festival front door

much seasonal hilarity upon arriving to work and barely being able to find the front door due to the perhaps slightly excessive baubles, only to be trumped by finding these baubles throughout the office and my office covered in fairy lights. The Christmas elves have been busy indeed...

Dorothy Porter

very sad news just in, again from Australia, that leading poet Dorothy Porter has died at the age of 54. I had the great fortune of studying poetry with her mainly at the Meanjin writing camps in the late 80s, and I've spent many hours enthralled both in her company and with her writing.

back

back now from the 30+ degrees of Brisbane humidity to the low digits of the West Midlands and swamped by emails, post and phone messages, and epic todo lists. In early yesterday to work my way through the majority of them and dealing with the urgent ones, and today is focussed on my later-than-ideal ACE Grants for the Arts application. Been up since 3am, so a little fuzzy.

Naturally, over the last three weeks, many things have happened that I would otherwise have blogged about. In no particular order, these include

• the sudden and sad death of Richard Hickox (1948-2008). Hickox gave his first Lichfield Festival performance on Monday 4 July 1983 with an all American programme with the City of London Sinfonia, and most recently conducted the BBCNOW in Lichfield Cathedral during 2003. He will be deeply missed both here and back in Australia
• the ongoing fight of the Australian National Academy of Music to retain both its funding and its integrity in the face of what appears to be gross ignorance and a fundamental lack of understanding on behalf of Peter Garrett, the Arts Minister for the Australian Government, even despite a last minute reprieve
• Brett Dean, who performed at the 2004 Lichfield Festival, became the first Australian to win the coveted Grawemeyer Award
• the Tallis Scholars performance in Lichfield Cathedral on 5 December was attended by over 500 people and by all accounts was extremely well received
• the extraordinary Elliott Carter turned 100 on 11 December and is still, amazingly, going strong
• went to the relatively shiny GoMA in Brisbane and found myself enjoying the Monaro Eden sound installation by composer Thomas Meadowcroft, an old uni friend of mine
  

we're all going...

...on a summer holiday.
blogging will be suspended from tomorrow as I leave for a long-awaited three-week summer holiday, albeit summer in a different country. That's also explanation for irregular recent posts - trying to get through an epic to do list before I go. Limited success in that regard.
Home to Brisbane, where the worst storms for 25 years just hit on Sunday, and where it is now flooding. The Gap, the suburb one out from where I grew up, was worst hit, and has been nicely summed up below. At least it will be warm.

shiraz touring

steps are being taken to increase the chances of Shiraz, the film score for the 1928 silent film we produced at the 2008 festival, to be resurrected and tour. Working with the composer Sabri and ex-sampad Sarah-Jane Watkinson, we are planning to take Shiraz on the road between Spring and Autumn 2010 to various venues throughout the UK and a few selected international multi-arts and film festivals. If the BFI join us, we may even be able to record it for DVD release. To have the Lichfield Festival as a producer of touring content would be a significant step to take. So far we have received extremely positive feedback from the promoters we have contacted, but watch this space for more information about where the performance might be seen again...

community award

just back from the Lichfield, Sutton Coldfield and Tamworth Business Awards. The Lichfield Festival won the Lichfield Community Support Award sponsored by the Lichfield District Council.
Seems it was worth missing the Guillemots at Gigbeth after all...

double bookings galore

due to a meeting in the festival office last night, I missed the opportunity to check out Clara Sanabras performing at the Birmingham Early Music Festival. Tonight, despite having tickets, I will miss out on seeing Guillemots at Gigbeth due to attending the Lichfield, Sutton Coldfield and Tamworth Business Awards at Villa Park. Tomorrow, due to attending Gigbeth, I will miss out on the launch of Silver Words, the first published anthology of poetry from Lichfield Poets (the group at the heart of Stone Voices at the 2007 and 2008 Lichfield Festivals) at 3pm at the Lichfield Garrick, as well as missing Ex Cathedra performing at the Birmingham Oratory and pianist Alex Wilson performing his salsa at Town Hall.
Next week is worse...

old airs

really nice to see my old friend Roland Peelman and The Song Company last night at Abbotsholme. I had been trying to get them to visit either the Lichfield Festival or Abbotsholme for many years, and was thrilled that they stopped off for the first of only two UK concerts this year (their other one is tonight at the RNCM). In a brilliantly conceived programme about the seasons, we even managed to have the UK premiere of Old Airs by Belgian composer Frank Nuyts setting texts by Australian poet Les Murray. That work segueing into Autumn Leaves by Jacques Prevert was a particular highlight for me. I realise that it was written a very long time ago, but I only came came across Autumn Leaves for the first time as Coldcut's Irresistible Force Remix on Nick Warren's version for the very first Back to Mine album and have been slightly obsessed with different arrangements of it since.

