Cheltenham Festivals to celebrate 80th anniversary year
The charity began as a post-war art festival movement and its founding event was Cheltenham Music Festival.FameLab, set up by the charity in 2005 to bring together young people with a keen interest in science, and the FameLab Academy, set up in 2015, also celebrate anniversaries this year.This year's FameLab competition, which involves participants sharing their scientific research with the public, will include heats in Antarctica.The charity hopes its campaign will "spark a lifelong curiosity" for literature, music and science.
'Enrich lives'
Ms Mawle said: "With the support of local businesses, festival-goers, patrons and corporate partners who are aligned with our charitable mission, we are looking to ensure that we can continue to inspire the next generation and to reach more children than ever before and enrich lives through culture."Cheltenham Jazz Festival 2025 is the first of the four annual festivals and will be held between 30 April - 5 May, with the science festival following in June, the music festival in July and the literature festival in October. Together, the events attract more than 225,000 visitors a year.
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Daily Record
4 days ago
- Daily Record
Edinburgh Fringe food guide including top restaurants and cafes this August
Here are some of the top eateries in the Scottish capital during the Festivals. The Edinburgh Fringe has kicked off for another year, and the Scottish capital is buzzing with activity. The yearly arts festival, which is the biggest in the world, regularly attracts millions of people. Whether you live in Edinburgh, or are visiting specifically for the Fringe, the city is truly a sight to behold in August. It is also a perfect opportunity to take in Edinburgh's one-of-a-kind culinary scene. The Daily Record has rounded up some of the top restaurants and eateries around Edinburgh to head to this summer. From unfussy cafés where you can grab a quick bite in between shows to fancier venues for a three-course meal, you certainly aren't short of options. Mootz General Store, Raeburn Place The Edinburgh Fringe can be a hectic experience, and sometimes you don't have time for a proper three-course meal. In that case, there is nothing better than a delicious sandwich. Mootz General Store doesn't just serve up any old sandwiches though, with its enormous servings and its divine fillings. To top it off, the Tuscan schiacciata bread used is perfectly airy and crispy. More information can be found on the Mootz General Store Instagram page. The Palmerston, Palmerston Place Walking into The Palmerston feels like stepping back in time, in the best way possible. The old-fashioned restaurant and bakery truly embodies the word 'classic', and before even tasting the food you get the sense that you are somewhere special. Speaking of food, The Palmerston offers a daily-changing menu—rewarding repeat visits—with a special focus on European cuisine. The restaurant is also surprisingly affordable given its opulent interiors, with a set lunch menu available for as little as £21. More information can be found on The Palmerston website. Cafe Grande, Bruntsfield Place This unassuming bistro and café is a Bruntsfield institution, have served up tasty food to locals since 1984. Beloved for its friendly atmosphere and simple-but-delicious menu, it is a great spot for breakfast or lunch. Among the dishes on offer at Cafe Grande are fish and chips, steak frites, and a variety of burgers. Meanwhile, be sure to save room for its mouthwatering desserts—with the indulgent chocolate fudge cake being a must-try. Nile Valley Café, Chapel Street Another spot that is ideal for a quick bite to eat between shows, especially given its position right in the heart of the action, is the Nile Valley Café. A favourite amongst Edinburgh's student population, the African eatery offers exceptional food at inexpensive prices. It is not uncommon to see the queue snaking outside the door, which is the classic sign of a top-quality restaurant. If you try just one thing at the Nile Valley Café, make sure it is its falafel wrap. Civerinos, various In terms of quick and easy food that is also truly delicious, it is hard to beatCiverinos pizza. The local chain has many venues dotted around the city, from Stockbridge to Portobello, so you are unlikely to ever be too far from one. Unfussy and cool, Civerinos is a great spot for an evening bite to eat after a show. Customers can enjoy a wide range of pizzas with classic toppings, as well as a number of pasta dishes and amazing sides such as truffle fries and giant mozzarella sticks. Noto, Thistle Street For something a bit more chic, Noto is a perfect choice. The independent restaurant, which is tucked away near Edinburgh's Princes Street, focuses on sharing plates, wines, and cocktails. The menu at Noto was inspired by its chef-owner's time living and working in New York. Among the tantalising dishes available are North Sea crab with warm butter and sourdough, beef tartare with black garlic and crumpet, and sea bream with sweetcorn succotash and jalapeño. More information can be found on the Noto website. Dulse, Queensferry Street Another fancy restaurant in the centre of Edinburgh is Dulse, which specialises in traditional Scottish seafood dishes with a modern touch. Downstairs, you will find a cosy wine and cocktail bar, while its restaurant is situated on the first floor. Dulse offers both a la carte and tasting menus, with the latter coming especially recommended. The menu, which includes dishes such as Shetland mussels with roast garlic and truffle crusted Shetland cod with roast cauliflower, also has carefully selected wine pairings. Mirin, Albert Place Mirin is a trendy Asian fusion restaurant located in Edinburgh's buzzy Leith district. The laid-back eatery proudly serves up a "mixture of deranged junk food and delicate cooking". At Mirin, you can enjoy meat, fish, or vegetable dumplings alongside small plates such as monkfish, veal, and Yakitori. Also on offer are noodles, kimchi crust burgers, and a selection of desserts to satiate your sweet tooth.
