STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
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Music bridges troubled waters
CHRIS SEARLE reports on a festival where musicians from around the world defied dark times with a sense of musical unity
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
The bard recalls advice received 50 years ago from his TRB muse, and sorts out appropriate legislation for football club ownership
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay
MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations
PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son
THE MENACE of the impending Trump presidency was reflected in the anxious soundscape created by many of the musicians at this year’s London Jazz Festival.
Tenor saxophonist Trish Clowes asked everyone at her free-stage Barbican performance to shake hands and hug each other in anti-Trump solidarity before she played her tune Blue Calm, while young pianist Elliot Galvin said it was “now very pertinent” to play Kurt Weill’s Mack the Knife, conjuring an aura of murderous dark forces at work as he did so.
And the diaphanous blues cadences of Are You Glad to Be in America? rang out from the slashing guitar of James Blood Ulmer at Rich Mix.
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