commission shortlisted

had to search for it, but I've just uncovered that one of the 2007 Lichfield Festival commissions has been shortlisted for a 2008 British Composer Award. Terry Mann's Bells of Paradise, a co-commission between Lichfield , Norfolk & Norwich, Budy St Edmunds and Spitalfields Festivals has deservedly reached the final three in the Sonic Art category. For those that missed hearing it, cds are available but it will be difficult to replicate the 5.1 surround sound let alone the cathedral surroundings in which it was installed. This was a surprisingly profound and touching work and I wish it all the best when winners are announced on 2 December, and, almost more importantly, for future performances and installations. Gwilym Simcock's Lichfield Suite, a 2006 Lichfield Festival commission, was shortlisted for last year's awards but didn't win.

where rivers meet

listening to Zoe Rahman and her brother Idris on Front Row last night reminded me that I had neglected to post anything about her imminent Abbotsholme Arts Society gig on Friday 31 October - a perfect antidote to Halloween madness. I first heard her latest cd Where Rivers Meet in a rough edit she sent me earlier this year, but had already heard of her wonderful jazz-inspired Bangali tunes from people who were at a particular Birmingham Jazz performance last December. Even though the disc was not in the final form, I could not help but listen to it repeatedly, and booked her for Abbotsholme immmediately. This is beautiful music that refuses to be categorised, and I cannot wait for Friday evening.
Where Rivers Meet is launched in London on 4 November, and a whole lot of unanimously positive reviews can be found here.

two interviews

Last week I did two interviews, neither of which had anything directly to do with the Lichfield Festival.
The first was part of the international ACRE project looking at the rise of the creative industries across the EU. This research focuses on why people in the creative industries choose to live and work in various cities. I was asked because I'm a foreigner involved in the creative industries who has chosen to live in Birmingham, one of the 13 cities selected.
The second was with The Independent, who was seeking my views on new degree courses in Festival Management. It felt slightly odd being approached for an opinion when there are other larger festivals all around the UK, but my 2p worth does seem to have made the paper.
Off early tomorrow morning for the the annual BAFA conference in Liverpool (which starts tonight) - a welcome opportunity to see colleagues and peers that I only rarely bump into.

looking forwards

while recent news that the cathedral's £5m Herritage Lottery bid was unsuccessful will understandably alter their schedule of planned building work over coming years, we've been quietly, anxiously wondering whether any schedule revisions will have an even greater impact on the Festival than expected. Thankfully we have received assurances that the Festival will have use of the Lady Chapel in 2009 (there is a 1% possibility that we won't but that would be a surprise to both sides) and we can still plan on not having the cathedral at all in 2010.
The Lady Chapel, a venue we lose forever from next August onwards, will be sealed immediately after the 09 festival to protect the cathedral's organ while the Herkenrode windows are taken away for conservation. My original planning included commissioning James Macmillan to write a new work for the 2016 Festival when the seven windows were back to their former glory, but that was too far away to be a realistic discussion and was before I knew we wouldn't be able to continue performances there.
What was news to us was that we will probably not have the cathedral again in 2013 due to replacing the entire internal floor. I hadn't really thought to discuss things beyond 2011, but if we can do it once, doing it twice should not be a problem.
That said, I am currently obsessed with juggling what little income we anticpate for 2009 (taking into account the projected impact of current financial markets on sponsors, individual givers and ticket bookers) with what we might be able to afford to programme, and we may find ourselves in the position of radically changing the shape of the Festival, including how we use the cathedral, just to ensure our survival. For arts activity throughout the UK, I imagine survival will be a key indicator of success over coming years.

champion of champions

last night at the 2008 Jaguar Land Rover Awards for Arts & Business, Ex Cathedra and Sandvik Ltd deservedly won the Business Link A&B Sustainability Award. Sandvik has been Ex Cathedra's principal education sponsor for nearly 20 years, so this award was a long time coming. That they went on to win the Jaguar Champion of Champions 2008 Award at the end of the evening was even better, and is great for the profile of Ex Cathedra (on the cusp of its 40th season), for Ex Cathedra Education, and hopefully for their ongoing relationship with Sandvik. As the A&B brochure detailed

At the forefront of this partnership is 'Singing Playgrounds', an inclusive programme that changes the culture of singing in a school community and which includes training and equipping children with the necessary skills to lead games in the playground.

