Arts Alive – very much so
Just in case you’re wondering, the photo has nothing to do with today’s subject, other than timing. Taken while walking the dog the other day, it’s just a good reminder of the beauty around us which I seem to need at the moment. No prizes for guessing why.
It’s also a reminder that beauty can be restorative and that applies to heard beauty as well as the visual. I’ve experienced a fair bit of ‘heard beauty’ over the last few days. A concert of vintage jazz with Keith Nichols and the Blue Devils at Menuhin Hall, a Watermill jazz gig with Pete Long and Simon Spillett’s Jazz Scurriers, and some virtuoso performances from some very young classical musicians who are studying at the Yehudi Menuhin school. Add to that the fun of the Downsmen Barbershop group and you have a good musical cross section.
Some of these events were part of the annual Arts Alive festival, which features a range of arts activities, this year including Mole Valley Poets with Stewart Henderson, a workshop and concert with Voces 8 run by Brockham Choral, and the Damn Cheek/Greensand dinner theatre event on Blessed Assurance. So, yes the arts are very much alive.
In the plans for the near future include an open mic evening with Mole Valley Poets which will also be a launch event for our Christmas Anthology. This should be a great evening – at the Stepping Stones pub in West Humble on 2nd December, doors open at 7, all welcome. We’re also planning a performance of The Door at Guildford’s Yvonne Arnaud in February, and a repeat of the dinner theatre evening, but at the Stepping Stones this time. Watch this space.
