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Patric, Author at The Open College of the Arts - Page 2 of 4

To find out more details about the transfer to The Open University see A New Chapter for OCA.

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Patric


Amateurs thumb

Amateurs

This is a post from the weareoca.com archive. Information contained within it may now be out of date.   Last weekend I attended a concert given by the local choral and orchestral society in the acoustically rewarding setting of the local church, a warm and welcoming 15th-century masterpiece among the finest of East Anglian buildings. […]

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Music or celebrity…? thumb

Music or celebrity…?

This is a post from the weareoca.com archive. Information contained within it may now be out of date.   The recent death of the conductor Sir Colin Davies, a venerable 85-year old one-time tyrant of the rostrum and the longest serving principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, deprives us of a formidable champion, not […]

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Music and literature thumb

Music and literature

This is a post from the weareoca.com archive. Information contained within it may now be out of date.   It is not at all difficult to discover the inspiration of great (and sometimes not so great) literature upon composers past and present, though there are some who for instance may have been more motivated by […]

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Farewell HMV thumb

Farewell HMV

This is a post from the weareoca.com archive. Information contained within it may now be out of date.   It is sad when we must prepare our valediction for the demise of yet another great high-street store.   There was a shock of near incredulity when the rumours of the possible disappearance of Woolworths suddenly became […]

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Organizing rewards thumb

Organizing rewards

This is a post from the weareoca.com archive. Information contained within it may now be out of date.   Relocation, following the tragic death of my wife, to a quiet Suffolk village in which very little happens to disturb the leisurely pace of life (something that requires considerable revision after a city life that encouraged […]

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The old chestnuts thumb

The old chestnuts

This is a post from the weareoca.com archive. Information contained within it may now be out of date.   Music is a very significant part of the Christmas season, even for those who do not categorize themselves as major musical enthusiasts, and there is always a considerable number of people filing into churches, chapels and […]

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Composers and poetry thumb

Composers and poetry

I have a problem with poetry.  Unless there is a specific directive or inspired objective, a lot of a composer’s valuable creative time can be lavished on selecting suitable texts for musical settings. Much of that time is unproductive, for in several ways the poems are ‘not fit for purpose’.   The primary ‘purpose’ is to […]

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Erotic music thumb

Erotic music

There seems little doubt in my mind that the two major stimuli to the creative activity of our greatest composers are sex and death.  Perhaps they are linked; they are closely allied in the natural world. Plants not only devise remarkable methods of procreation, but can spring as vigorously from natural disasters and chemical warfare […]

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Are pianos musical? thumb

Are pianos musical?

As I write, the 17th Leeds International Pianoforte competition, held only every three years, comes to a close after three exhausting weeks, with yet another winning name from the 60 entrants – that of 24-year old Italian Federico Colli – added to its distinguished history. The competition, still masterminded by the 92-year old Dame Fanny Waterman […]

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Musical gardens thumb

Musical gardens

The garden of my new Suffolk home has been a considerable challenge, offering me since early in May the toil of ridding the quarter acre, surrounded by Leyland Cypress, of artificial grass-turf covering the site of a once useful swimming pool and a residue largely occupied by persistent weeds. The solitary work through weeks of […]

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