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Arts In Birmingham
The culture of Birmingham is characterised by a deep-seated tradition of individualism and experimentation, and the unusually fragmented but innovative culture that results has been widely remarked upon by commentators. Writing in 1969, the New York-based urbanist Jane Jacobs cast Birmingham as one of the world's great examples of urban creativity: surveying its history from the 16th to the 20th centuries she described it as a "great, confused laboratory of ideas", noting how its chaotic structure as a "muddle of oddments" meant that it "grew through constant diversification". The historian G. M. Young – in a classic comparison later expanded upon by Asa Briggs – contrasted the "experimental, adventurous, diverse" culture of Birmingham with the "solid, uniform, pacific" culture of the outwardly similar city of Manchester. The American economist Edward Gleason wrote in 2011 that "cities, the dense agglomerations that dot the globe, have been engines of innovation since Plato a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birmingham Town Hall From Chamberlain Square
Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands metropolitan county, and approximately 4.3 million in the Birmingham metropolitan area, wider metropolitan area. It is the ESPON metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom, largest UK metropolitan area outside of London. Birmingham is known as the second city of the United Kingdom. Located in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands region of England, approximately from London, Birmingham is considered to be the social, cultural, financial and commercial centre of the Midlands. Distinctively, Birmingham only has small rivers flowing through it, mainly the River Tame, West Midlands, River Tame and its tributaries River Rea and River Cole, West Midlands ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Hutton (historian)
William Hutton (30 September 1723 – 20 September 1815) was an English poet and historian. Originally from Derby, he moved to Birmingham and became the first significant historian of the city, publishing his ''History of Birmingham'' in 1781. Biography A Unitarian nonconformist born in Derby, William Hutton went to school when five years old. Aged seven years he was employed in a Derby Silk Mill on a seven-year apprenticeship. In 1737 he took a second apprenticeship as a stocking maker in Nottingham under his uncle. In 1746, after his uncle had died, he taught himself bookbinding, and three years later opened a shop in Southwell, Nottinghamshire. This was not successful and he moved to Birmingham in 1750 and opened a small bookshop. Hutton married Sarah Cock from Aston-on-Trent in 1755 and they had three sons and a daughter, Catherine Hutton (1756–1846), who became a writer. In 1756, Hutton opened a paper warehouse – the first in Birmingham – which became profitable. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900) was an English composer. He is best known for 14 comic opera, operatic Gilbert and Sullivan, collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including ''H.M.S. Pinafore'', ''The Pirates of Penzance'' and ''The Mikado''. His works include 24 operas, 11 major orchestral works, ten choral works and oratorios, two ballets, incidental music to several plays, and numerous church pieces, songs, and piano and chamber pieces. His hymns and songs include "Onward, Christian Soldiers" and "The Lost Chord". The son of a military bandmaster, Sullivan composed his first anthem at the age of eight and was later a soloist in the boys' choir of the Chapel Royal. In 1856, at 14, he was awarded the first Mendelssohn Scholarship by the Royal Academy of Music, which allowed him to study at the academy and then at the Felix Mendelssohn College of Music and Theatre, Leipzig Conservatoire in Germany. His graduation piece, inc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gounod
Charles-François Gounod (; ; 17 June 181818 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been ''Faust (opera), Faust'' (1859); his ''Roméo et Juliette'' (1867) also remains in the international repertory. He composed a large amount of church music, many songs, and popular short pieces including his Ave Maria (Bach/Gounod), Ave Maria (an elaboration of a Johann Sebastian Bach, Bach piece), and ''Funeral March of a Marionette''. Born in Paris into an artistic and musical family Gounod was a student at the Conservatoire de Paris and won France's most prestigious musical prize, the Prix de Rome. His studies took him to Italy, Austria and then Prussia, where he met Felix Mendelssohn, whose advocacy of the music of Bach was an early influence on him. He was deeply religious, and after his return to Paris, he briefly considered becoming a priest. He composed prolifically, writing church music, songs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include symphonies, concertos, piano music, organ music and chamber music. His best-known works include the overture and incidental music for '' A Midsummer Night's Dream'' (which includes his "Wedding March"), the '' Italian Symphony'', the '' Scottish Symphony'', the oratorio ''St. Paul'', the oratorio ''Elijah'', the overture ''The Hebrides'', the mature Violin Concerto and the String Octet. The melody for the Christmas carol "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" is also his. Mendelssohn's ''Songs Without Words'' are his most famous solo piano compositions. Mendelssohn's grandfather was the renowned Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, but Felix was initially raised without religion. He was baptised at the age of seven, becoming a Reformed Christi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birmingham Triennial Music Festival
The Birmingham Triennial Musical Festival, in Birmingham, England, founded in 1784, was the longest-running classical music festival of its kind. It last took place in 1912. History The first music festival, over three days in September 1768, was to help raise funds to complete the new General Hospital on Summer Lane. It proved to be very popular and successful, but it took another event in 1778 to achieve the funds required. The hospital opened September 1779. From September 1784 the performances became a permanent feature and ran every three years, becoming the Birmingham Triennial Musical Festival, still with the aim of raising funds for the hospital. Originally hosted in St Philip's Church (later to become the Cathedral) or the Theatre Royal on New Street the available venues became too small for the festival. As a result, the Birmingham Town Hall was built, and opened in 1834 to house it. The festival for 1832 was delayed by two years during its erection. Vocal works ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catherine O'Flynn
