Lunchtime Concert - Bartholomew LaFollete & Caroline Palmer

It was on the 19th of February in one of the “Lunchtime Concerts” promoted by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) that cello and piano filled the Shaw library with harmony and talent.

The duo was composed by Bartholomew LaFollete, violoncellist born across the sea, in Philadelphia, USA, but rewarded and highly regarded in Britain where he won the Classical Music Award from The Arts Club’s and Decca Records, in 2013, and the Singapore-born English pianist, Caroline Palmer, piano professor at the Guildhall since 1990 who has a long career as a chamber musician and soloist, counting performances in a hand full of countries both in Europe and America.

Fig 1: Bartholomew LaFollete

In a concert just under a hour, the two musicians guided the audience through the genius work of Nadia Boulanger, full of emotion and contrast, impressed in a fluid and intense interpretation of Gabriel Faure’s Cello Sonata Nº1 in D minor Op.109, and finished with the revolutionary composition work of Francis Poulenc with his Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op.143.

A humble, though of high quality, spectacle, part of the public events promoted by the LSE which includes, beside the concerts, public lectures, discussions and exhibitions on a high diversity of topics.

Highly recommended!

Bartholomew LaFollete website: http://www.bartholomew-lafollette.com/

LSE Events: http://www.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/eventsHome.aspx

Rating:

Nuno Soares

La Bohème

It came to life in the 29^th of October in the gorgeous stage of London Coliseum and will make you drop tears of joy and sorrow until December 6^th, by the experienced hand of the English National Opera (ENO).

ENO made another revival of this classical play written by Italian librettists Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa and composed by their countryman Giacomo Puccini. Not taking the risk to fall on boredom ENO made some cast changes providing Angel Blue, the Californian former model and beauty queen, debut as Mimi, the main female character of this opera.

For 2h 15m ENO provides a really good spectacle that takes us back to early XIX century Paris and presents us to the tempestuous romance between Rodolfo, a broke poet and Mimi a seamstress with failing health. The emotional balance of the play lies between a cheerful and bohemian atmosphere in Rodolfo’s rented house, which he shares with the equally financial depressed painter, Marcello, the penniless musician, Schaunard, and the insolvent philosopher Colline, and his love affair, at the beginning lovely and passionate and then cold and bitter as jealousy and jaundice take over Rodolfo’s heart and mind.

  

The fabulous music and scenario plays a huge role on this dynamic that often swifts between a melancholic mood of a dying muse and the vibrant energy of Café Momus where Musetta, the sweetheart of Marcello, delights the Parisians with her voice, among other attributes. These turbulent affairs go on and off with a slow but steady rise of drama with the worsening of Mimi’s disease and the return of the winter.

George von Bergen, as Marcello and Jennifer Holloway, as Musetta play an amazing role, either alone or as a couple, often raising the spirits and most of the time making an essential, quite genius and most certainly funny complement to the main couple played by David Butt Philip, as Rodolfo and Angel Blue as Mimi. It’s relevant to say that the cast members are extremely gifted singers that remarkably sang their way into an admirable performance.

A minor room for improvement in the show can be considered Angel Blue’s inherent and effulgent vitality that refuses to disappear or even diminish from her voice even as her character health is fading, although this would hardly be enough to upset the overall experience.

An amazing play, an awesome representation and a spectacle that brightens both the cast and the English National Opera.

Excellent evening program!

Rating:

Nuno Soares

Jane Goodall at Woburn Safari Park

It was last Saturday, 27th of September, that the famous biologist, archeologist and human rights activist, Jane Goodall gathered around 200 souls to hear her talk about her professional and personal path, in Woburn Safari Park, outskirts of London.

The motto was “Gombe and Beyond” referring to the Gombe Stream National Park, in Tanzania, where Goodall spent her last 55 years studying chimps. But, back to the beginning, this narrative started at Jane’s youth when she went back to the 40’s and explained how quite simple gestures would nurse in young Jane this deep love and interest for animals. How with their low economical conditions, her and her mother tackled the big obstacles and make Jane able to, not only, further her knowledge in the matter, but also study and hope for a job that could actually lead her to Africa.

She found herself a job as a secretary in Oxford University and was actually for this function that she was hired, a few years later, by Louis Leakey, a British archeologist that was doing research about hominids in Kenya. Leakey was her first contact to scientific research and as well as to chimpanzees, and a long lasting friendship and work partnership allowed Jane to give her first steps as a primatologist. 

Pic 1: Jane Goodall with some natives from Gombe Natural Park

Still, from arriving to Africa to secure funding to study all this years the chimp population of Gombe, was a tough, continuous and ever-lasting war, that lead Jane back to the UK to take her PhD (without having any kind of academic studies before), which she remember as a quite difficult time for her, grab funding for a six months project and therefore putting her under the obligation of find something amazing in that short period that make her able to receive further funding.

That trigger as was wonderfully described was her discovery of the use of tools by the chimpanzees what also lead to a great revolution in scientific community, who then faced the need to contest and redefine biological and behavioral concepts and definitions about men, other animals and what tells us apart from each other.

This one hour talk went on eventually reaching Jane’s work as a human rights activist with the NGO Jane Goodall Institute, founded by her in 1977 and working since to promote sustainability in the usage of natural resources, protection of endangered species and environmental education, a project already spread out to a few dozen countries all around the world. She also spoke about her Roots&Shoots program that already reached 8000 youth groups and aided them to work in the promotion of environmental and social development in their own communities.

Pic 2: Jane Goodall and Mr H (from Hope)

This really enjoyable conversation was followed by a question and answers session and a book signing.

A very special event, an amazing woman and example and a moment to remember.

Nuno Soares