Living by the Sword
Rather than a strict, exacting – and more conventional – upbeat, it was with a grand, generous sweep of both arms, left to right, that conductor Robin Ticciati summoned the opening chord of his Beethoven Seventh Symphony from the SCO.
Living by the Sword
This weekend the ISA World Surfing Games – the nearest thing the sport of kings has to a World Cup – will descend on the chi-chi resort town of Biarritz, on France’s Basque coast. The place is already an odd mixture of faded glamour and contemporary beach culture...
Living by the Sword
IN A SPOTLIT space at the front of the stage, holding a slightly incongruous modern microphone, stands a geeky, bespectacled young woman with an old-fashioned BBC accent, wearing a sensible 1940s-style skirt and cardigan.
Living by the Sword
It’s a breathless affair, Renaud Doucet and André Barbe’s helter-skelter La bohème for Scottish Opera. The effervescent director/designer duo set Puccini’s heart-tugging opera in the back street flea markets of 1920s Paris...
Living by the Sword
Shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2010, Lachlan Mackinnon’s last book, Small Hours, concluded with a long poem, “The Book of Emma”, in which he reflected on the death of a friend from his time as an undergraduate.
Living by the Sword
In Rachel Maclean’s new morality tale, “the only way out is up”. And the only way up is… not very pleasant. If there seemed a possibility that the 29 year-old artist, who trained at Edinburgh College of Art...
Living by the Sword
In the opening event of the Ullapool book festival on Friday morning, James Robertson explained why his latest novel was influenced, among other things, by the 1945 Powell and Pressburger film I Know Where I’m Going.
Living by the Sword
It is now more associated with lazy days in the park and student gatherings.But The Meadows in Edinburgh was once a key food production centre after large parts of the open space were ploughed for cultivation during both world wars.READ MORE...
Living by the Sword
It’s 28 years since - in an effort to save money, one hard-pressed season - the then Citizens’ artistic director Giles Havergal quickly conjured up an adaptation of Graham Greene’s great 1969 novel Travels With My Aunt...
Living by the Sword
It had all started so well. Brilliantly, in fact, as young German conductor Clemens Schuldt directed the SCO in a truly exceptional Stravinsky Pulcinella – crisp, driven, richly textured, and giving so many of the orchestra’s musicians the chance to shine as soloists.
Living by the Sword
Ricky Gervais caused a minor media stir recently, when a grieving couple decried his routine about a hypothetical dead baby. Tweeting afterwards about offence, the comic struck me as theoretically correct but insensitive ...
Living by the Sword
There are very few novels indeed of which I might think “this should have been longer”, but this work by Man Booker International longlisted author and Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur, Alain Mabanckou, is one of them.
Living by the Sword
The day ahead promised to be busy. Domenica had correspondence to deal with and, after that, she had arranged to meet her old friend, Dilly Emslie, for coffee at Glass & Thompson, on Dundas Street.
Living by the Sword
Earlier this week I did something that made absolutely no sense whatsoever – at least, when looked at from a common sense point of view. On a day when, to put it mildly, I had a fair bit on, I walked approximately...
Living by the Sword
Ricky Gervais caused a minor media stir recently, when a grieving couple decried his routine about a hypothetical dead baby. Tweeting afterwards about offence, the comic struck me as theoretically correct but insensitive ...
