London and NY halls link up for Stephen Fry’s Beethoven
mainKing’s Place concert hall in London and the 92nd Street Y in New York are breaking new ground by sharing an online concert chat on Beethoven between the pianist Jonathan Biss and the actor Stephen Fry.
Each venue sells its own tickets.
Interesting to see which sells more.
Fry and Biss engage in thoughtful and candid dialogue about their personal experiences as entertainers, and the extent to which having mental health issues might have contributed to — and been exacerbated by — their decisions to become performers.
Sampler:
Such blah and terrible posture.
Jonathan Biss has to be one the dullest and most insipid Beethoven players around.
As for Fry….( words like fatuous, boring f@rt, heavy going spring to mind).
I think I’ll be giving that one a miss.
Fry and Laurie are among the greatest comic achievements of all time.
It’s very easy to insult people and put them down. Biss is a wonderful musician and pianist who also happens to be modest.
Good to see Fry doing something worthwhile. He’s often sqaundered his considerable talent on Light Entertainment TV shows, award ceremonies and celebrity appearances.
I suppose if you’re not very good at what you do, this is what you are reduced to
I recall a similar event at the Baribcan some years ago, when Fry hosted a David Tang sponsored event along the lines of “What to do about the crisis in classical music appreciation” or something similar.
The first twenty minutes were consumed with hagiography and personal applause and introductions, and it was altogether the poorest public event I have ever attended, culminating in Sir David Tang shouting at an audience member for being “fat and wearing a jumper that doesn’t fit you”.
I wonder if Fry has refelected upon his role in that charade?
People were disgusted and left at the interval, annoyed at having paid their (£12?) to witness such drivel.
This man is an imposter, and an entirely second-class intellect. Resist his ubiquity.
Reference to my diary shows it to have been 26th Sept 2011.
Quite agree with your assessment of Stephen Fry.
Very overrated intellect.
Must confess I find the presence of Mr Fry supremely annoying. Not sure why but just the way he presents anything rubs me up the wrong way. I also can’t stand the pretentious way Mr Bliss says, “I ought not to be doing it.” Agreed! Why do it then!
I invariably switch channels or radio stations as soon anything pertaining to Stephen Fry materializes.
I say this without a shred of criticism: I love how delightfully snarky the comments are here! Keeps me coming back.