A pint of fruit cider and a dish of cockles It’s mid-afternoon on a Wednesday in February and I’m sitting in a village pub by a station a few miles outside Newcastle. A man wearing black jeans and a smart jacket walks in, looks around the silent, almost empty bar, and asks: “Who died?” Then […]
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More and more of my work these days is for charities. In the last month, I’ve written an annual report for Help Musicians UK, fundraising materials for The Brooke and a report for The National Trust. But as well as my everyday work as a freelance writer, I also wheel out my harp on occasion […]
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If you go to a jazz or free improv gig and see a woman up on stage in amongst the musicians, not playing but drawing, it’s probably Julie Pickard. Julie’s an artist and writer who produces extraordinary expressionist drawings that are a response to her experience of live music. Details of instruments and musicians emerge from the […]
Read more...If you ever want an expert in opera, frozen foods and idiosyncratic PR, Keith Hann’s your man. He wrote The Bluffer’s Guide to Opera and is PR for Iceland Foods (you might have seen him in BBC Two’s ‘Life in the Freezer Cabinet’). Keith describes himself as “the most honest man in PR” and has a notice […]
Read more...Mike Volpe is a true opera aficionado. For nearly 25 years, he’s been General Manager of Opera Holland Park, enthusing a new generation of opera lovers with an eclectic mix of outdoor performances. Although his family comes from the mountains outside Naples, Mike grew up in England. He drinks Italian espresso, but when Chelsea […]
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