There is a little more about Singing Playgrounds here and here. It really is excellent, formative and unique.
I mention all of this because Ex Cathedra Education, with the support of Sandvik, helped the Lichfield Festival create our inaugural Festival Chorus between January and July this year. Without their support and experience, the chorus would never have off had such a wonderful start, and we certainly would not have achieved a performance of the calibre we did. So, hearty congratulations to Ex Cathedra and Sandvik and thanks again for your support.

endellions at abbotsholme

tomorrow night the Endellion String Quartet perform at the start of the 41st Abbotsholme Arts Society season. In such an intimate space as Abbotsholme Chapel, having such consummate performers will be a thrilling experience, but I wonder whether the fact we seem to currently only have half the audience I was expecting has anything to do with the current financial doom and gloom. I guess it could have something to do with their record label listing the wrong date, or it might just be that saturday night events in deep rural Staffordshire don't really work.
Other news just in is that Jennifer Pike, performing at Abbotsholme on 20 January, has just joined the BBC New Generation Artist Scheme - brava!

volodin in london again

three weeks after his London debut, Alexei Volodin returns on 12 October, this time performing Prokofiev Concerto No.4. While I missed Volodin's actual London debut, I was present the following night for what I considered to be a very exciting concert, despite feeling slightly stressed.*
Like me, the rest of the capacity Barbican audience enjoyed both the concerto and Gergiev's reading of the second symphony, there was a real buzz, and it was fantastic to hear a non-'stocking filler' interpretation of core repertoire. I'd managed to see Volodin during the day, but I had already heard how successful the night before had been (standing ovations, a few encores, very happy promoters and funders, and many orchestra members offering their congratulations, etc).
Therefore when the reviews started to land a few days later, I had no idea what was going on (neither did Volodin's management). It seemed that only the Guardian and classicalsource had anything positive to say about the concerts, and the Telegraph, Times and Independent tore the Rachmaninoff Festival, Gergiev, LSO and Volodin apart.
I am not a critic, and I respect the validity and point of critique whether I agree or not. However, as some comments felt particularly vindictive and unkind, especially for a young musician receiving a London debut, I could not help feeling that Volodin might have been unfortunately getting tarred with a perceived anti-Gergiev brush. When you take into account that Volodin had hardly received a bad review in the three years beforehand or since, then maybe the whole thing is an abberation. I guess we'll get some indication after his Prokofiev at the end of next week, but the proof will be in the reviews when Volodin and Gergiev tour with the LSO to Japan (Nov/Dec) and America (March), and whether Volodin gets booked for future LSO seasons.

*As mentioned previously, a coach of LFA members came down to London. I had gone through the timings and routes with the coach company, and despite leaving plenty of time to arrive, the coach pulled up at the Silk Street entrance one minute after the concert's advertised start time. I said at the time, and I'll say it again here - thank you Barbican staff for your calmness and professionalism and for your help in getting everyone seated just in time for Gergiev to walk on. By stretching the start time slightly, you had 20 extremely happy punters that had travelled 125 miles to be there.

post-3llw

five days now since the literature weekend finished up, and while we can barely see the floor of the main office because of the boxes of books yet to be returned to publishers, the feeling is that our wee weekend has once again been a success, despite intermittent rain for our outdoor events and two events unfortunately being cancelled, one due to numbers, one due to illness.

While it will take another week to work out how things might have gone financially (this whole venture is done on a shoestring), once again the Lichfield Festival has generated new audiences, promoted high calibre events at a time other than summer, promoted an art form desparate for support in this city, and kick started an annual offering of education work (280 students from five schools), all reasons why we started the literature weekend three years ago. It seems that we also have a 16% increase in tickets purchased. We'll eventually post a full round up on the Festival website.

Audience questions throughout the weekend were excellent and engaging, and from the comments we've so far received, audiences enjoyed all the speakers. The flip side is also true - author comments we've received show that they really enjoyed the Lichfield audiences, and for that matter Lichfield. It was a surprise to me that the majority of this year's authors were visiting Lichfield for the first time.

I still wish that I could programme more fiction with more confidence in the audiences that might come. Perhaps this sill be something I specifically tackle when we do this event again next autumn.

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.

photos are up

The Festival's photographer, Michael Barr, has put a selection of his photos from rehearsals and performances from this year's Festival on flikr for all to see.

seeing through the ages

also managed a visit to the 2008 British Glass Biennale, indisputably the highlight of the International Festival of Glass in Stourbridge. This was my first visit to the Ruskin Glass Centre, and, for that matter, Stourbridge (which is actually in Staffordshire). I had been completely oblivious to the town's glass making heritage.
I took away several interesting ideas, mainly to do with presentation, use of space and audience engagment. There were many pieces that I thought were excellent, both in terms of idea and of execution, although there were many that didn't float my boat. In a surreal double take, a piece by Robyn Smith made me suddely homesick, reminding me strongly of the curtains in my family dining room back in Brisbane.
The Festival finished two days ago, but the exhibition continues until 28 September, and is well worth a visit, even for glass sceptics.

back online

in the last few hours we've all come back online, and once again we have a fully functioning server and internet access. The festival remains in a strange no man's land of IT. We have IT support from Tamworth based MT Services but our internet access is still provided through the cathedral's system, with a wireless router in one of the spires. Somehow we manage to fall between the cracks every now and then, and the last seven days is a case in point. We have often considered becoming more technically autonomous, a consideration no doubt worth revisiting.
Thankfully our IT troubles had little impact on the already delayed literature brochure, which we managed to sign off last Wednesday despite pdfs being printed at home and files being chauffeured around the West Midlands. Brochures arrive on Monday, which gives us a four-week sale period like last year rather than the glorious seven-week one planned. For those unable to wait for Tuesday's post, a pdf is available here.

