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Linked Lives – National Gallery Click here to watch Here’s the fascinating story of two paintings in London, each with an ancestral link to a poet in New Orleans and to the inescapable horrors of slavery. This is the history of the people behind two paintings in neighbouring galleries, the National Gallery and its sister, the National Portrait Gallery, as a young American, Madeleine Le Cesne, traces the hidden history of her family. In this film, Madeleine speaks with curator Francesca Whitlum-Cooper about François-Hubert Drouais' 'The Comte de Vaudreuil' from the National Gallery's collection and 'The Anti-Slavery Society Convention, 1840' by Benjamin Robert Haydon from the National Portrait Gallery. Bedbound – Galway Festival Click here to watch Enda Walsh’s Bedbound, starring Colm Meaney and Brenda Meaney, is now available to stream worldwide on demand, just until Dec 8, having been filmed during its critically acclaimed run at this year’s Galway International Arts Festival. This is a great chance to take an intimate, close-up look at this explosive two-hander with star Irish actor Colm Meaney and his daughter Brenda Meaney playing the father and daughter in this major revival of Enda Walsh’s savagely funny play. Colm Meaney - whose recent stage performances include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in the West End and The Iceman Cometh on Broadway - returned to the Irish stage for the first time in over 40 years to the Galway International Arts Festival, to play the once-flamboyant furniture salesman because, as he said, he ‘was immediately swept away by the power and brilliance of the language and fascinated by these two extraordinary characters.’ As with all of Enda Walsh’s plays, the language is compelling. Father and Daughter are bound, inextricably, to each other. And the walls are closing in. He talks frantically about his extraordinary past; she talks no less compulsively about anything at all, to fill the terrible silence in her head. What would happen if the torrent of words … just stopped? Until Dec 8 Britten - The Sorcerer's Apprentice-Accompanist – Wigmore Hall Click here to watch Classical pianist, accompanist, writer and musicologist, Graham Johnson, pays a personal tribute to Benjamin Britten on what would have been his 110th birthday, offering a fascinating overview of the composer's life and work. Johnson, who arrived from Africa in London in 1967 as a student of piano and composition at the Royal Academy of Music, barely knew Britten's work at the time. All that changed over many decades. In this tribute he offers grateful and loving memories of a composer he got to study and later know personally. Johnson has performed, written about, and lived with Britten's music ever since. The Sorcerer's Apprentice is 100 minutes of erudite reaction to Britten' s magnificent body of work. If you are not already very familiar with Britten’s music you may find some of this hard going but it’s worth persevering. Sones Jalicienses - Calpulli Mexican Dance Company Click here to watch Founded in 2003 and based in New York City, Calpulli Mexican Dance Company presents works featuring dance and music traditions, lesser-known stories from across Mexico, and original dances capturing the Mexican-American spirit. Under the artistic direction of co-founder Alberto Lopez, the company has performed at Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, Carnegie Hall, and various venues across the U.S. The excerpt seen here is from a suite of dances celebrating the birthplace of mariachi music, Jalisco. These dances portray stories of courtship and humor, and the dancers often imitate doves while executing intricate percussive footwork. The choreography is by Alberto Lopez and Daniel Jaquez and the folk songs which accompany them were adapted by Alberto Lopez, Noemy Hernandez, and George Saenz. Vermeer and Music – Exhibition on Screen Click here for tickets Another kind of fusion where art and music blend, this is a documentary which delves into a breath-taking collection of Johannes Vermeer’s paintings and delivers a detailed biography of the artist, his life and times. Tim Marlow, world-renowned art historian and broadcaster, guides us through the artwork here in amazing detail combined with a first-rate biography of Vermeer. An exposition of period musical pursuits is blended with the art of Vermeer and his contemporaries. Live music from the Academy of Ancient Music serves as a beautiful soundtrack to Vermeer’s paintings. Filmed in London’s National Gallery, New York’s Met and other galleries in the USA and the Netherlands, this stunning film includes comments from leading fine art authorities and from Tracy Chevalier, whose best-selling novel, inspired by Vermeer, was made into the block buster movie, Girl with a Pearl Earring. Grateful - Liz Callaway Click here to watch It's Thanksgiving and we're all trying to find things to be thankful for. Here's one artist who is adding to the supply of good feeling this week. My friend, Liz Callaway, Tony Award nominee, Emmy winner and newly-minted Grammy nominee, sings John Buccino’s Thanksgiving song, Grateful, in her kitchen. Right now, in this world of catastrophes, we need to be reminded that we still have much to be thankful for. Thank you, Liz, and Happy Thanksgiving to you all.
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AuthorRuth Leon is a writer and critic specialising in music and theatre. Archives
March 2024
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