prophetic flip-flops

with the news just in that Britain is in for a BBQ summer, I am hoping that we haven't quietly put the kybosh on the prediction by printing our sunshine barcode flip-flops on the cover of our booking brochure. It certainly can't be a worse summer than the last two years, but it would be great to repeat the weather we had for the 2005 Festival.

Thanks belatedly to Gwilym Simcock for bestowed the name sunshine barcode on the Festival's logo when he was here last year.

ukulelescope

found out about an hour ago that the performance by the UOGB on 15 July has sold out, beating itself to become the new record holder for fastest selling show in Lichfield Festival history. Returns only from now on. Only a very few tickets have been held off sale, which we will be releasing much closer to the time. Last few tickets remain for their other performance on 14 July.

bafa at lfa

tonight is the annual dinner of the Lichfield Festival Association, and the guest speaker will be Stewart Collins, current Chairman of the British Arts Festivals Association, and Artistic Director of Henley Festival, artsfestival:chelsea and Holder's Season in Barbados.
Stewart visits Lichfield to talk about the vital importance, the extraordinary diversity, and current health of British festivals. As BAFA Chairman he's best placed to know, but he's also right in the middle of BAFA's spring road shows and has been visiting Presteigne, Bath, Leeds, Edinburgh over the last fortnight with Cambridge and Canterbury next week. BAFA is also visiting Birmingham at the end of the month for a Tourism Management Institute day conference.

Those sharp eyed among you will have also realised that Stewart (wearing his Chelsea hat) and I have been working together for the last three years on the Confluences project that culminates at both our festivals this year (as well as at Salisbury's).

I have also just remembered that I heard about the sad death of Humphrey Lyttelton just as the 2008 LFA Dinner finished. Touch wood...

shiraz @ decißel

found out late yesterday that Shiraz, our film project with new music composed by Sarvar Sabri from last year's Festival, has been accepted into the decißel Performing Arts Showcase. This year decißel takes place in Manchester between 15-18 September, and while we are still waiting to hear which slot the Sabri Ensemble will be given, the opportunity to perform in front of promoters from a huge variety of venues and festivals across the UK will increase the profile of both the Sabri Ensemble and the project, and hopefully lead to a strong Spring to Autumn 2010 tour. Information about the Sabri Ensemble's performance at decißel can be found here.

one & other

This summer London's Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square will be given to the people. The idea behind Antony Gormley's One & Other is for a different person each and every hour for 100 days to stand on the Fourth Plinth resulting in a living portrait of the UK. Any one living in the UK can be involved, and it is an extremely rare chance to be a part of something extraordinary. The West Midlands has been allocated only 217 places out of the possible 2,400. I'd encourage as many of you to sign up to be a part of this as possible.

patrons on rps shortlist

the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards shortlists were announced yesterday, and I was delighted to see that the Patrons of both the Lichfield Festival and the Abbotsholme Arts Society are amongst those listed. Valery Gerviev is shortlisted in the Conductor category and Steven Isserlis is shortlisted in the Instrumentalist category.
In the Concert Series and Festivals category in which we were shortlisted last year, only the East Neuk Festival is flying the flag for British festivals. Winners are announced on 12 May.

change to quartet lineups

just been informed that the Badke Quartet have appointed Jon Thorne as their new violist, replacing Eniko Magyar. Jon, who was in the Bronte Quartet for six years, is a wonderfully strong addition to this quartet, and I can't wait to hear this new lineup perform in Lichfield.

Speaking of lineup changes, the Australian String Quartet will be performing with guest violist Jurg Dähler from Switzerland, replacing Sally Boud who will be on maternity leave when their July concerts in the UK come around.

this is not about a mosque

I have been following online and in the papers the disheartening debate surrounding whether or not Lichfield should have a mosque. Some of what I have read comes across as extremely narrow minded, some of it outrageously close to being racist, and some of it completely irrelevant. This post does not concern the idea of a mosque.

The arts has for centuries sought out inspiration from other cultures, assimilated and distilled those influences, and often produced something that allows us to see the everyday in new ways. Visual arts, music, theatre and dance have always been ahead of society in the pursuit of understanding how different communities or different faiths overlap and interrelate.

