The Power of Place - George Ferguson
George Ferguson has devoted much of his architectural career to fighting for good urbanism and place making – having a strong belief that the influence of the international architectural movement and our zone based planning legislation have conspired to produce an emphasis on ‘object’ architecture set in vacuous space.
His talk will borrow heavily from existing great European places, small and large, and examine what it is that gives them their power to inspire and how we can apply these vital lessons to architecture and planning today.
Slaying the Sixth Giant Government and the Funding of the Arts - Professor Sir Christopher Frayling
The lecture will be about the original foundation of the Arts Council some sixty years ago, by Maynard Keynes and others, and the dreams and aspirations of the founders. There had been much talk about "slaying the five giants of physical poverty" – that's what the new welfare state was for – but what about a sixth giant, poverty of aspiration, which engagement with the arts could help to improve?
Looking back from the perspective of 2007, the question is: have the dreams of the founders of the Arts Council come true? The lecture will aim to stimulate discussion about the nature and purposes of public arts funding - and about whether the Arts Council has achieved, and whether it continues to achieve, its original aims.
Why does Performance matter? - Nicholas Kenyon CBE
For too long, musical history has been written in terms of great composers, and great works. The history of performance – what was played and sung, when and why – is equally important, and a century of recording and broadcasting has provided us with a hugely important resource for the study of changing tastes in making music. As the arts looks to their future, the recreation of the past alongside the creation of new work in the present provides a perspective against which to judge our heritage and set our goals.
The Triumph of Music - Professor Tim Blanning
Why has music become the master-art of the modern world? Why do musicians earn more and enjoy more prestige than any other kind of creative artist? Why are musicians courted by politicians? These are big questions about culture and society but they have never been properly addressed, let alone answered.
Tim Blanning’s illustrated lecture The Triumph of Music in the Modern World explains how a combination of economic, social, technological, and cultural processes have transformed the status of music and musicians. Mozart was literally booted out of the service of the Archbishop of Salzburg ‘with a kick to my arse’, as he put it. Less than a hundred years later, the most powerful ruler on the continent of Europe – Emperor William I of Germany – felt obliged to travel to Bayreuth for the first performance of The Ring.
In 2006 Bono of U2 was touted as the next President of the World Bank and travels the world telling the politicians what to do – and they have to listen. This hasn’t happened suddenly: the roots of Elton John’s knighthood, the Rolling Stones’ billions, the blanket coverage of MTV, the power of youth culture, or whatever, all lie far back in history.