iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

It's impossible to keep all the stuff that comes my way. Yes, I try to keep festival books but even that is proving tricky.

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

My review of Dido and Aeneas (performed by the Monteverdis) is now published by @bachtrack.com

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

My review of Dido and Aeneas (performed by the Monteverdis) is now published by @bachtrack.com

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Heading to Manchester shortly to see Angel's Bone, ENO's new production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning opera by Du Yun and Royce Vavrek. I'll be reviewing it for Musical America.

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

There is no better site than @bachtrack.com for comprehensive world coverage of classical music. It's the leader in its field and I feel privileged to make small contributions to it. Still free to use, btw.

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Commercial vehicles please, Helen. It's the one that will have dated the most.

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

Back to the ROH tonight for the first revival of Peter Grimes in Deborah Warner's production. Allan Clayton leads a powerful cast so I'll be cheering the underdog. Reviewing for Opera.

media.tenor.com

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

I've fallen in love with snooker again. #WuYize is an extraordinary player. And how gracious, generous and articulate #ShaunMurphy was in defeat. Awe-inspiring entertainment.

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Good morning! This evening I'll be at Wilton's Musical Hall ('Les Bouffes de l'Est') to hear Julian Bliss play Finzi's Clarinet Concerto with the new Chromatica Orchestra. A beautiful programme at a favourite venue. Reviewing for @bachtrack.com

media.tenor.com

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

13 years in from his terrific ENO performances, Ed Gardner returns to Wozzeck this evening in the company of the LPO and a monumental cast headed by Stéphane Degout. I'll be reviewing it for Opera.

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Tonight I'll be at the QEH @southbankcentre.bsky.social for... well, it's a bit complicated. I'll let the OAE explain. Reviewing for @bachtrack.com

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

That was nice... Wordle 1,768 2/6 🟨🟨⬜⬜🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

22 operas next season at The Royal Opera inc. 10 new productions. Let's not forget how lucky we are to have them. Time was we had 2 London houses producing that amount of work, but since the disgraced Arts Council England took its axe to ENO the latter can only offer tiny bites of competition.

media.tenor.com

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

Early start for the last night of the 2026 @festivalpaques.bsky.social . The final concert concludes the residency of Lahav Shani and the Munich PO. Brahms 4 + the ubiquitous Renaud Capuçon playing Shostakovich VC1. Reviews of all six concerts I've attended will appear soon on Musical America.

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Christian Hoskins @aquilanebula.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

What a thoughtless and discriminatory presentation. Wearying for most people and near-blinding for anyone with early stage cataracts or floaters, issues that would concern a fair proportion of the audience I should think.

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

Absolutely, Christian. It was worse than it looks in the photo because you know phone cameras: they do their best to lighten darkness. It did the artists no favours either. In the Schumann Piano Quintet it honestly took me a while to clock Capuçon as 1st vn with Argerich & Munich PO principals.

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Do you have sensitive eyes? I only glimpsed the odd moment here & there at the @festivalpaques.bsky.social. Had to avert my eyes the rest of the time. Here are Capuçon & Argerich with the front lights up. The 5 searchlights hammered us uninterrupted. Rage, rage against the frying of the light.

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

After last night's staggeringly wonderful concert, tonight Martha Argerich & Lahav Shani return for more, joined this time by Aix Easter Festival's artistic director Renaud Capuçon in chamber music by Mozart, Debussy and Schumann. Wild horses wouldn't keep me away. @festivalpaques.bsky.social

media.tenor.com

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Reading between lots of lines, I suspect that I'm not alone in finding Michael Frayn's fêted play Copenhagen about as gripping as watching porridge cool. I haven't seen it since the 1st run but I vividly recall enduring it with a glum prayer of 'Excite me, why don't you'. All very mind-wandery.

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

It's really not all that great, and I speak as fan of Hammer schlock. But with a look.

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Tonight's dinner in Aix will be pasta with cream and girolles. I adore girolles. The weather here is extraordinary. A whisky and a novel on the balcony at 6.45 pm and it's still sunny at a balmy 20°. Best bit of the day.

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

Concert 3 of 6 at the @festivalpaques.bsky.social and it's chamber music tonight, a concert led by Mikhail Pletnev and Gidon Kremer. Mozart, Schubert, Tchaikovsky. All part of my Musical America coverage.

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

Concert 2 of 6 for me at the Aix @festivalpaques.bsky.social will be given by Les Siècles this evening. Bertrand Chamayou will play both Liszt concertos as the meaty filler in a Wagner sandwich - orchestral moments from Parsifal and Tristan. I've been looking forward to this concert very much.

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

Tonight: the first of 6 concerts at this year's Aix Easter Festival that I'm covering for Musical America. A Brahms evening: Renaud and Gautier Capuçon play the double concerto with the Lausanne CO, followed by the early First Serenade. Wall to wall Provence sunshine too. I took this yesterday.

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Dr Vicky Harris @drvickyharris.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

Cancel state visit.

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

Couldn't have put it better myself. Tristan is the ultimate 'less is more' opera. Why? Because it's about the abstract, interior, inexpressible side of being human. For me it is the greatest work of art in any form. Wherever possible I rush to semi-stagings. The fatuous things I've seen on a stage.

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

Evisceration of Trump on French TV in the early evening news magazine 5/5. Intelligent, damning, unanswerable, no holds barred. Since I've given up on UK TV news, I don't know whether anything as vituperative as the analysis here makes it into our own news bulletins. But I doubt it.

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

Just arrived in Provence for three glorious weeks in my favourite place on earth. I'll be reviewing six concerts at the @festivalpaques.bsky.social (Easter Aix) for Musical America. I'll also be living the life of Riley.

media.tenor.com

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AdyBee 🐝 @adybee.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

It is a curious story. I have it written in faded ink... Yes it's Turn of the Screw day at the Royal Opera. Down in the depths of the Linbury, ghosts are stirring. I'll be there to review them for Opera. Malo, everyone.

media.tenor.com

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Apologies for my geographical faux pas. I needed that line though. I know - how cheap.

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Tonight at the RFH Robin Ticciati and the @lporchestra.bsky.social join forces that are Scandinavian from start to Finnish in Sibelius (Kullervo) and Wennäkoski (a WP). I'll be reviewing for Musical America.

Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

My review of a delightful chamber concert by the Aurora Orchestra Principal Players at King's Place last Thursday. Now published by @bachtrack.com bachtrack.com/22/296/view/...

bachtrack.com

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Ed Davey @eddavey.libdems.org.uk · 19/03/2026

Why are we rewarding Donald Trump with a state visit from our King? His illegal war is driving up costs for British families and he is belittling our country and insulting our troops. Cancel the visit.

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

Tonight at @kingsplacelondon.bsky.social the Principal Players of Aurora Orchestra trespass delightfully on Nash Ensemble territory with an attractive mix of chamber works by Mozart, Poulenc, Janacek and Judith Weir. I'll be reviewing for @bachtrack.com.

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Mark Valencia 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @markvalencia.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

If anyone asks me to name the best opera productions I've ever seen, my answers vary according to current mood. There is, however, one constant, and it returns to @parisoperaballet.bsky.social Bastille in May. Hie thee hither!

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