Oct 09, 2009
It is February 2009, a cold, relentless wind rattles doors and windows as it wraps itself round the old house that sits atop a Tuscan hillside. Surrounded by cypress trees standing against the wintry onslaught, the house has been my home and retreat for the last decade. In the summer, its elevation gives us some respite from the sizzling temperatures in nearby Florence, but in the winter we experience the implacable wind that descends from the North down the peninsula and across the exposed Tuscan hills...
Oct 03, 2009
Welcome Santa Sting - Just ten weeks until Christmas, it is time for a Winter/Christmas CD then... Sting also thought this way and presents "If on a Winter's night", an album with some unusual sounds and what he learned about himself while making it...
Oct 01, 2009
Telling music's greatest love story: Robert and Clara Schumann's intense relationship has long fascinated music lovers. Now their story once again comes to life through a new project from Sting, Trudie Styler and friends. There are few love stories in the history of classical music to compare with that of Robert and Clara Schumann. From their early forbidden romance through to Robert's tragic death in a mental asylum, their life together was a romantic roller-coaster, and one that has long proved magnetic for musicians and audiences alike. Now a special project, Twin Spirits, written and directed by John Caird, is bringing Robert and Clara to life again, with the help of some of today's most sympathetic musicians and featuring, as the musical lovers, Sting and his wife Trudie Styler...
Sep 29, 2009
A WINTER GATHERING: It is February 2009, a cold, relentless wind rattles doors and windows as it wraps itself round the old house that sits atop a Tuscan hillside. Surrounded by cypress trees standing against the wintry onslaught, the house has been my home and retreat for the last decade. In the summer, its elevation gives us some respite from the sizzling temperatures in nearby Florence, but in the winter we experience the implacable wind that descends from the North down the peninsula and across the exposed Tuscan hills...
Sep 29, 2009
It's a bizarre sort of ensemble, a kind of genre-busting supergroup. Distributed carefully about the stage in a smallish studio theatre are stars of theatre, opera, the recital hall and, in a random invasion from left field, the stadium. The assembled include Derek Jacobi on spoken voice, Simon Keenlyside on sung voice, Natalie Clein on cello and Iain Burnside on piano. And wandering in beardedly from the rock and roll hall of fame, that'll be none other than Sting. Plus his wife Trudie Styler...
Sep 29, 2009
Who the hell does Sting think he is? Singer, actor, activist. Not troubled by modesty. Sting, part of the furniture of British rock music for so very long now, doesn't like to do interviews these days, and would much rather never have to endure a photo shoot again. To talk to him about living the celebrity lifestyle he shares with film producer wife Trudie Styler, a woman more glamorous than your average 55-year-old, is little short of an insult to his art. Celebrity, you see, is something other people pursue, not he...
Nov 21, 2008
Sting with bite: Pay $600 to watch The Police? Many did earlier this year, and many will again - to hear its lead singer Sting go classical. Sting: actor, environment activist, tantric sex poster boy. It was not enough for the Englishman that he used to front The Police, which was among the biggest rock bands in the world. It was also apparently not enough for him that his subsequent solo music career encompassed jazz, opera and world music. Restless as the bumblebee which inspired his nickname, the man born Gordon Sumner will be performing classical music in a concert next month at the Esplanade Concert Hall. Not just your average contemporary classical compositions, but 400-year-old Elizabethan pieces from 'Song From The Labyrinth', his 2006 album with Bosnian lute player Edin Karamazov...
Nov 20, 2008
A night at the opera with Sting and Elvis: Sting and Costello have been rehearsing an opera. Veterans of the Seventies punk and new-wave movement, the two British stars have since established themselves among the most acclaimed and wide-ranging singer-songwriters in the world. But their new project promises to be something of a departure. From tomorrow, for five nights at the historic Théatre Du Chatelet in Paris, they make their debuts as operatic singers in the premiere of the extraordinary 'Welcome to the Voice...'
Oct 18, 2008
Sting finds lute after a fond farewell with The Police: Sting has an insatiable addiction to adulation. He has spent three decades touring the world and has just completed one of the biggest roadshows in rock history - this year's The Police reunion extravaganza - so the 57-year-old Brit could be forgiven for taking time out to relax at his Tuscan villa. Instead, Sting is on his way back to Australia for yet another tour, this time with his classical album, 'Songs From The Labyrinth'...
Oct 10, 2008
A Sting in the tale - Geordie superstar Sting celebrates the 30th anniversary of The Police's first album 'Outlandos D'Amour' this month and he also turns 57. Gordon Sumner's life changed for ever when fellow North East musician Gordon Solomon spotted his and yellow hooped sweater in 1973 and christened him Sting. As a solo musician and member of The Police, the lad from Wallsend has since sold over 100 million records and received more than 16 Grammy awards for his work. But it was back in the early Seventies that he forged his stagecraft at the coal face of performing - in the pubs and working men's clubs of Tyneside, Wearside and Teesside...
