Music painted on the wall of a Venetian orphanage will be heard again nearly 250 years later
Imagine Lady Gaga or Elton John teaching at an orphanage or homeless shelter, offering daily music lessons. That’s what took place at Venice’s four Ospedali Grandi, which were charitable institutions that took in the needy – including orphaned and foundling…
The golden ratio: an ancient Greek formula could be responsible for most hit musicals
“What’s the secret to your success?” A simple question asked frequently of those who have achieved greatness in their field. Sometimes, that secret is so well disguised even the successful individual is unaware of its influence. When it comes to…
Nothing is not nothing: how a scientist set out to sing the story of our origins
At the close of the 18th century, the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn wrote one of his masterpieces: an oratorio – a large concert piece for orchestra, choir and solo singers – entitled The Creation, with a libretto based on the…
Friday essay: reclaiming artist-musician Anita Lane from the ‘despised’ label of muse
When I heard Anita Lane had died aged 61 in April 2021, a memory flashed up: I’m sitting beside her at the foot of a bed in the mid-1980s, and she turns to me to say how much my hair…
How Bob Dylan used the ancient practice of ‘imitatio’ to craft some of the most original songs of his time
Over the course of six decades, Bob Dylan steadily brought together popular music and poetic excellence. Yet the guardians of literary culture have only rarely accepted Dylan’s legitimacy. His 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature undermined his outsider status, challenging scholars,…
LGBT+ history: the story of camp, from Little Richard to Lil Nas X
Although camp is difficult to define, it probably doesn’t need much description. Ever since 1956 – when former teenage drag queen Little Richard began performing his tribute to anal sex, “Tutti Frutti”, while wearing a six-inch pompadour, plucked eyebrows, and…
Why the growth of AI in making art won’t eliminate artists
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been in the news, most recently concerning the Hollywood actors’ strike about the potential impact of AI in filmmaking. Another story involved AI being used to replicate the voice of the Canadian rapper Drake in…
