Edward Seckerson
Writer and broadcaster Edward Seckerson is Chief Classical Music and Opera Critic for The Independent. He wrote and presented the long-running BBC Radio 3 series Stage & Screen, in which he interviewed many of the most prominent writers and stars of musical theatre. He appears regularly on BBC Radio 3 and 4. On television, he has commentated a number of times at the Cardiff Singer of the World competition. He has published books on Mahler and the conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, and has been on Gramophone Magazine's review panel for many years. Edward presented the 2007 series of the Radio 4 music quiz Counterpoint. He has interviewed everyone from Leonard Bernstein to Liza Minelli; from Paul McCartney to Pavarotti: from Julie Andrews to Jessye Norman.
Independent podcast: Vasily Petrenko - Shostakovich
24 May 2012 12:15 PM
These two hugely contrasting symphonies come from the opposite ends of Shostakovich's life and career.
Independent podcast: Beethovenfest Bonn
22 May 2012 12:06 PM
In Bonn, civic pride has a name, and that name is Beethoven.
Independent podcast - Will Todd
21 May 2012 01:36 PM
Composer/Pianist Will Todd has been playing the piano since he was three and composing since he was seven. In his own words: "If I had free choice about how I would spend my musical time I'd run a Jazz club in a cathedral with gigs on Friday and Saturday nights, vibrant eccumenical and cross faith worship on Sundays and big choral concerts as often as possible - featuring the best professionals alongside community and youth choirs."
The Cunning Little Vixen, Glyndebourne Festival, Glyndebourne, East Sussex
21 May 2012 11:17 AM
It might be deduced that the only thing worse than working with children and animals would be working with children as animals. But Leoš Janáček was unfazed by the old Hollywood adage and his cartoon-strip derived opera The Cunning Little Vixen was spirited from page to stage with uncynical conviction and, it has to be said, no end of technical hazards.
Magdalena Kozena/Mitsuko Uchida, Wigmore Hall, London
19 May 2012 10:35 AM
Too much flighty drama in mezzo-soprano's performance
Independent Podcast: Royal Choral Society 140th Anniversary
17 May 2012 06:34 PM
The Royal Choral Society is 140 years young and joins the ranks of the most venerable choral societies in the land - among them Halifax, Huddersfield, and Hereford. What is it about our love of communal singing that has raised the tradition of the great British Choral Society to such dizzy heights?
Verdi Falstaff, Royal Opera House
16 May 2012 12:25 PM
Where there’s Falstaff there’s food. And Robert Carsen’s new staging of Verdi’s final operatic masterpiece plays like an ode to gastronomical excess.
London Symphony Orchestra / Gergiev, Barbican Hall, London
13 May 2012 04:03 PM
One bar into this timely celebration of his work and the composer's identity could not be in doubt.
Opera of the Week: La Bohème, Royal Opera House, London
05 May 2012 12:00 AM
Not just another revival of a venerable old staging but its 25th showing in the 50th year of director John Copley's work at the Royal Opera House. Julia Trevelyan Oman's grandly designed Bohème is what used to pass for social realism at the opera.





