Enjoyed ‘The Makropulos Case’ at Royal Ballet & Opera - absolutely ‘A Katie Mitchell Production’ with letterbox vision, slo-mo & radical reinventions - it managed to both demand focus from its audience & feel like a thrill-ride at the same time. Brilliant ensemble & orchestra on 🔥🔥.

Brilliant programme of sea songs this lunchtime @wigmore-hall.org.uk from @jamesnewby.bsky.social & @josephmiddleton.bsky.social - hopefully this might be a future album (🤞) but for now take a listen on BBC Sounds: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Beautiful recital last night from @carolynsampson.bsky.social @josephmiddleton.bsky.social (& choir) to celebrate 20 years of Concerts at St Andrews, Bedford. (1/2)

Pair of Specs, Bedford-bound to hear @carolynsampson.bsky.social - with trusty piano man @josephmiddleton.bsky.social - play a hometown gig. Looking forward!

Pair of Specs, National Portrait Gallery.

#ENODeadManWalking: shatteringly effective storytelling, committed & complex performances by a remarkable ensemble, & a score of vast atmospheric scope. A genuinely unforgettable - and satisfyingly uncompromising - evening.

Collected a lovely new venue last night, @sohotheatre.bsky.social Walthamstow, to hear Penguin Cafe perform a magnificent set of PCO ‘originals’. Beautiful.

On the left: street food. 😋 On the right: street defibrillator. 😳 Bon appétit!

Slightly unusual for me - ballet in the Linbury - but fascinated by the music, which includes South African composers (Makeba, Shepherd) alongside Shostakovich, Reich, Richter among others. Looking forward!

The brilliant @barbjungr.bsky.social has a new single out: the gorgeous ‘Last Orders Mersey Square’. It dates back to when Barb made the ‘Stockport to Memphis’ album: my intro to her music. I’ve been hooked ever since. So it’s special. Stream, view & download here: slinky.to/LastOrdersMe...

Curtain call for a suitably hot-blooded #ENOCarmen this evening! But the closing two-hander is every bit as chilling as I remember.

An ace lunchtime recital today @wigmore-hall.org.uk of @errollynwallen.bsky.social’s songs - alongside Britten & Ives - performed beautifully by Ruby Hughes with the composer herself at the piano. Soulful, inspiring.

Another astonishing gig from The Necks tonight at the Jazz Cafe, Camden. Twice, a monumental composition seems to pulse through them like waves of energy - then gone forever. Stunning.

Collecting a new venue - 1st ever visit to Camden’s Jazz Cafe - to hear one of my favourite bands, The Necks. Selfie-taker less purple in real life.

My fleeting moment of post-haircut tidiness. On seeing this selfie just now, a friend exclaimed “It’s Serious Adrian!” & this is with a coffee halfway up my nose, so am now a bit concerned at what my non-serious pics look like. 😉

🖼️🤔👓 Navigate a world of secrets and lies, as John Le Carré’s archive goes on display, & this fascinating exhibition nudges the man out of the shadows. More enthusiasm in my write-up of ‘Tradecraft’ (Weston Library, Oxford) for ArtMuseLondon here. @bodleian.ox.ac.uk artmuselondon.com/2025/10/18/o...

Terrific gig from Level 42 at Fairfield Halls tonight: the entire ‘World Machine’ album, plus hits galore. Bliss.

Pairs of Specs, at my dad’s birthday lunch. Many happy returns, sir! 🫡

A confection of delights: #ENOHerring (another ‘semi-staged’ ENO production that takes full advantage of understated, effective visual cues) brought out the wit in both score & libretto. A happy, laughing audience. The ace ensemble cast ensure poignancy seasons the humour.

Early into town to hear Mishka Rushdie Momen perform her ace ‘Reformation’ programme @kingsplacelondon.bsky.social. Looking forward!

😔 Diane Keaton. 📷: Ruven Afanador

Collecting a new venue tonight - the Dutch Centre - for ‘The Black Mozart and other Forgotten Composers’, with speaker Orville Breeveld giving us an insight into the lives of these lost artists, & @rebecaomordia.bsky.social bringing their works back to us.

‘Tradecraft’ is a new @bodleian.ox.ac.uk exhibition bringing John Le Carré’s archives to light. Full of photos, ephemera & - best of all - his typescripts covered in his own notes. Unmissable. Make a secret pilgrimage without delay.

Thoroughly enjoyed ‘This is What You Get’ @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social. Enough to make a Radiohead fan* (*me) giddy with happiness - & that’s quite a concept in itself - just a great thing to see artwork for albums you love, massive, up on a wall.