I have regularly said that Lichfield seems to be the ethnic opposite of Birmingham, and I believe Lichfield is the weaker for it.

At the Lichfield Festival, we have been addressing the interplay of cultural ideas for decades, albeit in a small and gentle way. We are a secular event with the extraordinary privilege of using a sacred space as one of our venues every July. By many, certainly the many that have perhaps never been to a Festival event, we have been labelled an elite, Christian, classical music event. Yes, occasionally we do promote events that fill that description, but we do so much more, and have done for years.

I would like to think that the Lichfield Festival now has an even stronger spirit of welcome than even in our first years when we welcomed artists from Japan, America, Russia, India, Pakistan, Holland, France, Hungary, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Australia. All these people, like the artists visiting this July, are invited to perform here purely because of what they do rather than where they are from or what their faith might or might not be.

Amongst this year’s riches lie opportunities to hear a re-imagining of what music would have sounded like 16th-century Goa when local Muslim musicians played alongside the choral music of the Portuguese catholic churches, or to hear the deep sonorities of the Russian Orthodox Church, or to hear two very different takes on the ancient Jewish tradition of klezmer (here and here). For those who still think the Lichfield Festival is elite, Christian and classical, there is plenty for you too.

schubert songs just in

with impeccable timing, just on the cusp of going on public sale (18 mins to go as I write), I have received the list of Schubert songs proposed by James Gilchrist for Seven Elements. Mirroring the elements explored by Vikram Seth and Alec Roth, the following songs are likely to be performed, but are awaiting final confirmation (that is why there is currently a choice for Metal).

Space
Die Sterne (Leitner) Wie blitzen die Sterne so Hell durch die Nacht
Water
Am Meer (Heine) Das Meer erglänzte wiet hinaus (Schwanengesang)
Metal
Das Zügenglöcklein (Seidl) Kilng, die Nacht durch, klinge
Fire
Der Einsame (Lappe) Wenn meine Grille schwirren
Wood
Der Lindenbaum (Müller) Am Brunnen vor dem Tore (Winterreise)
Air
Frühlingsglaube (Uhland) Die Linden Lüfte sind erwacht
Earth
Im Abendrot (Lappe) O wie schön ist deine Weld

[Updates 1.32pm 21 April]

orange day for the west midlands

I am new to the West Midlands Readers' Network. Having been previously oblivious to its existence, I was invited to join the committee and went to my first meeting the other week. The WMRN is an extremely active and coherent network for readers' groups right across the West Midlands, and can advise readers of any age or inclination on what like-minded people might be in their area, or support those wishing to start their own group. It commissions work, and encourages readers to commission work, and has been doing extrordinary things in the region for years.

One such thing is the third Orange Readers' Day, taking place at Birmingham's Adrian Boult Hall on 9 May. Authors attending include Kate Mosse, Joanne Harris, Sadie Jones, Charlotte Mendelson, Diana Evans, Claire Allan, Catherine O' Flynn, and Joanna Kavenna. Others might come from those currently longlisted for this year's Orange Prize for Fiction, of which Gaynor Arnold, who spoke at last year's Lichfield Literary Dinner, is one. Shortlist is announced on 24 April.

There are only 500 tickets available and 250 were already sold or allocated as at last Friday. Tickets (£5, £4 concessions/£20 for 6) are available for purchase here. [and as at today 308 tickets have been allocated]

The committee were discussing what to do to trump this for a future year. I suggested having the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction announced in Lichfield, something I've been quietly, and seemingly ineffectively, advocating for for several years. With the WMRN, it might just become possible.

a well deserved proms debut

finally, one of Britain's finest orchestras will receive its BBC Proms debut this year. The small but perfectly formed Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, well known to Lichfield audiences for their 2006 and 2008 performances, will perform at the Royal Albert Hall on 18 August, fresh on the heels of two more dates in Lichfield. The full Proms programme can be found here.
They return here on 14 and 15 July with their new show Ukulelescope, about which more can be found here while we wait our website goes live next friday. Ukulelescope is the hilarious result of the Ukes being allowed to plunder the BFI archives. After hearing about the show from various conversations with George Hinchcliffe, it was fantastic to finally see it at Bristol's Slapstick Festival earlier this year. I predict that Lichfield tickets will quickly become scarce, so it is heartening to see that it is also due to receive its London debut at the BFI Southbank in June.

