This Month’s Cultural Recommendations
A round-up of the articles, blog posts and videos we’ve been reading and watching recently, on topics such as creating a new ecosystem for classical music, creative anxiety, and how apartheid shaped classical music. We regularly post links to this kind of content on social media, so if you’re not already following, come and say hello on X/Twitter, Threads, Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram.
Articles, blog posts & newsletters:
🔮 "Classical music has both a deep-seated anxiety about its increasing irrelevance, and an insatiable hunger for stories that might secure its future.”
🔄 Can we create a new classical music ecosystem? ~ the first post on a new blog by Matthew Hodge that hypothesises what it might be like if the industry did change
📚 8 fiction books about pianists
🥱 So you want to be an artist. Do you have to start a TikTok? "Self-promotion sucks. It is actually very boring."
31 Aug - 8 Sept 2024
A fast-paced, energetic performance taking place in the grounds of The Vache estate in the Chilterns, reflecting the dash-to-the-line of this Olympic story. Who will win? Who will lose? Let the games begin. Under 35s tickets available.
🎻 I'm done with the Concerto ~ stand-up comedian and professional violist Isabel Hagen asks "why must we repress the masses to elevate the one?". If you enjoy this you may also enjoy our interview with Isabel.
♭How apartheid shaped classical music
💦 “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” is nonsense: pretty much anything you love becomes a chore a good percentage of the time once you depend on it to live.
Videos & podcasts:
⌚ Fredrik Backman on Creative Anxiety and Procrastination ~ it’s a funnier video than the title suggests!
🎧 Soprano Sophie Bevan on overcoming adversity and discussing her navigating a diagnosis of bowel cancer
📹 YouTube Vs. Opera: what happens when ultra-niche content collides with Google’s video-search powerhouse?
(Written) interviews:
📈 “Follow your niche and create what would be interesting to yourself rather than something that is just designed to get views.” - social media tips for classical musicians from singing teacher and content creator James B Partridge
💡 "I struggle with the fact that if you mix house with rap no one blinks, but if you mix classical with something everyone yells. I hope we – the classical world – can be less conservative, and loosen up…" - a Guardian interview with countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński
🍎 “So many of us in the opera industry have been constricted and been, I’m going to use the word ‘shoved,’ into thinking that we should all look this way and the only way of looking right is skinny, skinny, skinny." South African opera singer Pretty Yende talks body positivity, acting ambitions and healing through music.
Upcoming concerts & events:
more articles…
