Berthine in concert: A review

Berthine in concert: A review
 
By Dr. Luis Dias
Berthine van Schoor, Cello
Albie van Schakwyk, Piano
Hanna van Niekerk, Narrator.
What do you get when three “van”s turn up all at once? A concert, that’s what!
The concert, organised by ProMusica on Monday evening at the Kala Academy, got off to a gentle start, with a hitherto unknown and unpublished [...]

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Haydn Seek!

 Haydn Trio Eisenstadt – a review
 By Dr. Luis Dias
 Harald Kosik, piano
Verena Stourzh, violin
Hannes Gradwohl, cello
 “Architecture is music frozen in place and music is architecture frozen in time”.
A happy marriage of the two took place in the splendid setting of the recently refurbished St Inez church last Saturday evening.
The Haydn Trio Eisenstadt, formed in [...]

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Rajdeep Sardesai: The media explosion and its impact

The DD Kosambi Festival of Ideas 2009 opened at the Kala Academy Dinanath Mangueshkar indoor auditorium this evening.
It was meant to start at 5 pm, and got delayed in true bureaucratic fashion (no surprises here) as the “chief guests” (fill in the name of the usual suspects, and you’ll be right) took their time to appear. [...]

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Kiss Me (2004): A review

We had decided to avoid the V-day hoopla anyway, even before the self-appointed guardians of Indian culture, the Sri Ram Sena made their threat to disrupt it (resulting in a Pink Chaddi campaign, Pub Bharo, etc but I digress).
At yesterday’s Portuguese class, I was told that there’d be a film being screened at the Instituto [...]

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Sea of Poppies: A review

This book is the first of a trilogy (the “Ibis” trilogy, apparently) by Amitav Ghosh and was a Booker nominee.
I had read Ghosh’s The Glass Palace and was deeply impressed with his writing style and his imagery.
Perhaps it is a good thing that I had no prior inkling what “Sea of Poppies” was about. It heightened the enjoyment [...]

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Aftershocks: The Rough Guide to Democracy

The second day of the Goan People’s Film Festival saw, among other films, an award-winning documentary on the evils of mining, and the price our indigenous people pay for our country’s “progress”.
Aftershocks: The Rough Guide to Democracy is an indepth view on how everyone colludes to muffle the story of people at the lowest rung of our societal ladder; [...]

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India Untouched: Stories of a people apart

Today was the first day of the first ever Goan People’s Film Festival. I wasn’t sure what to expect, and wondered if it would be a series of drab documentaries.
Boy, was I in for a surprise!
The opening film, India Untouched: Stories of a People apart hit me right between the eyes. It is 105 minutes long, [...]

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Maraoun Benabdallah-a review

As promised, here is a review of this pianist’s recital, on 9 November 2008 at the Maquinez auditorium, at the slightly odd time of 3 pm.
This Hungarian-Moroccan pianist, all of 24 years, strode onto the stage, and without any further ado, began playing the transcribed (by Bizet) piano solo version of the first movement of [...]

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Delhi Darbar, Panaji(Panjim), Goa–A review

There were quite a few advertisements in the local press about a Biryani Festival at Delhi Darbar, which seemed to have whetted our collective appetite. It competed with China Garden, Goenchin and Rajdhani for our attention, and won. 
As it was a Sunday, parking was mercifully easy to find, and we were able to get to [...]

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Helene Grimaud on Bach

Listening to  Hélène Grimaud on Radio3.
Petroc Trelawney was in conversation with her on the programme In Tune.
It was interesting to hear her thoughts and her approach to the big daddy of all composers, Johann Sebastian Bach.
Her new album, on Deutsche Grammophon, is called, simply, Bach.
Her are its contents:
BACH
The Well-tempered Clavier (Selection)
Transcriptions of Partita for Violin no. 3 [...]

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