHY
VIVALDI
STABAT MATER
A short movie was sent to us of Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater, performed by countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński who also played the lead role in the film, directed by Sebastian Pańczyk.
“The common denominator of the music and story presented in the film is empathy,” Pańczyk explains. “The story is an attempt to reinterpret the symbolic Stabat Mater figure and contemplate empathy in this atypical form and experimental feature narrative.”
The lead character, after experiencing a tragedy, falls into lethargy. The story talks about the path of empathy and forgiveness. The video has a very illustrative structure, there are no dialogues or text. It is all about energy than the performance.
"Already, during my studies, my teacher Anna Radziejewska gave me fragments of Vivaldi's Stabat Mater to sing. Then I had the opportunity to play them with various orchestras, with the piano alone. I performed them many times over the course of 10 years," recalls Orliński. "With each performance, a new idea arises, a new thought that results from our lives and what is happening in the world. I filter the music through them, then the interpretation is created."
From the 11th to the 16th century, Stabat Mater was sung during the holy mass. It was also developed by Renaissance composers such as Josquin dés Prés, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Baroque composers such as Alessandro Scarlatti, and later by Joseph Haydn and Antoni Dvořák.
In addition to Orliński’s performance, the film features Capella Cracoviensis, Michalina Olszańska, Marek Dyjak, Jacek Beler and Kinga Jasik.
“Stabat Mater” Vivaldi by Jakub Józef Orliński
© Released by Warner Classics & Erato 2022
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At the Royal Albert Hall, as part of BBC Proms series, a unique concert was staged of Stevie Wonder’s 50th anniversary of “Innervisions” with Grammy Award-winning composer, conductor Jules Buckley, and his full-scale symphony Orchestra, with singer, composer, multi-instrumentalist Cory Henry.
Buckley has already collaborated with the biggest names of the music industry, spanning over 70 albums. He formed his orchestra last year at BBC Proms, for Aretha Franklin Tribute, and currently he is Creative Artist in association with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Previous tributes to Nina Simone and Aretha Franklin were also masterminded by him.
The concert at the Royal Albert Hall outdid all expectations. The impact of Stevie Wonder’s 1973 hit album “Innervisions” was a landmark in Wonder’s classic period recording, a transition from romantic ballads into a more musically mature conscious rhythm, that felt still very current to this day.
“Innervisions” is entirely Wonder’s masterpiece, performed most of the instruments on the album himself. Cory Henry’s guest singers on-stage included the brilliant Vula’s gospel Chorale, with Vula Malinga who was previously the Music Director for Quincy Jones orchestral project, Lianne La Havas, Laura Mvula and Grammy nominated singer, songwriter Sheléa Melody Mcdonald, who only a few weeks back gave a breathtaking performance at Quincy Jones 90th Birthday Tribute in Hollywood.
Full article will be published shortly.
Stevie Wonder’s “Innervision” with Cory Henry and the Jules Buckley Orchestra / Royal Albert Hall, London (UK)
21 August 2023
/ The Instigator
STEVIE WONDER
INNERVISIONS
CORY HENRY
JULES BUCKLEY ORCHESTRA