Reviews

Burt Bacharach, the acclaimed composer and songwriter (who passed away last year aged 94), has had a profound impact on the music industry, inspiring countless songwriters and singers around the globe. The Jewish kid from New York hated his piano lessons, and was a poor school student, once stating that he was "lonely most of the time". His mum loved music but told him that it "is not a career I want you to have". At age 15, using the alias Happy Baxter, Burt started his own band, and frequented jazz clubs, which was a great way to meet girls!

Being ‘Keeper of the Flame’ and sharing the heritage of legendary ‘High Priestess of Soul’, Nina Simone, American singer, songwriter, pianist, composer, arranger and civil rights activist is no small feat, even for her only daughter, Lisa. Nina Simone’s music spanned multiple styles including classical, folk, gospel, blues, jazz, R&B, and pop.  Beloved and well known for jazz-like singing in her contralto voice, she was strongly influenced by her passion for European classical music which was her original career plan.

Gente, gente! (Italian for ‘People, people!’) is a grassroots not-for-profit opera company producing shows “for the people, by people who love opera”. Many of those opera lovers braved a rainy Saturday night in winter to see the opening night of their production of Dialogues des Carmélites.

The tragedy of living in a world of make-believe finds timeless expression in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, in the character of Blanche DuBois, a woman close to forty hoping that her pretensions of class, glamour, and (greater) youth will bring her the prince of her dreams.