the edge of region

Thank you Birmingham Post for noticing the Abbotsholme Arts Society's new season in time for your regional autumn round up. Referred to (only by me) as Lichfield Festival's little sister, it is nice that our tiny, vital Abbotsholme season still manages to raise eyebrows. You need to read the whole article to find it, but we seem to have the most adjectives

Right on the edge of our region, the amazingly enterprising Abbotsholme Arts Society kicks off its 41st season of bringing world-class performers to Abbotsholme School near Rocester, deep in Staffordshire, with a visit from the Endellion String Quartet. The programme for this October 4 event includes Haydn, Britten, Janacek and Mozart. There follows a positive cornucopia of concerts in this heady series...

I very much like how 'amazingly enterprising', 'positive cornucopia' and 'heady series' sound.

I've been working from home for the last two days because our server in the Festival Office has gone down, taking email, web and every electronic file with it. We now know why we have been loyally backing up every day.

food for thought

seems the Hairy Bikers were so inspired by their sellout opening night audience at the recent Lichfield Festival that they've booked their local theatre in Barrow-in-Furness for some similar shows. It does appear though, that they thought they were opening the Lichfield Food Festival - which is still a gap in the market. I had had the idea for a long time of trying to introduce food events into the Lichfield Festival programme. The events we promoted at the 2006 and 2007 festivals that were tied to lunch at the Meynell Ingram Arms sold out instantly, so I was keen to do something a little bigger. If I had been able to confirm the Hairys earlier we might have been able to link in some actual cooking, but their filming schedule was only finalised in the weeks before our brochure went to print.
While I managed finally to book the Hairys after a few years of trying, I have quietly been trying to entice Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and his team to Lichfield since before the 2005 festival. The plan was (and I guess still is) to invite HFW to the Lichfield Farmers Market, which traditionally coincides with the first day of the Festival, have him do some kind of event at the Garrick on that Thursday, on the Friday do something at a venue with a kitchen exclusively with Staffordshire produce, then on the Saturday have a stall at the Market in the cathedral close. This would be a neat and high profile way to draw attention to all the great produce from Staffordshire and the wider region, while acknowledging Lichfield's market heritage. That the Hairy's sold out so quickly shows that the idea remains strong.
Of course A Taste of Staffordshire has been promoting excellence in food throughout the region for years, especially through its annual and imminent good food awards. There is also the fabulous Stone Food Festival which starts in just over a month's time on 3 October. The Hairys new series, The Hairy Bakers, started last night.

fabric of myth

finally managed a visit to Compton Verney's latest exhibition the other day, and found myself blown away by The Fabric of Myth. I knew in advance that it had a large Henry Moore, and pieces by Bourgeois, Beuys and Morris, but I hadn't really paid enough attention to the pre-publicity so did not arrive prepared for the depth of approach and cohesively explained mythology surrounding weaving and fabric in art. I know the clue was in the title, but my mind has been on other things I guess.
Revelations for me included Ray Materson's miniatures, the somehow maniacally frenzied work of Arthur Bispo Do Rosario, the calming Divers from Heaven by Leonid Tishkov (which reminded me of Ian Davenport's poured lines) and Tilleke Schwarz's extraordinary embroidery - a kind of contemporary sampler. The exhibition continues until 7 September. I'd strongly recommend it.

mr simcock again again

as detailed in a previous post, Gwilym Simcock's Prom debut took place on Saturday (live radio, live tv, world premiere of a major commission and solo piano - not bad for a debut and certainly a BBC pound of flesh). Couldn't make it down to London to see it but managed to watch the whole thing on tv. Really nice programming, with works by Gershwin, Berstein, Stravinsky, Simcock and the outstanding Jason Yarde (another world premiere). I thought Gwil's Progressions was a brilliantly orchestrated and approachable work despite the density of writing, and the orchestra had obviously enjoyed working with him a lot. The piece will no doubt have a long and well deserved life.
The concert will be available on BBCi Player video here, but is already available for one week in first half and second half. I hope someone manages to get it Gwil's piece on youtube.
The other highlight for me was hearing Bernstein's Prelude, Fugue and Riffs again, with my only (slight) disappointment being that the Proms did not use this as an opportunity to showcase a younger clarinettist instead of the obviously brilliant Michael Collins.
Watching the Proms live performer interviews immediately before and after being on stage was great, especially when we are seeing the same with athlete interviews from the Olympics. I know not everyone can do it, but I thought Jason Yarde, Gwil and Charles Hazelwood were articulate, measured and completely unfazed. There must be a way of somehow bringing this to the live experience in a way other than pre-concert talks and talking to the audience from an onstage microphone, especially during platform changes that eat up so much time.

