Music

Here’s some life advice Ralph Allwood gives to the teenagers who attend his week-long residential Rodolfus Choral Courses, held all through the summer at various schools and colleges across the country. Some of the singers are being pressured by their parents to take just maths and sciences, or other lucrative career-oriented subjects, for A-level or at university, and to give up music. ‘Right,’ he says, as the teenagers assemble for a final rehearsal, ‘this is how you decide what you’re going to do next. Get advice from everyone you can: from your teachers, your parents, the universities, that aunt who wants you to do a sensible subject. Say thank you,

‘Screenagers’, ‘lonely’, ‘boring’ – all words used to describe Gen Z. Born between 1997 and 2012, we are the first generation to grow up with omnipresent technology and are often maligned as phone addicts and loners. But things are changing. Now the first tech-native generation is actively seeking out the most analogue hobby of all: community choir.  Community choirs have boomed across the UK following the pandemic, and the country’s youngest adults are clamouring to get in. Some Voices, a non-audition choir in London which started as six friends singing in 2010, has grown to more than 1,200 members since 2020. Many of these newer members are Gen Z, searching for a connection which is

When I heard that Robbie Williams had written a song called ‘Morrissey’, I didn’t know whether to be delighted or irate. It’s no secret that I idolise Moz, and the idea of a somewhat seedy showman attempting glory by association made my hackles rise somewhat.  But on the other hand, Williams has co-written several songs which have caused my toes to tap over the years and has a history of acting gay when it suits him. (Indeed, Take That’s appeal might be crudely summed up as four lads who looked like rent boys and their concerned social worker, Gary Barlow.) Then there was the ‘Shame’ video of 2010 by Robbie

Bernard Herrmann died 50 years ago this month. He only just lived long enough to complete the suite of instrumental jazz that’s now regarded as not only his finest work across many decades as a movie composer, but one of the greatest celluloid soundtracks of all time. There are very few movies which you can honestly state simply wouldn’t have got out of the traps were it not for the soundtrack. Taxi Driver is one of them. There’s more than enough available film critic geekery about Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro’s finest hour to plough through already. But the curious afterlife of the Taxi Driver soundtrack was something I

I’m backstage with classical crossover singer Karl Loxley and his pianist Tim Abel at Stratford-Upon-Avon’s Rother Street Arts House. The sound and lighting team are setting up in the empty theatre for what will be one of the final shows in Loxley’s ‘Songs of Christmas’ tour. Since 2015, when Loxley sung Puccini’s ‘Nessun Dorma’ on the TV talent show The Voice, he’s been on a mission to make classical music cool. I’m here to see exactly what that involves – and if he’s succeeding.  Loxley is charming, expansive and – at least when I interview him, a couple of hours before showtime – relaxed. Appearing on The Voice, he tells

Here is a great festive pub quiz question for you. Which film was the song ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ written for? It’s likely, particularly if you’re below a certain age, that your first reaction will be surprise that it was written for a film in the first place. That’s a reflection not so much of the failure of the film in question – Meet Me in St Louis, which was the second highest-grossing film of 1944 – but of the enduring popularity of the song itself. In 2023, it was the 11th most played holiday song, according to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. But just

Like Ebenezer Scrooge, we are all visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past. At this time of year, people and events that have gone before feel closer at hand – both the personal and the historical. One of the main ways we experience this is through our tradition of Christmas carols. A recent YouGov survey showed that 14 per cent of Britons usually attend a carol service. Not as high as one would hope, but attendance rates are rising: in 2023, Church of England Christmas services alone saw a 20 per cent leap in attendance. I sense 2025 is already continuing the trend. Yet many churches will be pointlessly squandering

Like most freelance writers, I have a notepad full of jottings which come under the loose category of ‘Ideas I Probably Won’t Get Round To Doing As I Doubt Anyone Will Be Interested, They’re A Bit Rubbish Anyway And It Probably Wouldn’t Pay Much’. Around halfway down this list is a book provisionally entitled A Hard Day’s Fight, in which I espouse my opinions on a plethora of Beatles-related debates, and add a few new ones of my own. So along with my theories that John Lennon didn’t write any good music while he was resident in New York (the Plastic Ono Band and Imagine albums were recorded in the