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A Celebration and a Tribute
26th January 2022
25 January is marked around the world as a celebration of the life and work of Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns. For those preparing a Burns Supper, several ingredients are necessary, and by now many of you will already have prepared the Cullen skink, the haggis with neeps and tatties, and even (for those with large appetites) cranachan – Scotland’s answer to Eton mess. Also essential is a generous serving of Burns’s own poetry, not least the Address to a Haggis, as well as the Selkirk Grace (‘Some hae meat an canna... read more
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How to Contextualise
18th January 2022
It is a phrase dreaded by students who have just handed what they hope is a brilliant essay: ‘It needs more context’. After all the effort you’ve put into cramming as much research into as few hours as possible (usually the last three), still they want more. But what context are they looking for: historical, social, political, cultural? Aesthetic, visual, aural, anecdotal, apocryphal? Pity the poor souls, tails between their legs, having to search out a context for all their hard, last-minute work…
The issue of... read more
How to Write it Down
11th January 2022
Next to peeping beneath the propped-up piano lid, one of the most popular interval occupations for concert audiences at smaller venues is taking a peek at the sheet music on the stands. How do musicians make sense of all those squiggly lines? When listening to a broadcast or recording, the listener may be swept along by the sound of the performance: the skill of the performer, the expressiveness of the music, its sweep and trajectory, its ear-grabbing details. In the concert venue itself, however, the presence of printed... read more
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How to Dress for a Concert (and the Opera)
5th January 2022
Most people who have been to live classical music events will, at some point or other, have given thought to what to wear. For some, it is one of the main attractions of attending such happenings; for others, an incidental annoyance; for others still, almost a non-issue. On the whole, British audiences are fairly relaxed about what they wear for an evening in the concert hall or at the opera or ballet – unless, that is, it’s not an opera but an Opera (such as Tosca, La Bohème or La Traviata) that is being performed, in which... read more
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Looking back on 2021
22nd December 2021
The past twelve months have been another roller coaster for most of us, as normal life (whatever that might mean) has struggled to get going, in a rather stop-start manner, against a background of continued challenges and restrictions, even for those of us lucky to live in regions with effective health and social services. Many who work in the arts have been forced to re-evaluate priorities, with some forced to leave the sector altogether, while others have had their working lives completely upended. Overall, however, the... read more
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