brochure landing

the brochure for the 41st Abbotsholme Arts Society season has finally landed about 5 weeks later than originally planned. They go out in today's post and the website goes live tonight, but we've missed all the Lichfield Festival audiences which will no doubt slow bookings down.
Season kicks off with the Endellion String Quartet performing Haydn, Britten, Janáček, Mozart on 4 October. Other artists are visiting the Staffordshire/Derbyshire border from Australia, Germany, Bengal, Bulgaria, Austria and Israel, as well as from throughout the UK, so little Abbotsholme continues to punch above its weight. I guess it also gives me something to do in my eleven-month holiday from the Lichfield Festival!

cobalt blue handshake

last night I went to the inaugural Arthur Boyd Lecture presented by Barry Humphries at Australia House in London. This is a new event on the London cultural scene, and one intended to provoke further debate about the changing role and impact Australia arts and culture has on the UK, and to some extent vice versa. Barry was really great actually, extremely articulate and very funny, and talked about his close friendship with Boyd both in Melbourne and London from the 1950s on. Rather touchingly, the final time they saw each other and for their final handshake, Boyd's hands were covered in cobalt blue paint having just started a canvas to cap off an interview with Barry for an ABC documentary.
While to my mind the lecture did not really provoke much discussion about the impact of Australian arts on the UK, one thing that I did take away is how perceptions of gaining international experience away from Australia continue to change. Barry reminded everybody that his generation called Britain home, so visiting or emigrating was perfectly natural. The generations that followed were more sceptical of people who left Australia to live and work 'overseas' - that big nebulous part of the world defined as 'not Australia'. My feeling is that international experience is almost expected these days, although I have yet to experience The Return. But in a room full of rising ends-of-sentences and thoroughbred accents, and with so many Australians now a formative part of the UK arts scene (a topic that has been written about vehemently and extensively by the British press), there remains a large part of me that wonders whether overseas experience is all a bit of a one way ticket.

not here, but there and everywhere

slow news day I'm afraid, so I thought I'd reproduce something I wrote for this year's Festival Programme.

Festival director Richard Hawley looks ahead to a year without a Cathedral

Is a festival defined by the spaces it uses? Can a festival born out of a building exist if that building is not available? Can a festival, by nature one thing, be nurtured into something more?

Lichfield Festival has a long history of using non-traditional spaces. Over the next ten days we will present work in over 14 spaces, but only two of them – the Lichfield Garrick Theatre and the Garrick Studio - are purpose-built venues. The rest include open air spaces, hotel ballrooms, churches, town halls, and, most significantly, Lichfield Cathedral and its glorious Lady Chapel.

For decades the Lichfield Festival has had Lichfield Cathedral at its heart, and despite gently repositioning the Festival since 2003 to embrace the award-winning Lichfield Garrick Theatre and its year-round season, the festival retains a vital connection to the cathedral and its community. It has for many years been a happy symbiosis. We have a different relationship to our city’s cathedral than, for instance, the Salisbury, Norfolk & Norwich, and City of London Festivals at one end, and the Three Choirs Festival at the other. It is our largest indoor space, over 6,500 people enjoy events there every Festival, it currently gives us our best chance to exhibit Visual Art, and the Festival Office still looks out over the West Front – arguably the best view in Lichfield.

Lichfield Cathedral is renowned for its excellent acoustic, its accessibility and welcome. When the Festival started in 1982 it was sought out by the best national and international orchestras as the place to perform (remember these were the days before Birmingham’s Symphony Hall). While our connection to the cathedral remains significant, we have believed for years that the future success of the Lichfield Festival lies in it being perceived and enjoyed as Lichfield’s Festival rather than one linked exclusively to a venue. The Festival opening the Lichfield Garrick in 2003 was one step in this direction. Changing our business name from Lichfield Cathedral Arts to Lichfield Festival in 2005 was another.

Therefore, when we were told that the Cathedral’s ’once-in-a-century’ Lichfield InSpires project to conserve and restore the cathedral would mean that the Festival will not be able to use it at all in 2010 due to ongoing internal and external restoration work, it was not cause for alarm, but something which was to be viewed as an incredible and ‘unthought-of’ opportunity. An opportunity to shake things up a bit; an opportunity to be more accessible to even more people who live and work in Lichfield; an opportunity to explore the city and district and what it has to offer; and an opportunity to devise a new model that, when we return to the cathedral in 2011, ensures Lichfield Festival for generations to come.

It is also an opportunity for the Festival to reinvigorate our relationship with this significant, historical and beautiful building, its wider community and its projected 200,000 future visitors a year.

That said, life without a cathedral has never been a consideration for a festival born out of one. While I truly welcome Lichfield InSpires and its vision, and the prospect of an internationally significant permanent display in the Chapter House of the cathedral’s collection of early English Bibles alongside the St Chad Gospels; and while I understand the importance of reinstating the Shrine of St Chad to the Lady Chapel, I can’t help but lament the potential loss of these wonderful spaces for Festival events and audiences for the future. I have had some of my most significant Festival experiences in the Lady Chapel.

