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The Ballets Russes: Courting the Exotic

Diaghilev found that the Oriental style that had been cultivated by Russian composers was a perfect match for the Parisians’ love of exoticism, and he started to commission new ballets for this market niche.

Freedom Song: The Fisk Jubilee Singers' Story

A choir of ex-slaves, raising funds to build their University, toured America from 1871, suffering discrimination and hardship.

Exporting Russia: Diaghilev’s Beginnings

In this lecture we follow his early years, when he published The World of Art, a provocative Russian journal, exhibited Russian visual art in Paris, and then brought Russian music there, culminating in his production of Musorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov.

Archers Assemble: Creating The Powell-Pressburger Partnership

This lecture explores how the partnership worked during the 1940s, drawing in collaborators from many backgrounds who also excelled, and benefiting from the extraordinary conditions of wartime Britain.

Musical Openings

This lecture looks at how composers of all periods have risen to the challenge of how to write a memorable musical opening sentence.

Byron and the Age of Sensation

Jonathan Bate will explore the life and work of the original celebrity poet - Lord Byron.

Prokofiev's War and Peace

Sergei Prokofiev’s War and Peace (1953) was an adaptation of Tolstoy’s novel begun during WWII. He saw it as a personal interpretation of the novel.

The Cockney Romantics: John Keats and his Friends

Jonathan Bate will track Keats to Hampstead and tell of the extraordinary circle of writers – opium-eater Thomas De Quincey, essayist Charles Lamb, master-critic William Hazlitt – who wrote for The London Magazine, until its gifted editor was killed in a duel with a rival critic.

Prokofiev's Epic Opera

"Prokofiev really was a crazy composer. He had lots of...

Digital Listening: The Future of Music in the Age of Digital Fragmentation

What’s the future of listening? What will happen to the ways we give attention to music in the future?

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