Rowley Gallery Blog
First there was this Christmas card from a painting by Mick Moon, made with oil paint & string on board and called simply Tree. Then I heard the three Staveley-Taylor sisters (aka The Staves) singing Winter Trees:
Continue reading “Winter Trees”
The Hedge Warbler or Dunnock
Printed from the boxwood block engraved by Thomas Bewick for his
History of British Birds, 1797
Continue reading “Bewick’s Nature Print”
August 1954, aged 77, Pablo Casals performs Bach’s G-Major Suite for solo cello at Abbaye Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa near Prades in the French Pyrénées.
In an ancient abbey in the south of France I once heard invisible plainsong. I realised eventually that it came not from speakers, nor from monks hidden behind a screen, but from a fellow tourist who sang as he moved through the building, exploring its rich acoustics. It was surprising and beautiful. How amazing it would have been to discover Casals playing Bach.
Bach Unwrapped is a year long series of over 70 concerts throughout 2013 at Kings Place, London.
When these children in Paraguay were given the opportunity to learn music there were more students than instruments. Cateura is Paraguay’s biggest landfill with a resourceful tradition of recycling. It seemed only appropriate to make musical instruments from waste materials. Scrap was transformed into violin, cello, double-bass, flute, saxophone, guitar and The Recycled Orchestra was born.
‘MERZsonata is a homage to Kurt Schwitters’ sound-text masterpiece, the Ursonate…Every sound…has a biographical connection to Schwitters (for example, he wrote a sneezing poem, and he used to bark like a dog each night during his time in the Hutchinson Square Internment Camp on the Isle of Man during the Second World War)…Like the materials of a Schwitters collage, each element is both itself and part of something new.’ – Christopher Fox, 1999. Continue reading “MERZsonata”
We just got word that Jonathan Gibbs is exhibiting his wood engravings alongside Brendan Hansbro at The Rectory Gallery on Fournier Street behind Christ Church, Spitalfields. Continue reading “Wood Engravings”
I stepped out at lunchtime to buy a sandwich and found a John Constable in the street. I was stopped in my tracks by this painting in our neighbour’s window on Kensington Church Street. Such an unexpected and wonderful and privileged encounter; why are there not queues of spectators on the pavement? See it now whilst you still can before it disappears. Continue reading “A Local Constable”
This is how Notting Hill Gate looked in the 1920s. It was described as one of the most fashionable shopping areas in London. The Metropolitan Railway station can just be seen on the right and the Central Line station is on the left, under the TUBE sign. Swing round 45° anticlockwise and you’re looking down Kensington Church Street, home to the ever fashionable Rowley Gallery. Continue reading “Notting Hill Gate”
A little video clip of Ravi Shankar and George Harrison (Hari Georgeson to his friends). This was a pivotal moment. Ravi Shankar had been hoping to introduce western audiences to eastern music since the 1940s. These two were made for each other. Within You, Without You was always my favourite song on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. I saw Ravi Shankar just once. He was in the front row of the audience at the Barbican Hall. John McLaughlin and Zakir Hussain and all the other members of Remember Shakti bowed to him from the stage before beginning their performance, acknowledging that without his pioneering example they probably would not have been there.