Language and Love
The Language of Love is the title we've chosen for two concerts based on arias of Rossini and Handel that Ismena is giving in February....
Faust: A Pact with the Devil
In preparing readings from Goethe's Faust for November's concerts, I have been thinking a great deal about the Faust myth. Who was Faust...
Presence at Christmas (plus a free download)
Christmas. An odd time of year. For some, primarily children I imagine, a time of wonder and anticipation. For many, a reflective and...
Hiraeth
In preparing a spoken word and cello reflection entitled 'Hiraeth' (the Welsh word meaning a longing for home), I have been reflecting on...
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Erik Satie but Were Afraid to Ask
Erik Satie (the 'k' was his own invention as he had been christened Éric Alfred Leslie Satie), eccentric, rebel, humourist and...
Breaking the Rules
In the last episode of his monumental BBC series, Civilisations, Simon Schama, asks, 'What can Art do when horror comes calling?' In...
The Heart of the Romantic
That word 'Romantic'. We associate it with candlelit dinners, an unexpected marriage proposal on a beach in Bali, the magic of an evening...
How Nijinsky Leapt So High
The dictionary defines a koan as: a paradoxical anecdote or riddle without a solution, used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy...
Some thoughts on the subject of LIGHT
“I saw the light!” If I told you that, you would probably assume I had disabused myself of a previous misconception or even that I had...
The Soul of Yiddish
I grew up hearing quite a lot of Yiddish and understanding not much of it at all. And that was a good thing in that my parents used it...