I always feel strange when I go back to Oxford. I can’t explain it properly except that the place still feels much like it always did but I barely recognise the person I was back then.

It’s the middle of the night! 😴 Early start, flying solo to Oxford for the Ashmolean’s Radiohead exhibition… & hopefully time for Le Carré at the Bodleian, too.

Wonderful to hear Mary Bevan & @josephmiddleton.bsky.social bring ‘Elegy’ to life @wigmore-hall.org.uk this evening. A deeply personal approach to a universal theme, it was an involving, intense & ultimately uplifting recital. The disc has the same power - seek it out.

Thank heavens it’s nearly the weekend. I accidentally read a reference to the ‘See of Canterbury’ through the wrong bit of my glasses & thought for an instant they’d found a new feature on the Moon or something.

#ENOCinderella was great fun. 1st time seeing this opera: struck by the ceaselessly lovely score, some heroic performances, witty production & game antics of the #ENOChorus men. Special plaudits for the exquisite, elegant silent portrayal of Cinders’s mother by Sarah Storer. 💐

A packed @wigmore-hall.org.uk applauds @thegesualdosix.bsky.social & Matilda Lloyd after their sublime performance of ‘Radiant Dawn’ - a fascinating, original programme, also captured on their latest CD. Recommended!

Ok here we go…

🖼️🤔👓 ‘Elegy’, the new album from Mary Bevan & @josephmiddleton.bsky.social, is a deeply moving, yet uplifting testament to how music can provide strength & support to those making it, as well as its listeners. More enthusiasm in my write-up for ArtMuseLondon… artmuselondon.com/2025/09/28/s...

🖼️🤔👓 ‘Elegy’, the new album from Mary Bevan & @josephmiddleton.bsky.social, is a deeply moving, yet uplifting testament to how music can provide strength & support to those making it, as well as its listeners. More enthusiasm in my write-up for ArtMuseLondon… artmuselondon.com/2025/09/28/s...

Applause for the remarkable Manchester Collective 👏

On way to hear Manchester Collective - excellent time always guaranteed.

😔 Danny Thompson. youtu.be/eNPl5bI4wq0?si…

Collecting a new venue - 1st time at Hampstead Theatre & 1st time seeing ‘Titus Andronicus’ on stage. Bloody excited!

@wigmore-hall.org.uk Hi, Wigmore. Please could I ask - have the Spring brochures been sent out yet? I haven’t received one & the booking date for my friend level is coming up on 1 October. Thanks!

‘Palimpsest’ – a compelling debut album from pianist & composer Rob Hao artmuselondon.com/2025/09/18/p... #pianomusic #schubert #newrelease

🖼️🤔👓 Somewhere between spoken word, song, sound art & suite for strings: the startlingly original new album from Matt Howden (aka Sieben) & his father, poet Keith Howden. More enthusiasm in my write-up for ArtMuseLondon… artmuselondon.com/2025/09/14/r...

Applause for John Wilson’s Sinfonia of London - plus soloist James Ehnes - at tonight’s glorious Prom.

Pair of Specs, heading to the Second to Last Night of the Proms…

Excellent vocal-music-based post today. Unfamiliar rep to me (Gál) courtesy of Borealis Choir with @carolynsampson.bsky.social; Sandrine Piau sings Schubert with string quartet; & a new CD from Vox Clamantis always cause for celebration! 🎧

Thrilled to take delivery of the beautiful new album by @joquailcello.bsky.social. Proud personal moment to have my sleeve notes accompany such sublime music (& this striking design by Costin Chioreanu).

🖼️🤔👓 New on ArtMuseLondon, my round-up of the most recent @africanseries.bsky.social day @wigmore-hall.org.uk, plus a look ahead to future events AND some listening recommendations. It’s all here… artmuselondon.com/2025/09/02/t...

Excited to pick up the camera again, & thrilled to collaborate with the remarkable @joquailcello.bsky.social. These were taken on a recent ‘reccy’ day spent planning & rehearsing ideas. More to come in the new year!

Shocking, shattering Shostakovich. Now in recovery mode from tonight’s epic Prom performance. 👏👏👏

Pair of Specs (plus one!) at tonight’s Shostakovich Prom: especially excited to hear my favourites, the ENO Chorus, among a stellar line-up of performers. Looking forward!

One day I will learn how to eat Pret’s duck wrap without coating myself, possessions, passers-by, general locale in sauce. I am a man more hoisinned against than hoisinning.

Beautiful, bewildering, bravura stuff at the Proms tonight. New to Delius’s ‘Mass of Life’ but enthusiasm ignited by this stirring performance.