THREE CHOIRS FESTIVAL: Roderic Dunnett previews the 2024 edition of the UK's oldest music festival, 27 July until 4 August.
VIDEO PODCAST: John Dante Prevedini leads a discussion about The Creative Spark, including contributions from Ryan Ash, Sean Neukom, Adrian Rumson, Stephen Francis Vasta, David Arditti, Halida Dinova and Andrew Arceci.
PROVOCATIVE THOUGHTS:
The late Patric Standford may have written these short pieces deliberately to provoke our feedback. If so, his success is reflected in the rich range of readers' comments appearing at the foot of most of the pages.
Northern Irish author Robin Bryans (also known as Robert Harbinson, Robert Harbinson Bryans and Donald Cameron) was born in Belfast on 24 April 1928 into a working-class Protestant family, and had an adventurous and colourful life full of travel and intrigue.
The classical music world featured in Bryans' later life, when he worked as an opera librettist and created a music school to encourage composers, conductors and instrumentists, and through his friendships with John Barbirolli, Kathleen Ferrier, Ivor Novello, Vilem Tausky, Noel Coward, Edward Lowbury, Lawrence Leonard, George Balcombe, Daniel Schorno and Keith Bramich, amongst others.
Robin Bryans died on 11 June 2005, aged seventy-seven.
Further information: robinbryans.net