The Independent
27-07-2025
- The Independent
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The Guardian
24-07-2025
- The Guardian
The god of small things: celebrating Arvo Pärt at 90
In many ways Arvo Pärt and John Williams's music couldn't be further apart. One celebrates simplicity, purity, and draws much of its inspiration from sacred texts; the other captures strong emotions in sweeping orchestral scores. And yet the two men are today's most performed contemporary composers. Bachtrack's annual survey of classical music performed across the world placed Pärt second (John Williams is in the top spot) in 2023 and 2024. In 2022, Pärt was first, Williams second. This year, Pärt might return to No 1 as concert halls and festivals worldwide celebrate his 90th birthday, on 11 September. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Pärt has found a way to speak across boundaries of culture, creed and generation. In the world of contemporary classical music, where complexity and empty virtuosity often dominate, Pärt stands apart. His music eschews spectacle in favour of silence, simplicity and spiritual depth. Pärt has outlasted political regimes, artistic fashions and shifting trends in composition, yet his work remains strikingly relevant. In a cultural moment saturated with information and spectacle, Pärt offers something almost universally appealing. As the commentator Alex Ross observed in a 2002 New Yorker article, Pärt has 'put his finger on something almost impossible to put into words, something to do with the power of music to obliterate the rigidities of space and time [and] silence the noise of self, binding the mind to an eternal present.' Pärt's early career unfolded under Soviet rule, which shaped much of his emerging artistic trajectory. Trained at Tallinn Conservatory in Estonia, he began composing in a modernist idiom, experimenting with serialism and collage techniques in the 1960s – often to the dismay of Soviet authorities who sought artistic control over the creative process. Works such as Nekrolog (1960), the first 12-tone piece written in Estonia, and the avant garde Credo (1968), which juxtaposed Bach with a compendium of avant-garde techniques and incorporated overt Christian themes, drew the ire of censors. The banning of Credo marked a pivotal moment: Pärt fell into a period of near-total withdrawal from composition during which he immersed himself in Gregorian chant, Renaissance polyphony and early Orthodox music. And, out of this silence emerged a new voice – a radically simplified and spiritually charged idiom he calls tintinnabuli, derived from the Latin for 'little bells'. This technique, first heard in the three-minute piano piece Für Alina (1976), pairs a melodic voice (often stepwise and chant-like) with a harmonic voice that is limited to the notes of a tonic triad (the first, third and fifth notes of a major or minor scale). Pärt considers the two lines to be a single sound, as in the formula suggested by his wife, Nora: 1+1=1. The effect is ethereal and introspective, at once ancient and modern. Pärt's tintinnabuli is not so much a system, but more of an attitude: a way of stripping music down to its essence in order to open a space for contemplation. In 1980, Pärt left Estonia with his family, first settling in Vienna and later in Berlin. Freed from the strictures of Soviet censorship, he began to compose larger and more overtly sacred works, often using Latin or Church Slavonic texts. Major compositions such as Tabula Rasa (1977), Passio (1982), Te Deum (1984), and Miserere (1989) established him as a unique voice in late 20th-century music. These works exemplify how Pärt fused early sacred music traditions with his minimalist aesthetic to create a form of modern devotional music that speaks to both religious and secular audiences. For Pärt, faith is not a subject – it is the wellspring of his art. 'Some 30 years ago,' he said in a 2007 speech as he accepted an honorary doctorate in theology from the University of Freiburg, 'I was in my great desperation ready to ask anyone how a composer ought to write music. I met a street-sweeper who gave me a remarkable reply. 