West Bank home described as ‘ideal for outdoor gatherings’ is among 41 listed rentals in illegal Israeli settlements
Some of Mohammad al-Sbeih’s fondest childhood memories are of his small farm in the hills south of Bethlehem, where three generations of his family grew wheat and barley.
“It was a hard plot to farm as it was on a hillside with terraces, but it was so beautiful,” Sbeih remembers.
Continue reading...Bamberg Symphony/Hrůša
(Deutsche Grammophon)
The first appearance of these distinctive works on the Deutsche Grammophon label is a red-letter day
Written in exile between 1942 and 1953, all but one of Bohuslav Martinů’s six symphonies were commissioned or premiered by US orchestras, yet each exudes the vigorous spirit of the composer’s Czechia homeland. Too often neglected, their first appearance on Deutsche Grammophon is a red-letter day for these distinctive, eminently likable works.
The Bamberg Symphony was founded in 1946 by musicians driven out of Bohemia and Moravia. The music is thus deeply embedded in their DNA and Jakub Hrůša knows just how to draw it out. Martinů’s idiosyncratic sound world incorporates orchestral piano and bristling percussion, while his neo-classical pastoralism is regularly subverted by a bustling rhythmic energy. Tempos accordingly are brisk but never rushed, while crisp, crunchy textures are clean and meticulously detailed.
Continue reading...A wannabe folk singer’s humdrum life as a shrimp catcher is upended by the arrival of a mysterious American stranger in the Booker-listed tale
Seascraper opens with Thomas Flett rising at five in the morning, eating a cooked breakfast made by his mother and pulling on his oilskins. Thomas is 20, though the ache in his bones makes him feel considerably older – a symptom of the hard physical labour of his job. That job is shanking: dredging the seashore for shrimps at low tide using a horsedrawn cart. Thomas does the same work that his grandfather did decades before him and men from the north-west of England have been doing for 500 years. But his heart is no longer in it: the pay is poor and the work is solitary and dull. He dreams of being a folk singer, playing to audiences in pub backrooms and parlours, and, unbeknown to his mother, has been working on some songs.
Benjamin Wood’s novel, which spans two days, brims with atmosphere and detail; you can practically smell the fish guts and seaweed as Thomas stands on the beach and picks over the morning’s haul. The audiobook is narrated by Wood, whose gentle and evocative delivery underlines Thomas’s hard-bitten existence and his quiet longing for a different future.
Continue reading...Ahead of her new album, the singer-songwriter answers your questions on big 90s nights out, financial survival and the time a whole tube carriage serenaded her
I’m curious how you found out you could sing, how you developed your voice and what singing means to you? VladimirS
I found out I could sing while I was doing experimental theatre in 1989 – it was a cultural crossover between Ukraine and the UK. My biggest fear was singing in public and I wanted to do something I was afraid of, so I turned a Rimbaud poem into what I imagined was a blues song. And I loved it. Afterwards, I met this producer, William Orbit – I was 19 and he was 37 – through one of the women in the play whose husband was the manager of the Pogues. William decided: “She can sing. I will make a star of her.” He hooked me up with a wonderful singing teacher. But I probably will never see myself as a singer. Even last week I was like: “Oh yeah, I guess I am a musician, that’s ended up being what I do.” I still can’t quite get my head around that.
When making a new song up, do you have a job to do, or are you inspired? And in which order do the songs come, regarding melody, chords, words? gin007
I get inspired and that’s why I write. I could be walking in nature or having a conversation and it’ll spark something in my head and I’ll make notes. Then I’ll go to the piano or guitar and often if I’ve got something percolating, that will find its way into the chords. So, melody, words and chords often come together at once. Then I do the work, which is the filling it in. The easy part is the la la la, here’s the idea, here’s the shape, here’s the form, and then it’s like: this all came unconsciously, how do I write to that standard consciously? That can be really, really challenging. It can make your skin crawl because it’s hard to write a good song.