Catherine O'Flynn (born 1970) is a British writer. She has published three novels for adults, and two for children as well as various articles and short stories. Her debut novel, '' What Was Lost'', won the prestigious first novel prize at the Costa Book Awards in 2008. Biography Prior to the publication of ''What Was Lost'' she worked in a variety of jobs including deputy manager of a large record shop, post woman, web editor, teacher and mystery shopper. After spending some time in and around Barcelona, she now lives and works in Birmingham, England. She is married to Peter Fletcher, and they have two daughters. Her first novel, ''What Was Lost'', was published in January 2007. This novel received critical acclaim as an examination of the often lacklustre and empty experience of modern life, contrasted with the energy and optimism of a young girl who went missing in the mid-1980s. ''What Was Lost'' was long listed for the 2007 Man Booker Prize for Fiction and the Orange Prize fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
B-Town
B-Town is the name given to an indie music scene based in the Digbeth area of Birmingham, United Kingdom. B-Town bands include Peace, Swim Deep, JAWS, Sugarthief, and Spilt Milk Society. Details Some local commentators have suggested the term is an invention by London-based journalists to talk the wider Birmingham music scene up as a fad, pointing out that "there have been bands going strong in Birmingham for years" and highlighting the variety and strength in depth of the music being created in the city. Evil Alien—a band who have been identified with the scene—have criticised it as "just media hype and a silly name somebody has given it all", commenting that "B-Town is the worst nickname for this great city I have ever heard and it makes me cringe every time I hear it". In July 2013 Cavan McCarthy of Swim Deep claimed that the term started off as a joke, invented by himself and Harry Koisser of Peace while driving back into Birmingham from outside the city, and that "no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Highfield (Birmingham)
''Highfield'' was a large house situated at 128 Selly Park Road in the Selly Park area of Birmingham, England. Built in the 1860s, it was bought in 1929 by Philip Sargant Florence and his wife Lella Secor Florence after Sargant Florence was appointed as a professor at the nearby University of Birmingham. Under the Florence's ownership Highfield became a focal point for the cultural life of Birmingham in the 1930s, a period when the city was the focus of great intellectual ferment. Secor Florence let self-contained Apartment, flats within the house out to other members of the university and held regular unplanned and informal parties for "huge numbers" of students, academics and other guests, that could involve anything from dancing, to picnics on the lawn, to skating on the frozen lake in the house's four acres of grounds. ''Highfield'' also formed a focus for political activity; in 1932 the dining room was converted into a studio where artists painted anti-war posters which were pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birmingham Group (artists)
The Birmingham Group, sometimes called the Birmingham School, was an informal collective of painters and craftsmen associated with the Arts and Crafts Movement, that worked in Birmingham, England in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. All of its members studied or taught at the Birmingham School of Art after the reorganisation of its teaching methods by Edward R. Taylor in the 1880s, and it was the School that formed the group's primary focus. Members of the group also overlapped with other more formal organisations, including the Birmingham Guild of Handicraft, the Ruskin Pottery and the Bromsgrove Guild of Applied Arts. The Group formed one of the last outposts of late Romanticism in the visual arts, and an important link between the last of the Pre-Raphaelites and the new Slade Symbolists. History They began to form in an informal manner in the 1890s. Many were later to become teachers in Birmingham (especially the great Birmingham Municipal School of Art under Edward R. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lunar Society Of Birmingham
The Lunar Society of Birmingham was a British dinner club and informal learned society of prominent figures in the Midlands Enlightenment, including industrialists, natural philosophers and intellectuals, who met regularly between 1765 and 1813 in Birmingham. At first called the Lunar Circle, "Lunar Society" became the formal name by 1775. The name arose because the society would meet during the full moon, as the extra light made the journey home easier and safer in the absence of street lighting. The members cheerfully referred to themselves as ''"lunaticks"'', a pun on lunatics. Venues included Erasmus Darwin's home in Lichfield, Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, Bowbridge House in Derbyshire, and Great Barr Hall. Membership and status The Lunar Society evolved through various degrees of organisation over a period of up to fifty years, but was only ever an informal group. No constitution, minutes, publications or membership lists survive from any period, and evidence of its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edmund Wilson
Edmund Wilson Jr. (May 8, 1895 – June 12, 1972) was an American writer and literary critic who explored Freudian and Marxist themes. He influenced many American authors, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose unfinished work he edited for publication. His scheme for a Library of America series of national classic works came to fruition through the efforts of Jason Epstein after Wilson's death. Early life Wilson was born in Red Bank, New Jersey. His parents were Edmund Wilson Sr., a lawyer who served as New Jersey Attorney General, and Helen Mather (née Kimball). Wilson attended The Hill School, a college preparatory boarding school in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1912. At Hill, Wilson served as the editor-in-chief of the school's literary magazine, ''The Record''. From 1912 to 1916, he was educated at Princeton University, where his friends included F. Scott Fitzgerald and war poet John Allan Wyeth. Wilson began his professional writing career as a reporter for th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
