3llw

just over 24 hours now until the third lichfield literature weekend starts. The good news is that it looks highly likely that our outdoor events to mark the centenary of Wind in the Willows can still be outside. We seem to have generated a new, large family audience for this, which will be great for some projects we have in the pipeline. The less good news is that while some events have sold out, hard decisions might have to be made about others due to numbers. Lichfield's literary audiences once again defy my expectations. That said, many events are either sold out already or will reach capacity with the walk ups that normally arrive, but compared to Hay, Edinburgh, and Cheltenham, these numbers remain really tiny. The discussion between Steve Fuller and Denis Alexander is close to selling out (and it will be videoed for future internet release, which is a great step for us). It remains important for events like this to take place in Lichfield, even though our numbers are really small, and any kind of fiction struggles to generate an audience. Next year's autumn offering will take place 9-11 October 2009.

london debut for volodin

Alexei Volodin, the brilliant young pianist who performed at the 2007 and 2008 Lichfield Festivals, will finally have his London debut this saturday evening as part of the London Symphony Orchestra's Rachmaninoff Festival, which is part of their Emigre Series. Conducted by Valery Gergiev, Alexei will be performing Rachmaninoff's 3rd and 4th piano concerto on saturday and sunday respectively. Saturday night officially sold out several weeks ago (although there do seem to still be a handful remaining) and there are a few dotted around for the sunday evening. For Rachmaninoff anoraks (or should that be anoRachs), there is also a sunday afternoon concert. I predict that after hearing Alexei perform on the Saturday night, Sunday night will also sell out, despie the 4th being less popular than the 3rd.

The Lichfield Festival is taking a coach load of Lichfield Festival Association members down to support Alexei, as he's performed here for the last two years, and I'm hoping Alexei will have the opportunity to come front of house to say hi. I know he arrived into London last night, and that he's here and happy. For the record we still one or two available tickets if there are any LFA members out there who think they might like to go afterall.

As mentioned previously, Gergiev's own links to the Lichfield Festival go back to 1985, just before his London debut.

new flyer

a week ago the box office opened for the Tallis Scholars' performance in Lichfield in December, and sales are thrumming along nicely, even though the new flyer for the show has only just been signed off. The last time Lichfield Festival tried promoting a December event was 2003, which was a 'Carols by Candlelight' concert without any candles. This time, we are in a first time co-production with the Cathedral, and while everything is being administered and organised through the Festival, risks, and hopefully profits, will be shared.
In the lead up to this performance, there will be a Staffordshire-wide school competition to compose a new Christmas carol. The winner will have their piece performed by the Tallis Scholars at this concert. The competition judges will be me, the cathedral's Precentor Wealands Bell and Peter Philips, the Director of the Tallis Scholars.
The new flyer should land over coming weeks, so keep your eyes peeled and let me know if you find one...

lichfield composer at artsfest

a world premiere from a Lichfield-born-and-bred composer takes place at Birmingham's artsfest this weekend. Sound Unbroken by Richard Glover will be performed by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group on Sunday 14 September (more information about this performance here). For the last year, Richard has been BCMG's first Apprentice Composer-in-Residence, and Sound Unbroken represents both the result and the conclusion of his apprenticeship (about which more is written here).

artsfest, the UK's biggest free arts festival, has always held a rare place in my heart. The first CBSO performance I ever managed was artsfest 2001 (quickly followed by my second in Romania). Every year CBSO loyally performed for free, often in the rain, and the rest of my artsfest weekend would be taken up with helping at the CBSO stall or waiting for my friends to finish doing so, again often in the rain. I've seen free opera in a pub thanks to Birmingham Opera, heard Black Voices for the first time (subsequently booking them for the 2006 Festival), and seen some spectacular international street theatre. However, since 2004 I have rarely attended.

