In October 2018, Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and never came out. A journalist for The Washington Post and Middle East Eye who was fiercely critical of his country’s regime, Khashoggi was ambushed by a 15-man Saudi hit team; he was suffocated to death and his body was dismembered with a bone […]
Author Archives: Hugh Morris
Hugh Morris is a freelance writer and editor based in London.
Posted inPages Turned
For the Most Part
“As I have said on many occasions,” the composer Alexander Goehr begins the fourth chapter of his book with Jack Van Zandt, “I believe that, for the most part, the period of time when a teacher or mentor has an influential relationship with a young composer is short and typically compressed into a time span […]
Posted inInterview
The Accidental Avant-Garde
“Make it New,” Ezra Pound’s modernist call-to-arms, turns 90 this year. Producer and composer Danny L Harle still believes in the crux of the project. Harle’s story is made up of the kind of groupings and vanguards beloved by modernist-inclined histories. He was a key part of PC Music, an influential thing (label/art collective/aesthetic sensibility/lightning […]
Posted inReview
An Introduction to Music Herstory
When I enter London’s Brazilian Embassy at 6.49 p.m., “Let HER Music Play” is already six hours old, but only a quarter of the way through. Organized by the Donne Foundation, which advocates for women in the music industry, it’s an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the longest acoustic live-streamed concert using […]
Posted inReport
Can the Northern Ballet Sinfonia Survive?
When an organization restricts comments on its social media channels, it’s a sure-fire sign that something is not right. So it proved when the Northern Ballet closed comments on their season announcement in early February. An update on the company website confirmed that, rather than using the Northern Ballet Sinfonia, the company was to perform […]
Posted inOpinion
Ysaÿe No More
I don’t know if anybody has realized, but we’re in the middle of Hurricane Eugène. Since 2020, recordings of all or parts of Ysaÿe’s Six Sonatas (Op. 27) have been released by violinists including Ju-young Baek-Laurent Albrecht Breuninger-Thomas Bowes-Maxim Brilinsky-Anca Vasile Caraman-Elmira Darvarova-James Ehnes-Julia Fischer-David Grimal-Jeroen De Groot-Hilary Hahn-Kejia He-Kerson Leong-Jack Liebeck-Daniel Matejča-Alessandro Perpich-Solveig Steinthorsdottir-Yayoi […]
Posted inPlaylist
A Psappha Playlist
“Psappha is now closed.” On November 6, Psappha, a contemporary music ensemble based in Manchester, posted a short notice that signaled the end of over 30 years of commissioning, performing, and championing music from the 20th and 21st centuries. On the perennially shaky UK new music scene, organizations are routinely thinned, trimmed and pruned, but […]
Posted inUncategorized
Show Some Emotion
Currently, Laurence Osborn is moving house, from Notting Hill (West London) to Notting Hill (West London). We meet for coffee on Gloucester Road (West London) in an hour squeezed between cardboard boxes. As someone whose magpie-like tendencies have steadily transitioned from shiny sounds to juicy words, I remember being struck by the title of Osborn’s […]
Posted inInterview
Vasily Petrenko’s British Values
Somewhere in the depths of the internet lies a photo of Vasily Petrenko with a wad of £5 notes, posing next to a bin. It was part of the Liverpool Echo’s “Be A Binner, Not A Sinner” campaign to clean up Liverpool and improve its reputation, after the writer Bill Bryson infamously arrived in the […]
Posted inPages Turned
Through the Rubble
There’s a decent case for Felix Mendelssohn being the most important figure in the history of Western classical music, though primarily for the music he programmed, rather than for the music he wrote. Answering the impassioned cry of Bach’s biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel for an increased visibility of masterpieces if music wished to be taken […]