Page 64 - Media Coverage Book - 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024

The Glasshouse International Centre for Music

There’s big, and then there’s Bruckner-big. The Austrian composer didn’t do things by
halves. His late-Romantic symphonies are grander, broader, more epic than any
before them – musical “cathedrals in sound”. Gateshead’s Glasshouse hosts some of
the UK’s top ensembles for a weekend wallow in some of his greatest hits. Sir Mark
Elder conducts the Hallé in the mighty Symphony No. 8, which sees darkness battle
light in a thrilling, existential tussle. The Royal Northern Sinfonia raises the roof with
the composer’s powerful statement of faith, the “Great” Mass. And then the BBC
Scottish Symphony Orchestra finish the story with the composer’s “farewell to life” –
the unfinished Ninth Symphony with its monumental closing Adagio. AC

1 – 3 March (theglasshouseicm.org, 0191 443 4661)

Books

The House of Hidden Meanings, by RuPaul

At the heart of the global phenomenon that is Drag Race, RuPaul has always been a bit
of an enigma. Now, the megawatt star is offering a rare glimpse behind the curtains of
his life in his memoir. The House of Hidden Meanings charts his early beginnings in a
poor, broken home, and his struggles with his sexuality and self-image. We follow him

all the way through to discovering drag and becoming the face of one of the world’s