Predictably artsfest generates both supporters and detractors, at times coming down to whether it was better organised before or after Birmingham City Council took it over a few years back. Personally, I now tend to avoid artsfest like the plague, either by intentionally being out of town, or subconsciously making other plans. But this has meant that I have missed out on things in previous years that were one offs, for instance Blast from 2007 (review1, review2), and I really wish I hadn't.

So this year, in addition to catching Sound Unbroken, I will be keeping an eye out for the following:

• Light Night on Artsfest's opening night where building throughout the city are spectularly lit - more information here.
• Stan's Cafe's performance of Of All the People in All the World which is free only during Artsfest - more information here.

launch party of Gaynor Arnold

I was reminded on my way in to Lichfield that tomorrow evening is the launch party for Gaynor Arnold's Girl in a Blue Dress. It is free, starts at 7pm, takes place at Birmingham & Midland Institute, Margaret Street, Birmingham, and was no doubt timed to benefit from yesterday's Booker shortlist announcement, a shortlist that Gaynor disappointingly did not make (but then neither did Sir Salman Rushdie). Gaynor is one of two authors speaking at this year's Lichfield Literature Dinner on Friday 26 September.

the curse of television

for the first five years I lived in Melbourne, I did not have a television. While this meant my procrastination developed more creative outlets, it did establish a deep mistrust of the box which continues to this day. Obviously I did not move to the UK with a TV, and managed until last December without purchasing one (even though I had been given two over the eight years I've been here, the last of which I discarded over two years ago). Until late May I managed to pretty much avoid watching the general tat on telly by immersing myself in various DVD series, but since the festival I have been struggling. Thankfully there has been the excellent coverage from the Proms and various other summer festivals. While nothing quite beats a night in front of the box (especially with the summer we've had), I am a compulsive channel flicker and get annoyed with myself for wasted evenings, but only with the value of hindsight. All that said, tonight was a good TV night in with the finals of both Maestro and Mercury going out live.

Despite strong initial scepticism, I have to admit enjoying watching the Maestro series. The first episode was excellent (and at that stage I was putting my money on Goldie), and the second was a fascinating improvement (and my money switched to Sue Perkins where it stayed), but I agree with some comments I've read that what the first episode had that subsequent episodes lacked was detailed background information about technique, why certain scores were awarded, demonstrations of what could have been done better, and a little more engagement with the couch potato than just recognisable music.
I felt Sue Perkins deserved to win (and, alarming myself at my 'engagement', I voted accordingly) because while Goldie had an inherent musicality and very quickly understood what many people still struggle with, namely the concept that music is music and should not be pigeon-holed, I felt that Sue's eye contact, technique, charisma and intellect won her the chance to conduct in front of thousands on Saturday. Both had excellent senses of humour, both treated the whole thing seriously, both respected the musicians they were conducting from the word go, but while Goldie had to 'get' the music, Sue could handle anything that was thrown at her. Really fab that she conducted Stravinsky as her own choice work. I'm sure they will both get future work with professional orchestras trying to engage with different audiences. Keep an eye out for Sue Perkins conducting Maxim Vengerov (who offered the opportunity on live TV so it must be true).
Sue Perkins of course performed at the Lichfield Festival in 2007, and Maxim Vengerov had his UK debut here in 1985.

Regarding the Mercury Prize, I had my money firmly on Burial to win. Elbow doesn't float everyone's boat, so it was good to have my bewilderment echoed by some of last night's commentators. Also very impressed by Laura Marling, and went to see Robert Plant and Alison Krauss perform live in May.

Proms coverage is over in a few days, so it looks like I will need another few DVD series to keep me from completely wasting my evenings between now and next August when the Proms coverage starts again.

reviews in readiness for 3llw

In readiness for the literature weekend in three weeks time, a selection of reviews for the authors visiting are detailed below in alphabetical order, most recent first. This list is in no way exhaustive, and there is plenty more discussion on various blogs, but those have not been listed. I have included a video of Frances Wilson talking about her book at the end.