'Oh,' he said, 'the composer would probably need to love each and every sound.' This was a turning point. This self-evident truth completely surprised my soul, which was thirsting for God. From then on, my musical thoughts began to move in an entirely new direction. Nothing was the same any more.' Though often described as a 'holy minimalist' (a term Pärt does not like since he considers it meaningless), his work resists easy categorisation. Unlike the pulsating energy of American minimalists such as Steve Reich or Philip Glass, Pärt's music seeks a state of prayerfulness. 'I have discovered,' he once said, 'that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played. This one note, or a moment of silence, comforts me.' There are also secular works inspired by art and architecture. Silhouette (2009), for example, is a short dance-like piece for string orchestra and percussion based on the elegant structural design of the Eiffel Tower, and his quasi-piano concerto, Lamentate (2002) was commissioned by London's Tate Modern and was inspired by the enormous sculpture Marsyas by Anish Kapoor. His influence extends far beyond classical music. Artists such as Björk and Radiohead have cited him as an inspiration. Film-makers such as Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood, 2007) and Joss Whedon (Avengers: Age of Ultron, 2015) have used his music to underscore moments of existential weight and grace. And, in recent years, cover versions of his music abound. The little piano piece Für Alina, for example, has spawned hundreds of covers from artists as diverse as jazz guitarist Pat Metheny, US ambient musician Rafael Anton Irisarri, and a YouTuber known as 'euwbah' who improvises on the piece using a cross-platform microtonal seaboard patcher (a computer program that allows the use of a keyboard to generate microtonal pitches). Pärt has not composed much in the past decade or so because of his advanced age, but a late-night Prom on 31 July – billed as a birthday tribute – is an opportunity to catch the UK premiere of his most recent work, Für Jan van Eyck (commissioned in 2020 by the city of Ghent to celebrate the restoration of the famous Van Eyck altarpiece) for mixed choir and organ. The programme – performed by acclaimed Pärt interpreters Tõnu Kaljuste and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir – also complements his music with short choral works by composers he loves: Bach, Rachmaninov, fellow Estonian composer Veljo Tormis and the Ukrainian composer Galina Grigorjeva. The celebrations continue into the autumn where a series at the Barbican in London includes an interesting take on Pärt's music in a concert on 26 November which is 'refracted' (their term) through the lens of DJ Koreless and composers Sasha Scott and Oilver Coates, pointing again to the esteem for this music felt by other creators. Pärt's popularity has not diluted the intensity of his vision. If anything, it underscores the hunger many feel for what his music offers: a refuge from noise, a space for reflection, a sonic form of grace. 'The author John Updike once said that he tries to work with the same calmness like the craftsmen of the middle ages who decorated the hidden sides of the pews with their carvings, although no one would be able to see them. I try, as much as I can, to live by the same principle,' he said in a rare interview he gave in 2020. In an age of distraction and crisis, Pärt's work invites listeners into an intimate encounter with stillness. It is not escapism, but focused attention – music that opens the soul to something beyond itself. In an age increasingly defined by noise, he offers us silence not as absence, but as invitation. At 90, his music still speaks – softly, clearly, and with unwavering grace, and is always worth a listen. Arvo Pärt at 90 is at the late-night Prom on 31 July; Tabula Rasa is part of the Proms@Bristol Beacon concert on 23 August. The Barbican London's Arvo Pärt at 90 series runs from 3 October to 26 November. Andrew Shenton is a cultural critic and musician based in Boston, MA. He is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Arvo Pärt.
