Category: Music

  • Matariki 2024

    Matariki is here! The Māori celebration of a new year is called Matariki, after the cluster of stars that is also known as The Pleiades. It is a time to be joyful because of the turn of the seasons but it is also a time to reflect and remember those who are no longer with…

  • Venice Biennale – Pavilions and Palazzos

    This final instalment of the recent trip to Venice for a couple of days of the art biennale focuses on the wider events in the city. Throughout Venice there are exhibitions, shows and performances as part of the Biennale. They are tucked into hidden corners, upstairs and down, inside purpose-built structures and centuries-old edifices. It…

  • This week’s Spotify playlist

    Each week a playlist is curated on Spotify to go along with the blog. The pieces chosen reflect the articles in some way and are a mixture of old and new, folk, traditional and classical music. Sometimes there are surprises – bird song or ocean sounds – and it is always fun to search out…

  • Venice and the Biennale – part two

    The Venice Biennale’s traditional site is the Giardini, public gardens created by Napoleon at the start of the 19th Century. The first years of the exhibition saw more than 200,000 people attend the venues and over the decades since buildings have been erected to house country pavilions, showcasing artists and ideas from around the globe,…

  • This week’s Spotify playlist

    Each week a curated playlist from Spotify is made for the blog. The playlist references articles in some way and this week it features music from and about Venice, as well as pieces that have a link with the artists who are represented at the Biennale.

  • Hélène Kuhn Ferruzzi

    Venice has long been known for its music, art and artists. In the narrow route along a canal that leads past Peggy Guggenheim’s gallery of European and American art is a small shop with windows that tell of the artistic eye of Hélène Kuhn Ferruzzi. Enchanting and wondrous, this shop is a destination for the…

  • Home again

    We are home again after our overseas trip and what a trip it was! Over the next few weeks I shall share some of the exciting things we saw in Venice at the Art Biennale, in London, Shetland, and Athens. You can see a few of the things we have seen in the slideshow at…

  • This week’s Spotify playlist

    The playlist this week, as always, references articles on the blog. It is a curated list of interesting and unusual pieces, some old and some new, in different genres, all related in some way to the blog. In this week’s playlist, “Duke Bluebeard’s Castle” by Béla Bartók is included in its entirety. This work, the…

  • Can indigenous knowledge help mathematics?

    A university in Australia, the Australian National University, has developed a course in mathematics that includes teaching about Indigenous Knowledge. For anyone interested in mathematics, particularly where the arts are concerned – see the read more section below – a course that includes this kind of knowledge is invaluable. There are many ways of explaining…

  • This week’s Spotify playlist

    Each week a playlist on the streaming platform, Spotify, is created to go along with the blog. The list relates to articles on the blog, some obvious and others not. The playlist brings together music from diverse sources and genres, linked through common themes. To hear the playlist click on the player above or open…