Royal Opera House, London
As the central couple, SeokJong Baek and Aigul Akhmetshina are dramatically persuasive and expressive in this revival of Richard Jones’s staging that works hard to make Saint-Saëns’ often dramatically inert opera zing
“Who wants to hear Samson et Dalila?” asked George Bernard Shaw in a masterfully scathing review of Saint-Saëns’ opera in its 1893 UK premiere. “I respectfully suggest, nobody.” Samson et Dalila’s fortunes since suggest an alternative answer. But the piece remains an odd hybrid of opera and oratorio, held together by the best of its music and the talents of the two principal singers.
On the headline-act front, the Royal Opera’s first revival of Richard Jones’s 2022 production is a triumph. South Korean tenor SeokJong Baek returns as Samson, the role with which he made his acclaimed Covent Garden debut. Where dramatic chemistry with Elīna Garanča, the 2022 Dalila, was evidently in short supply, this revival boasts a role debut from the ever-astonishing young mezzo Aigul Akhmetshina. Fresh from a winning streak of Carmens, Akhmetshina exudes dramatic self-possession and physical ease, her seductive intensity the ideal foil for the tortured awkwardness of Baek’s hero.
Continue reading...A National Portrait for the National Portrait Gallery aims to bring people together in increasingly atomised country
Can a collective portrait of Britain hold together a country that feels as if it is splintering apart?
That is the quietly radical hope behind Es Devlin’s new installation at the National Portrait Gallery: a living portrait comprised not of monarchs, politicians or celebrities but of thousands of ordinary faces drifting slowly into and out of one another.
Continue reading...
NEW YORK (ANP) - De beursgraadmeters op Wall Street zijn donderdag verder gestegen, terwijl beleggers de gesprekken tussen de Amerikaanse president Donald Trump en zijn Chinese ambtgenoot Xi Jinping in Beijing in de gaten houden. De aanhoudende zorgen over de Iranoorlog zijn wat naar de achtergrond verdwenen.
Iran was een belangrijk gespreksonderwerp tijdens de top tussen Trump en Xi donderdag, waarbij beide partijen overeenkwamen dat de Straat van Hormuz open moet voor de scheepvaart, aldus een functionaris van het Witte Huis. De olieprijzen gingen omlaag.
De Dow-Jonesindex noteerde kort na opening 0,8 procent hoger op 50.078 punten. De brede S&P 500 ging 0,3 procent vooruit naar 7469 punten en de technologiegraadmeter Nasdaq kreeg er 0,2 procent bij op 26.469 punten. Daarmee werden de recordstanden op de beurzen in New York verder aangescherpt.
Maker van netwerkapparatuur Cisco Systems is een in het oog springende winnaar. Het aandeel van het bedrijf werd 16 procent hoger gezet na een goed ontvangen kwartaalbericht, waarbij Cisco ook nog eens aankondigde ongeveer 4000 banen te schrappen. Dat komt neer op bijna 5 procent van het totale personeelsbestand. Daarmee bespaart Cisco enerzijds kosten terwijl het tegelijk ruimte creëert om zich meer te richten op de snelgroeiende AI-markt.
De in New York genoteerde Zweedse betaaldienst Klarna ging ruim 17 procent omhoog dankzij beter dan verwachte kwartaalresultaten.
Daarnaast werden ook nog gegevens gemeld over de Amerikaanse winkelverkopen. Die zijn in april verder toegenomen. De toename kwam ook door prijsverhogingen van brandstof aan de pomp door de oorlog in het Midden-Oosten waardoor de olieprijzen sterk zijn gestegen. De consumentenbestedingen zijn de motor van de Amerikaanse economie.
The 2026 National Recording Registry inductees were announced today. “The 2026 selections mark the first recordings by Taylor Swift and Beyoncé chosen for the registry.” Also: music from Weezer, The Go-Go’s, Chaka Khan, and Johnny Cash.