To some extent a similar issue was faced by the 2001 and 2002 Festivals while the Civic Hall transformed into the Lichfield Garrick in the heart of the city. Those Festivals increased activity in country churches, as well as using venues like the National Memorial Arboretum, Sutton Coldfield Town Hall, and Burton Town Hall.

While marking ten years of the Staffordshire Country Church concerts last year, plans were already afoot to rejuvenate that series into what is now FEAST: Festival Events Around Staffordshire. FEAST’s premise was to use non-traditional venues like village halls and rural pockets alongside the country churches, but also to develop the Festival’s offering outside of Lichfield District.

This year we visit two villages to which the Festival has never been – Dunstall and Barlaston - in addition to returning to Brewood, Swinfen, Hoar Cross and Clifton Campville. It was already intended that this programming thread would become increase during the Festival, potentially spread to other times of the year and also generate local interest through education and outreach work.

Festival audiences will start to see some changes in venues, how performances are presented, and a wider cultural offering, most likely commencing in 2009 in readiness for the following year. We’ll definitely be expanding our FEAST events. I would love the opportunity to open it out to Lichfield’s nooks and crannies – from aircraft hangers to front living rooms, from industrial spaces and quarries to empty offices in the city centre.

I would like to invite you, our audience, to send ideas for potential performance spaces – both here in Lichfield and for our FEAST events – where we could possibly visit over coming years. They will need to be venues that we have not previously used, and can range from really small to really big. This is your opportunity to be involved in the future of the Lichfield Festival, and I look forward to hearing from you.
© Richard Hawley

quiet recognition at last

Finally, after seeing article after article come out in the UK regarding Valery Gergiev, Lichfield Festival has finally had some public acknowledgement for giving him his UK debut in 1987. While this appeared in last Saturday's The Knowledge, the hard copy was dropped through the Festival Office earlier today. Our scanner couldn't cope with the whole article, but we're right there at the start of the graph.

'A low-key British debut at the Lichfield Festival gets a thumbs-up from The Times: Gergiev is "magnificently in control" in a programme of typically Russian highlights, the overture to Ruslan and Ludmila and Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony'

listening 0708

I'm a bit listened out after the Festival, and I've been reading to clear my head a bit. While I'm half way through a few non-fiction books in preparation for our Literature Weekend, the books I have devoured in the last fortnight include:

• Ken Follett - The Pillars of the Earth
• Neil Gaiman - American Gods
• Maurice Dantec - Babylon Babies
• Charlie Higson - Hurricane Gold
  
• Nicholas Shakespeare - Secrets of the Sea
  

behind

despite my 19 June post detailing the amount of work to get done before the 2008 Festival that had nothing really to do with the 2008 Festival, I have both the September Literature brochure and Abbotsholme Arts Society brochure still to do. At least the Abbotsholme brochure is at the printers (proofs available tomorrow) and the website has already been proofed and is just waiting for a green light to go live, the September Literature brochure is further behind than all the plans and schedules (and best of intentions) should allow. This is due to the planning of events only. I've been caught out slightly by the fact that we've brought the event forward a fortnight (otherwise I wouldn't be as behind as I'm feeling), and programming Literature events requires a slightly different way of thinking than normal performance events, especially when we aren't in daily conversations with publishing houses. I'm still learning the subtleties of dealing with literary agents, publishers' marketing departments, and directly with authors. Sometimes I get things very wrong. All the time I am trying to build up this wee event from nothing with no other history than what the Festival and the City can offer. The proximity to the main Festival is also awkward on a purely organisational level, but I only have myself to blame for that...
On top of that, the Festival's excellent designer, yellow, has just had twins.

after a weekend in london

back in the office after a few days off and a weekend in London seeing stuff, including the BP Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery, Noel Coward's Brief Encounter by the brilliant Kneehigh Theatre, National Theatre of Scotland's Black Watch at the Barbican, and Muzsikas performing with the London Sinfonietta at the free Folk Prom yesterday afternoon. At the Barbican I bumped into Tim Sutton, a composer that the Festival is commissioning for 2009, fresh back from performing in NTS's The Bacchae in New York. So fantastic to finally hear Muzsikas live, having listened repeatedly to their Bartok cds with Marta Sebestyen. Their performance in the Royal Albert Hall and interspersing their music in between Bartok's Romanian Dances was a definite highlight. Unfortunately had to leave afterwards so missed Prom 5, but really enjoyed listened to Bellowhead in the car journey home.
Posts will revert to one or two a week or one whenever I have something of interest to share...

the debrief

traditionally, the wednesday afternoon after the festival has finished is when the team gathers around to discuss what went wrong, what we could fix for future years, and how best to go about it all. We generally divide the meeting into events in and around the cathedral, events in and around Lichfield Garrick Theatre, all other venues, then education, sponsors and volunteers. All in all things seem to have all gone rather well, except for the occasional improvement that could have been made to the presentation of a handful of events.

the round up

immediately after recent festivals we've tried to get a festival round up out to sponsors. It is early days yet, and we're still sifting through audience, artist and press response, but this is what we've come up with so far...

