There exists a genuine mystery at the heart
“I believe that there exists a genuine mystery at the heart of songwriting. Certain lines can appear at the time
Category: Regular Marvels
Watch the making of ‘La Gata Perduda’
Reading about ‘La Gata Perduda‘ in these posts must be a somewhat frustrating experience. After all, it has often been
The night of the première
Nature doesn’t have a sense of humour, so it’s just coincidence that I’ve caught my first dose of Covid-19 in
Virtual Realities (Part Three)
But for the first two hundred years of its life spectacle, associated in particular with stage technology – referred to
‘From little things, big things grow’
Between the Traction opera performances in the prison last week, and those that will take place in Lisbon at the
The meaning of risk in community art
Three days ago, anticipating the first performance of the Leiria prison opera, I wrote that I didn’t expect to see
This is special
In the dusty hall of a disused prison workshop, 30 people shuffle into a big circle. Silence falls. They draw
Prisoners of Love, Amateurs and Professionals (Old Words #3)
This essay is a slightly revised version of a chapter in Where We Dream, West Bromwich Operatic Society and the
Blinkered by my privilege
For decades, longer even, cultural policy in Europe has been imagined as a conflict between two ideas. The first is
Trusting the process, again
In January 2021, for the first time in my life, I wrote a long, detailed outline for a community art
Parliament of Dreams 