Saw these women singing in The Royal Pvailion Gardens in Brighon this afternoon. Part of the Brighton Festival Fringe which runs during May.
The Big Bite-Size Vintage Tea Party
Posts Tagged ‘Brighton Festival
Brighton Street Musicians
Brighton Festival is almost upon us and musicians are starting to play in the streets. On Friday night I visited St Bartholomews church in the middle of Brighton where some choral singing was being perfromed. Last year I went up to the Thames River Festival in London and saw a choir made up of representatves from all over England and I learned that, while we English seemed quite a reserved lot, England is a hotbed of choral singing.
St Bartholomews was built in the 19th century by one Rev. Arthur Wagner and differs quite dramatically from traditional English churches having an almost industrial feel brought about by the brickwork which is based on the architecture of Germany. It is very tall and the acoustics are excellent for this sort of performance.
On Friday night Brighton Festival Chorus and Brighton Festival Youth Choir were performing “an enlightening evening of some of the most ethereal choral music of our time” which included Samuel Barber’s “Agnus Dei” and Adagio for Strings. Only £12 and handy for the pubs.
Conductor: James Morgan
Soloist: Juliette Pochin – mezzo soprano
St Bartholomews
St Malo Beach
New Road
Ice Sculpture on Hove Promenade
Have been a little remiss and not seen much of Brighton Festival so far. However, I walked into town on Saturday and saw an ice sculpture on Hove Promenade. About the size of a large washing machine the block of ice had been embdeded with various items. As the ice slowly melted the item were revealed. Roses, some post cards and shells were in evidence. A note on the ground proclaimed: “This is a place to contemplate the passing of time as this giant block of ice melts to reveal the secrets that are hidden within it.” The work appeared to be a group named Beyond.
The Happy Egg - The Myst
Further along was The Happy Egg. Your corespondent understands that as part of The Brighton Festival The Myst band will be living inside a 14ft egg on Brighton Seafront for a week. The egg had been surrounded with tree branches and attached to the branches were wishes written on luggage tags. Most wishes were for peace but one I saw was for The Myst to go all the way to the top.
Kvetch
On Saturday night I saw a play at the Brighton Media Centre. The play was Kvetch, by Steven Berkoff and was part of the Brighton Festival Fringe. It was a scream. The venue was a small room and the seating did not allow very good visibility. However, this did not prevent enjoyment of a very good play.
The story revolves round a salesman and his wife who are almost paralysed by their fear of what other people may think. The play opens with the salesman heartily inviting his work colleague home for dinner whilst internally dreading the idea that the man might accept.
The stage has a bright green background which appeared to be the same colour as cinematographers use when they overlay images on backgrounds. This gave the experience a very telly visual feel and this was heightened by the internal reverie’s of each character taking place while the other characters freeze framed.
The play explores the timid fears that we have of venturing outside our mundane existence. The fear of society and the fear that if we are true to ourselves then we might lose the material and social possessions that we have grown to reply on. Perhaps even the fear of death.
A fantastic production that had the audience laughing from the very start.
KVETCH by Steven Berkoff
Directed by Britt Forsberg
Brighton Media Centre Studio
6, 7 and 8 May 8.00-10.00 pm
The Brighton Festival has kicked off and the centre of Brighton was pretty busy today. Fabrica has an installation entitled 77 Million Paintings by Brian Eno.
77 Millions Paintings at Fabrica
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Apr
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Brighton Festival
The Brighton Festival is looming on the horizon like….. a vast …….arts festival…….in Brighton…….starting in May.
Jones has exhibited art work in previous festivals and this year work will be on display at The Hartington Public House in Whippingham Rd, Brighton……near the pool table…..where all the art connoisseurs hang out.
Below are a couple of the pictures on display.
Trees in Silhouette
Cows
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May
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I’m a banana, I’m a banana
Infosec 2009
On Thursday I visited an Information Security Exhibition at Earl’s Court. Infosec 2009. Hundreds of stands from various suppliers of information security products including big names like IBM, Cisco etc.
For some time now the trend in the Information Technology industry has been to switch from selling products to selling services. Old fashioned hardware suppliers such as IBM and HP have attempted to turn themselves into 21st century equivalents of business consultancies and indeed some companies have teamed up with business consultancies.
The upshot of this is that the people attending the stands are of little practical use to a potential customer. I walked past several stands with teams of serious, earnest young men viewing the exhibition attendees the way a wolf might view sheep. It is seemingly impossible to approach a stand and discuss their products or services. Instead one’s questions are met with vague industry standard platitudes and buzzwords. The salesmen seem to have little grasp of their brief and continually try to turn the conversation to discovering what your projects are and then pretending to be experts on just that topic. This is usually followed up by a request for a meeting to discuss how they can assist.
The weather was “overcast with occasional sunny spells”. Sitting in a pub at lunchtime I watched the world go by and thought that perhaps London is a beautiful city. People walked past from all over the world, each one a potential friend. Each one a story.
On Saturday I saw a play named “A Month of Sundays” at a pub named the Three and Ten in Brighton. A low budget 4 actor production reminiscent of Brighton Rock. A thriller involving murder and a lost past. The production was notable for a technique to allow the audience dual perspectives on one scene and thought simple this was very effective.
Anish Kapoor is playing a big part in this year’s Brighton festival and on Monday I thought I’d visit a piece entitled C-Curve which was publicised as being at The Chattri. Disliking planning I drove up to Patcham looking for some kind of country house named The Chattri where I imagined the piece to be on display. After a while I found some cars parked next to a field with a sign saying that there was no vehicle access and directing me to walk across a field. After about a hundred yards I rose over the brow of a hill and could see the sculpture and a bunch of people a mile away on top of another hill. – “I see, so that’s the way of it”, I thought and continued on.
C-Curve
I first saw Kapoor’s work in what is now Tate Britain. What appeared to be a slab of rock with an opening directly on to the void of space. He seems to be attracted to illusions and uses polished metal surfaces quite a bit.
Curve is a very large curve of what appears to be polished chrome. The picture of the C-Curve in the brochure showed it positioned in some kind of room reflecting other items in the room but placing it in a field on the top of a hill in Sussex gave it a completely different feel.
Of course we all approached it and looked at out large distorted faces but the overcast sky was quite bright and the C-curve took this in and threw it out again. A child had realised that if he stood in the middle of the piece his face was stretched and his voice reflected back at him. “I’m a banana, I’m a banana”. – Hang on, long faces, talking bollocks, this reminds me of Infosec.
The Chattri
It turns out that The Chattri is a memorial to soldiers from India who died fighting in the first world war and is built on the spot where the bodies of many Sikhs and Hindus were cremated after dieing while in hospital in Brighton.
Photography