Our Highlights…

A Grand Opening concert featuring American Marin Alsop’s farewell performance as Principal Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Russian pianist Alexei Volodin playing an American/Russian programme.

Sell-out performance by the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain in Lichfield Cathedral, including Wuthering Heights, Teenage Dirtbag, and Kiss’ God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll to You.

The specially formed Lichfield Festival Chorus performing The Traveller, the latest in a series of Lichfield Festival commissions by Alec Roth and Vikram Seth, with Mark Padmore and the Britten Sinfonia.

100 young people from across the West Midlands reading their own poetry on stage at the Garrick Theatre, following workshops with professional poets Polarbear and John Berkavitch as part of the Choices education project.

Full houses for The Hairy Bikers and The Puppini Sisters, dancing in the aisles for Los de Abajo, the first performance by Mark Padmore and Paul Lewis of Schubert’s Winterreise, and British concerto debuts by Marie-Elisabeth Hecker and Alexei Volodin.

Facts & Figures…

• 75 events over 10 days with over 400 artists from the UK, America, Mexico, Finland, Denmark, France, Russia and Germany
• 11,868 attendees at ticketed events
• 8,800 visual arts exhibitions attendees (excluding footfall from concert attendees)
• 498 participants in education projects
• 228 attendees at schools performances
• 40,000 people attended free events including the Medieval Market and Festival Fireworks
• Rosie Kay Dance Company, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia and Acoustic Triangle all Pick of the Week for dance, classical and jazz in the Guardian Guide.
• Lichfield Festival was listed as one of the Top 5 Events, Top Five Classical and Top Five Jazz in The Times’ The Knowledge
• Lichfield Festival listed in the Five best talks & festivals in The Independent’s The Information
• 4-star review in The Guardian for the newly formed Lichfield Festival Chorus performing Alec Roth and Vikram Seth’s The Traveller with the Britten Sinfonia.
• 4-star reviews in The Birmingham Post for Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Mark Padmore’s Die Winterreise
• National, Regional and local press coverage providing over 11.5million opportunities to see or hear about the Lichfield Festival

What the press said:

“…… the performance was very fine indeed, with Roth conducting the Britten Sinfonia and the Lichfield Festival Chorus, which was founded especially to perform this work and acquitted itself marvellously”
The Guardian 4-star review for The Traveller

“Close on ten million people watched the Dr Who season finale on Saturday. Paul Groves was one of the lucky ones. He was at Lichfield Cathedral watching the wonderful Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain”
The Birmingham Post, LifeStyleBlog

“On Monday night the Lichfield Festival presented a moving, memorable account of this finest work in the genre from two of our finest young artists….The Lady Chapel, with its natural unforced acoustic was packed with rapt listeners”
The Birmingham Post 4-star review of Die Winterreise with Mark Padmore and Paul Lewis

“Festival Director Richard Hawley is to be congratulated for bringing such popular international artists to the Garrick, thus widening the appeal of The Lichfield Festival to audiences who have not previously visited the theatre”
Lichfield Mercury on The Puppini Sisters

“Everyone knows the script; contemporary classical music is complex, intimidating and elitist. It’s scored for impractical forces, deals with obscure philosophical concepts and sounds so unpleasant that the words ‘world premiere’ on a programme guarantee an empty hall…. In which case, the Lichfield Festival is singing from a completely different hymn sheet”
Birmingham Metro on The Traveller

And the participants:

“Best thing I’ve ever sung in and Vikram Seth signed my score”
Julia Beech, Festival Chorus member on performance of The Traveller with the Britten Sinfonia

“I LOVED the workshop. It was a really good idea to get us all to do a little rhyme at first. I liked my poem and I love writing. It’s really inspiring and I loved it.=) I can’t wait to perform…I’m nervous but excited. “
India, Kettlebrook PRU on education project Choices

“The Lichfield Festival is a veritable oasis: charming, majestic, intimate and moving”
Marin Alsop

“It’s always such a pleasure to come to Lichfield. The Festival has the highest artistic standards, wonderfully varied programming and an exceptionally friendly atmosphere – a winning combination”
Alec Roth

And the audience:

“The combination of the film and the music was brilliant, exquisite, fantastic. We were enraptured throughout…”
Susan May on Shiraz

