education
toby.young
"You do understand you'll have no editorial control? None. The BBC and Channel 4 are very clear about that. Control will rest solely with the broadcaster. There's absolutely no wiggle room." The speaker was Alan Hayling, editorial director of Renegade Pictures. We were sitting in Soho House and he was one of over 40 television producers who approached me last autumn with a view to making a documentary about my group's efforts to set up a Free School in west London.I liked the fact that Alan was so clear on this point. My biggest anxiety was that the documentary would make us look like a Read more ...
David Nice
Venezuela's joyful musical education programme known as El Sistema is the phenomenon of the age, the success story that many western countries now seek to replicate. And that's great. But Britain, for a start, might re-engage its own back-to-basics in music quicker by looking closer to home and seeing how Finland does it. In a small population, every child has free access to an instrument until secondary school. So there's clearly a link between the plethora of outstanding classically trained musicians constantly emerging from Finland and a primary-school opera based on the life of Vincent Read more ...
edward.seckerson
The auditorium has risen once more, the box office is open and busy, and the peacocks are out – Opera Holland Park in London is gearing up for the new season. In this “live and uncut” podcast Edward Seckerson talks to James Clutton (above, left) and Michael Volpe about opera rarities, exciting young talent, exciting older talent, the prospect of Wagner (could there be a Dutchman in the offing?), the X Factor, and much, much more. In keeping with the name of Opera Holland Park's community project INSPIRE, the mix of operas reaching into 2012 and beyond is as eclectic as ever with old Read more ...
sheila.johnston
Making movies has never been cheaper. Learning how to make them is another matter altogether. Film courses abound, but they invariably cost many times more than, say, Marc Price claims he spent on Colin, his £45 zombie flick. Mindful of this, the East End Film Festival is offering impecunious would-be producers a chance to learn the business for a mere tenner. Subsidised by Skillset, the one-day course takes place on 28 April and consists of "training, mentoring, peer review and networking". There are just 10 places, so hurry while stocks last. The application form can be downloaded here and Read more ...
Jasper Rees
OK, let’s flop it out into the open. Let’s show the cards I was dealt way back when. Those boaters you saw at the start of Cutting Edge's Too Poor for Posh School? I may well, in another lifetime, blameless aeons in the netherworld of one’s past, have been seen wandering along a high street on a hill north-west of London underneath one of those. The tailcoats worn by pews full of adolescents on Sundays? Yep. Once upon a time that was oneself. (Thank God they didn’t show the top hats we had to wear as monitors.) My name is Jasper and I am an Old Harrovian. Thought I’d better get that out the Read more ...