spicer gets antipodean premiere

when I was recently back in Australia, I chanced across the current brochure for the Sydney Philharmonia Choir in their rehearsal rooms and found within that the Australian premiere of Paul Spicer's Easter Oratorio taking place this Saturday 11 April at the Sydney Opera House.
Paul Spicer, my predecessor's predecessor, who still lives and works close to the Festival Office, wrote the work with Tom Wright, the then Dean of Lichfield Cathedral, to mark the Millennium, the 250th anniversary of JS Bach's death and the 1300th anniversary of Lichfield Cathedral's founding. It received its world premiere on 15 July 2000, the final night of that year's Lichfield Festival, and has gone on to have a very strong presence within the UK. It is wonderful that a Lichfield Festival work has been picked up out of the blue by another country. A recording can be purchased here if you are interested in hearing it.

SCL picking up speed

Seems that Lichfield has the potential to truly capture a moment. The lead up to the imminent launch of Speakers' Corner Lichfield (SCL) seems to be coinciding with increased national awareness of the role of eloquence and the power of speech, with television shows like the Lost Art of Oratory (hopefully) showing what is possible if you choose your words with precision. SCL will be an excellent opportunity for locals to ride this wave, providing a focus for all people to voice their concerns, their views, their passions, even their anger.

It is a wonder then why more people are not leaping at the opportunity to get free lessons in public speaking being held on 19 April and 26 April at the Lichfield Garrick. There are still places left, and these workshops aim to give people the skills and confidence to say what's on their mind in front of an audience. More information is available via 01543 412121.

Tonnes of work has been going on behind the scenes involving students from both the Lichfield School of Art and Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design. An exhibition of this process starts on 20 April, but I'll pass on more information when it becomes available.

The Lichfield Festival will be holding a free SCL event on 11 July with Susie Dent at the helm.

priority sale

after all the planning, tickets for this year's festival have finally gone on sale, albeit the first of two weeks priority. Went through the full festival brochure with the excellent Garrick Box Office team last night. Tickets are on sale to the public on 17 April, which is when our updated website will go live.

listed in gramophone

received the may copy of Gramophone in this morning's post, which includes it's annual Summer Festivals Guide 2009. In addition to our listing

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra makes a welcome return to Lichfield with chief conductor Andris Nelsons to perform at the last night concert, which also includes an appearance from Stephen Hough playing Tchaikovsky's Second Piano Concerto. Other artists performing include The Sixteen, tenor James Gilchrist and the Australian, Barbirolli and Elias Quartets.

and our advertisment
there is a big article on The Sixteen 2009 Choral Pilgrimage, and Stephen Hough's latest recording receives an excellent review. Those that are interested, can find Stephen's blog here.

haunted by the traveller

monday evening, driving back late from a meeting in Derby, was my first opportunity to hear a recording of BBC Radio 3's 6 March broadcast of The Traveller. The thrill of the performance came flooding back and an hour flashed by as I sang along in an attempt to relive the experience. There was also so much more happening than I had been aware of on the day. Since monday, I've again been haunted by Alec Roth's music and Vikram Seth's turns of phrase, and I've grabbed as many opportunities to listen to it again since. A friend visiting, who overheard the recording, said 'I know this' despite never before hearing it, and I think that sums up Alec's extraordinary ability to write music that you feel you've always known. While we should be planning to get Ex Cathedra's performance of Shared Ground recorded, the idea of a proper recording of The Traveller, possibly combining all three original choirs, would be a fabulous thing to get off the ground.

So, I am very much looking forward to this year's Festival Chorus event. With the original plans unfortunately cancelled, Black Voices have stepped in and are quietly planning a very exciting event for 14 July. Initial discussions have been based around performing music by Peter Daley and Sara Colman (who performed as part of The Passion last year) alongside the huge amount and variety of music that Black Voices would normally bring. I may even sing again this year.