“…I shall certainly no longer switch off whenever Messiaen’s music comes over the air-waves. Thank you, Lichfield Festival…””
Marjorie Callow on Thomas Trotter’s Messiaen organ recital

the day after

post-festival blues won't kick in until next week probably, but it is such an odd feeling to have had an intense run of days come to a screeching halt. The Festival boards and banners are already down, the marquees are at ground level already, and the visual arts is slowly coming out of the cathedral. By tomorrow it will look as if there wasn't a festival at all, and we start the whole process of informing people about the Festival again. 360 days until we start next year's...
The team are all in, as are most of the runners. We're trying to sort through tickets numbers and box office income, collate critical feedback and artist comments, and try to make sense of it all...

day eleven.three

back home after a bash for the volunteers in the knowledge that the festival production team have several hours of work still to do before they are out of the cathedral this evening. the work the volunteers do it priceless, although we do try to allocate a cost to it for when we discuss it with funders. It is important to thank them all somehow, but I wonder whether the sit down meal we have might be replaced by something event more appropriate - not certain what at this stage...
we'll have a full house of runners in the morning to help with cleaning everything up, but for the moment, I am one g&t down already, and it won't be long before I collapse in a small heap.
Marie-Elisabeth Hecker came to the bash and it took very little convincing to entice her back to Lichfield. Watch this space - I think we might be seeing more of her here very soon.

day eleven.two

so nice to wander down and see Minster Pool full of fishermen competing in the Lichfield Fishing Festival. This wonderfully random event umbrella-ed by the Lichfield Festival rasied important funds for a local charity. Brilliant!

day eleven.one

last day of the Festival... It's a perfectly sunny day (finally) and the cathedral seems pretty clear of the Festival's equipment with both the Festival and cathedral teams working immediately after last night's concert to turn things around for the Festival Service.
And what a concert - Marie-Elisabeth's Dvorak was fantastic, and Alexander Shelley brilliantly contained the energy of the Rimsky-Korsakov. The performance was a big deal for both musicians, being Philharmonia debuts for both, and I remain a little surprised that no one from MEH's management were here to support her. In amongst sponsor meals and being present front-of-house for a few audience enquiries, I did not even have the opportunity to say hello to Jackie, Liane and Sara of The Passion. I knew that they were here and happy, and I have heard from people who were there how brilliant their event was (I went to Bristol to see it last year) but I regret not having the chance to go and say hello.
After starting the fireworks around 10.20, we then went for a late meal with Alexander Shelley, piling back to the Close in the wee hours.
We've had no email since about 5pm yesterday so there may be things yet that I'm not aware of...

day ten.four

managed to catch the first 20 minutes of Stone City Voices, the culmination of a two project working with Lichfield Poets and David Calcutt. Sounded really good to hear all these different interpretations of people throughout history and the personalities behind the various sculptures around town, and it had a healthy poetry audience.
Alexander Shelley is coming toward the end of his Sheherezade rehearsal and it's sounding excellent in the cathedral space...

day ten.three

great to have Alina Ibragimova back in Lichfield. Slightly weird for her though. She has been on tour all week with the Philharmonia Orchestra and performed last night in Tewkesbury. Arriving this morning she saw the Philharmonia truck outside the cathedral and freaked out slightly that she was going to play Bruch violin concerto again...
Her concert with Cedric is up and away and sound really nice, although there is about half the audience I expected because in between Mozart and Beethoven she's performing Szymanoswki - repertoire that is still slightly off piste for audiences here...

day ten.two

James Trollope has just won the 10th Festival dash with a time of 58.56

day ten.one

and suddely in blogland its a new day. Raining heavily and full of people running around the cathedral close. Today is the 10th Festival Dash, which is modelled on the Chariots of Fire race against the noon chimes.
Last night's events were fantastic. Humph Remembered was a really moving occasion, seeing Humph's band playing to a packed cathedral. Apparently people kept coming up to them at breakfast in their hotel saying what a great night they had...
Los de Abajo took the Garrick audience by storm, and within minutes people were up in the aisles dancing. Such a high energy gig - they ended right in amongst the audience before piling out into the Green Room bar and continuing to jam out there.
And then the extraordinary contrast of Ensemble 360 performing Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time in a darkened Lady Chapel. Such a profound piece and I think it was their first performance of it in a church. Ensemble 360 are now off on their holiday (the first one left this morning at 5am for Italy).
Anna Pavord is currently on stage talking about her latest book The Naming of Names and Alina Ibragimova and Cedric Tiberghien are rehearsing in the Lady Chapel for their lunchtime concert. The Philharmonia truck turned up at 7 this morning in readiness for this afternoons rehearsal. Despite it being pretty much the last day, things are still manic.
...and Alexander Shelley has just walked in...

day nine.four

Brian Perkins is safely in Lichfield...

day nine.three

Los de Abajo came to the cathedral and were caught in the rush of cars picking up students from the school. They were noticed by one of the Festival team and redirected to the Garrick where they are due to have a meal before sound checking in about 40 mins.
The Humphrey Lyttelton Band are also here and happy and are sounding great in the cathedral. Brian Perkins though is still stuck on a train somehwere between Northampton and Birmingham.