First published in The Herald on 25 February, 2015

David Watkin, newly-anointed Head of Strings at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, is leaning forward at his desk, describing in animated detail a class he intends to introduce to the RCS curriculum. ‘Wild-Card Thursdays’ will see string students turn up once a week for a two-hour session about which they know nothing at all. They might be required to dance or to improvise theatre sketches. They might find themselves singing, playing their instruments to a backdrop of Latin verse or simply lying on the floor and breathing properly. It’s all a long way from the traditional music-college diet of scales and arpeggios.

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First published in The Herald on 18 February, 2015

Ashley Page is back in Glasgow, though in a new part of town. I meet the dancer, choreographer and former artistic director of Scottish Ballet not at the dance company’s Southside HQ but across the river at the rehearsal studios of Scottish Opera, where he’s directing a new production of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, opening tomorrow at the Theatre Royal. “It’s fantastic to be doing something for Scottish audiences again,” he says one night after rehearsals, changing out of his dance shoes and into his winter boots. He always rehearses in dance shoes, he explains, because he always demonstrates the moves. For him, directing from a chair is like trying to tie someone else’s tie. “I built up a very loyal and supportive Scottish audience over the 10 years I was with Scottish Ballet. Only one of my pieces has been done since I left and it doesn’t look like they’re likely to do any more, so it feels like time to have my work seen here again.”

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First published in The Herald on 11 February, 2015

You could be forgiven for getting the wrong impression of Amy Dickson. True, the Australian saxophonist makes chart-topping albums of film music and low-lit love ballads. Yes, a quick Google search brings up a pages of glamorous photoshoots, full of soft-focus palm trees, swimming pools and poses in which it would be tricky to actually play a saxophone. Dickson is indeed a brand ambassador for a beauty range, and in 2013 she did win a Classic BRIT award, that barometer of commercial prowess that doesn’t tend to correspond with artistic value. (In the bizarre juxtapositions of competition think, she beat a singing Franciscan monk, Friar Alessandro, to win the ‘Breakthrough’ category.)

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First published in The Herald on 3 February, 2015

Upstairs at The Hub — Edinburgh International Festival’s HQ at the top of the Royal Mile — the large festival director’s office overlooking the Forth and the Fife hills beyond has recently been redecorated. Gone are the posters, the portraits, the lofty tomes and the rather intense purple walls of the Jonathan Mills era. Now the room is painted a clean white and Fergus Linehan, the new director, is dressed to match: slick suit, sharp hair, crisp white shirt. He’s personable, charming and speaks in succinct, unfussy terms. There’s no mistaking the regime change here.

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