Inspiring Excitement and Passion about History and the Humanities
Caitlin Moran talks in her book, How to be a Woman, about the idea that often when we discover a particular book, we are suddenly introduced to all its friends, and so join this society that we hadn’t even known existed before. So if you, for example, start reading Dorothy Parker, suddenly before you know…
Ronda is the closest big town to where we live, it’s where our Spanish school is located, and where we do most of our shopping (when we don’t want to make the drive to Little England aka Gibraltar). It’s jam packed with history, and the architecture is a constant reminder that Spain was ruled by the…
I’ve started working through the Jeff Goins TribeWriters and Intentional Blogging course in the past month. I’m about midway through TribeWriters, which is why you’re seeing some nifty changes around this blog – like a move towards being self-hosted, the newsletter sign up box, a more consistent blogging schedule (which I’m still trying to work out),…
In 2011 I met Suzi Digby via Twitter. Having found out that she is a choral goddess and was in Los Angeles for a visiting professorship in choral conducting and arts leadership, I immediately asked if I could take her to coffee and meet her. I visited her in Queen’s College, Cambridge, and we talked…
When I first arrived in Spain back in June, I wanted to go exploring – Seville, Granada (the Alhambra) – there were very few cities in Andalusia through which I didn’t want to wander. But it was summer. And Europe was in the midst of this awful heatwave. So we planned all of our explorations based on…
One of the great debates in classical music right now is whether video game music should be included in the genre of classical, even when a symphony is playing it. I’ve long been a fan of the Oblivion soundtrack, and downloaded it before these kinds of scores were available all over youtube. ClassicFM’s website…
I’ve been working on a podcast about Mary Queen of Scots, which I’ll be recording this week, and as part of that I’ve been reading John Guy’s book, Queen of Scots (available to read on Oyster, too). Most people who know Elizabethan history are familiar with the story of the tragic Catholic queen, but you don’t really ever…
When I lived in London, I worked at 76 Brewer Street, on the end of Soho near Golden Square, on the eastern end, tucked away from the tourists of Piccadilly, Leicester Square, and Oxford Street on all sides, a neighborhood of its own. What used to be a hunting ground where Henry VIII would ride…
There’s something about Baroque music that just screams Autumn to me. I don’t know where it comes from – I suppose the main baroque music my family listened to growing up would have been a recording of the Messiah which would begin its heavy Christmas rotation soon after Halloween, so perhaps there’s some kind of…
This year I am embarking on a new project as an entrepreneur who leads cultural tours to England, specializing in trips to listen to great choral services in cathedrals. My dear friend Jim and I are building a tour company, our first trip is scheduled for May 2016, and I’ve been working on the itinerary. What a fun…