The Star's critics ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARTIN HALL, MICHAL BONCZA, ANGUS REID reviews Holy Cow, One to One: John and Yoko, King of Kings, Panda Bear in Africa
Latest editorial
Chineke! Classical music for the many not the few!
chineke
PATRICK JONES recommends a vital anthology from Afghan and Iranian poets where the political and personal fuse into witness-bearing and manifesto-making
WILL STONE is impressed by Hania Rani who is already making a name for herself in the male-dominated world of modern classical music
MIK SABIERS enjoys the theatrical feminist six piece who have a lot of fun that the audience feeds off as the set rolls on
New releases from Ibex Band, Lucy Dacus, and Various Artists
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by characters so un-nuanced as to be unreal, a stereotypical plot and a conceptual vampire
WILL STONE appreciates an artist who can swerve from industrial noise to clubby trance pop without missing a step
Chineke! Orchestra: Songs of the Prophets
Queen Elizabeth Hall
FOUNDED in 2015, the Chineke! Orchestra is Europe’s first majority black and ethnically diverse orchestra. Through its training outreach programme, the Chineke! Foundation, it is doing for classical music what the Tomorrow’s Warriors scheme has done for jazz, nurturing promising young talent through the use of accomplished and dedicated mentors – with staggering results.
Chineke! already has a history of taking on bold and innovative projects – such as unearthing previously neglected classics like 19th-century black British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. So they were ideal candidates for performing Songs of the Prophets: A Requiem for the Climate.
Commissioned by Christian Aid, the piece comprises four movements by four different composers, on the themes of Creation, Ruin, Recovery and Redemption – each piece interspersed by solo improvisations on tabla, nyatiti and talking drum by master percussionists from Africa and Asia.
More from this author
GEORGE FOGARTY is mesmerised by the messages made when jazz is played by people who grew up steeped in jungle and hip-hop
GEORGE FOGARTY applauds a show that punches down alt-right-friendly comedy
George Fogarty speaks to US Surrealist Blues poet AJA MONET
This is music that brings the party, the catharsis and the love all at once, says GEORGE FOGARTY