
Simone Young coaxed the most varied textures out of the orchestra with an impeccable ear for balance.

Entering into the world of The Wider Earth is like journeying back in time to a near-magical landscape, a landscape that it is hard to believe is still the one we inhabit today.

There’s a sense of real sharing on stage, no clashing egos, just sublime music making by some of the best in the business.

This cabaret entertainment starts quietly enough, well alright it’s a touch ‘schoolish’ but only for a minute or two, while narrator David Cosma introduces a slice of popular music’s history, a mid-twentieth century’s seminal moment.

When the extraordinary pianist Lang Lang wiped his sweaty face during Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto, I wondered if he should have mopped the piano’s brow too.

Jungr overflows with intensity, she’s a fireball, a force to be reckoned with and with good reason, since she’s unafraid to sing with such heart-jangling and white-hot emotion she appears at times to be hanging by a thread on the brink of madness.

Strictly Gershwin is an electrifying and thrillingly poised ride through George and Ira Gershwin’s music from their larger than life Broadway creations through to the seductive and splendid silver screen tunes they composed for Hollywood.