• Denis Alexander Creation or Evolution
  Christian Science Movement 26 August 2008; Christian Today 13 August 2008;
• Gaynor Arnold Girl in a Blue Dress
  Times 7 September 2008; Telegraph 23 August 2008; Independent 29 August 2008; Guardian 16 August 2008;
• Philip Ball Universe of Stone
  LA Times 31 August 2008; New Yorker 4 August 2008; Guardian 21 June 2008; Times 11 May 2008; Telegraph 3 May 2008;
• Bernard Donoughue Downing Street Diary Volume 2
  published 19 September 2008
• Steve Fuller Dissent over Descent
  New Humanist September/October 2008; Times Higher Education 24 July 2008; Guardian 12 July 2008;
• Ian Mortimer Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England
  published 2 October 2008
• Nicholas Rankin Churchill's Wizards
  published 2 October 2008
• Stephen Robinson The Remarkable Lives of Bill Deedes
  Independent 11 April 2008; Guardian 29 March 2008; Telegraph 28 March 2008 No.1; Telegraph 28 March 2008 No.2; Spectator 18 March 2008; Daily Mail 14 March 2008;
• Nicholas Shakespeare In Tasmania
  New York Times 2 June 2006; Guardian 1 January 2005; Observer 24 November 2004; Independent 19 November 2004;
• Nicholas Shakespeare Secrets of the Sea
  Telegraph 6 September 2008; Guardian 23 August 2008; LA Times 29 July 2008; The Age 4 September 2007; Spectator 22 August 2007; Guardian 11 August 2007; Independent 10 August 2007; Telegraph 2 August 2007;
• Frances Wilson The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth
  Independent 9 March 2008; Guardian 8 March 2008; Guardian 2 March 2008; Telegraph 5 March 2008; Times 2 March 2008; Spectator 27 February 2008;
• Alison Weir Katherine Swynford
  Independent 2 November 2007; Telegraph 27 September 2007;

blast from the past

just chanced across this video from the 2005 Lichfield Festival performance by Daimohk, the child dance ensemble from Grozny in Chechnya. They were here for only a few days, did some dance workshops with local school children, and then this uplifting and inspirational evening. Hard to get across their energy on the small youtube video, but everyone that saw them that night left the theatre a slightly better person.

confluences iv

the first meeting to discuss the fourth and final installment of the four-year Confluences project took place down in Salisbury earlier this week. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to be there, but Alec sent out his initial thoughts after meeting with Vikram Seth, and Philippe Honore. While the three festivals have yet to go through budgets, dates, performers and repertoire at a meeting in London over coming weeks, it seems after last year's Six Ages of Man theme, next year is provisionally based on the Seven Elements and it will be for much smaller forces.

rustle of interest

the brochure for the literature weekend landed yesterday as predicted, and several thousand have left the office already. What is quite nice is that one event in particular is already raising a few eyebrows - the session between Steve Fuller and Denis Alexander. We've had a unsolicited request to audio and video record this session for future online use, and several blogs have picked up the story from a Faraday Institute newsletter. Congratulations to Uncommon Descent's Agnostic Pro-ID vs Theistic Anti-ID post for making the most noise so far.

112 tonnes of rice

an excellent and extremely rare opportunity to see Stan's Cafe's Of All The People In All The World in its world version is coming up in a few weeks time. Using 112 tonnes of rice, there has only ever been one presentation of the world version before, a few years ago in Stuttgart, and the world's population has increased to 6.7 billion (approximately 8 tonnes rice more). The premise is very simple - each person on the planet is represented by a grain of rice and statistics across cultures, faiths, politics and countries are measured out into piles in an ever changing exhibit. It is extremely unlikely to appear in this version again in the UK for quite some time. It runs from 12 September to 5 October at A.E. Harris Factory, 110 Northwood Street, Birmingham B3 1SZ. Go and see it!
More information about the process is available via artistic director James Yarker's blog and there's a wee video below from a smaller performance a few years ago.