Everyday Music

Icelandic singer Bjork opened her world tour on Thursday by unveiling a series of quirky multi-media designs inspired by award-winning naturalist David Attenborough.

The pop star performed the first date of her Biophilia trek at the Campfield Market Hall in Manchester, England, as part of the Manchester International Festival.

The concert saw Bjork show off an array of stunning features, including a 24-piece female choir and nature-themed art installations, inspired by wildlife documentary-maker Attenborough.
 
The visuals included footage of zombie snails, and film of huge worms feasting on a seal carcass at the bottom of the Antarctic, which were displayed as Bjork sang tracks from her new album.

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Beyonce made a group of children very happy this week when she made a surprise appearance at Harlem Target and even joined them for a special performance.

According to CBS New York, over 150 kids from various youth groups gathered at the store to learn some of Beyonce’s signature dance moves with help from her backup dancers. A group of kids was on stage performing a routine to B’s ‘Countdown’ when the singer herself appeared to join in on the fun.

With squeals of delight and looks of “OMG!” on their faces, the kids kept dancing in their once-in-a-lifetime performance while Beyonce herself got in the groove.

“It was amazing. I didn’t even know she was behind me,” Symone Huggins, 15, said. Read more…

Past and present always intermingle at a venerable, large-scale festival like Tanglewood. The areas preeminent summer music destination whose Boston Symphony offerings get underway next weekend changes each year, as new faces make debuts and leave their own impressions, and a new crop of students visit the Tanglewood Music Center to absorb musical wisdom from the centers faculty. And yet a sense of history is everywhere, even in the names that adorn its structures: the Koussevitzky Music Shed, Ozawa Hall, the Leonard Bernstein Pavilion, the Aaron Copland Library. The past is always present, everywhere you walk.

As Tanglewood approaches its 75th anniversary, to be observed next year, the BSO is embarking on a mission to make its history even more visible. One part of that effort is the installation of a sculpture of Aaron Copland, one of the earliest members of the composition faculty of what was known in 1940 as the Berkshire Music Center.

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The midtown-Manhattan crowd real people, not movie reviewers, except for this one stood patiently in line for a 12:15 A.M. screening of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, third in Michael Bay’s ear-, eye- and block-busters based on the line of Hasbro robot toys. When the feature began, a half-hour late, the audience showed its fondness for the material by saluting each appearance of the friendly yellow car-bot Bumblebee, not with rowdy shouts but with courteous applause, as if after a sharp volley at Wimbledon. A few whoops greeted the 3-D IMAX leveling of Chicago. And when the movie ended, about an hour before dawn, the admirers let out a few decorous cheers. They sounded less like red-meat fanboys than connoisseurs at a wine-tasting.

The critics’ reaction has been more tentative. They decried the first the 2007 Transformers and its 2009 sequel Revenge of the Fallen, which together earned more than $1.5 billion at the worldwide box office.

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Former Bond girl Michelle Yeoh, who plays Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in an upcoming biopic, says she is “saddened” by her recent deportation from the country.

The 48-year-old Malaysian actress arrived in the country’s main city, Yangon, on June 22 and was deported the same day because she was on a blacklist, a government official said Tuesday.

In her first comment on the deportation, Yeoh said in a statement Thursday that she was “shocked and terribly saddened by the action.” She said she harbors no ill will and remains fond of Myanmar and its people.

Yeoh said she was treated “cordially” by immigration officials in Yangon but wasn’t given a reason for her deportation.

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