Born to two immensely gifted parents, the violinist Julian Sitkovetsky and the pianist Bella Davidovich, the great Dmitry Sitkovetsky defected from the Soviet Union in 1977 by feigning mental illness at the age of 22. Now settled in London, he has become one of the world’s great classical violinists and an enormously distinguished
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The Daily Soundtrack
Why did Billie Joe jump?
It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day.I was out choppin’ cotton and my brother was balin’ hay… So begins one of the greatest, and most mysterious, hit songs of the Sixties, ‘Ode to Billie Joe’, recorded by Bobbie Gentry, a part-time swimsuit model from the wrong side of the
Let’s give it a spin
Keith Blackmore only went in for a record and ended up buying the shop … Last summer I bought a record shop. I didn’t expect to but I did. I tell you this not just to boast, nor, alas, to interest you in our fine range of products, but because I think it
Impossibly dreamy
To many theatregoers, the time is nigh to ‘right the unrighteable wrong’ … Later this month, after more than 40 years away from the London stage, the Tony-award-winning musical Man of La Mancha returns in a powerful collaboration with the English National Opera, with Kelsey Grammer (Dr Frasier Crane to many) in the lead