About this Event
The Book
Accustomed to being centre stage, international award-winning singer Ian Bostridge, like so many performers, spent much of 2020 and 2021 unable to take part in live music. It led him to question an identity previously defined by communicating directly with audiences.
This enforced silence allowed Bostridge the opportunity to explore the backstories of some of the many works that he has performed - works such as Claudio Monteverdi's seventeenth-century masterpiece Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda and Schumann's ever popular song cycle Frauenliebe und Leben. The complex world of a single song by Ravel from the Chansons madécasses has always haunted and unnerved Bostridge, while his immersion in Benjamin Britten's confrontations with death, in life and art, have given him much food for thought.
Based on his Berlin Family Lectures, delivered at the University of Chicago in the Spring of 2020, Bostridge guides us on a fascinating journey beneath the surface of these iconic works. His underlying questions as a performer drive the narrative: what does it mean for audiences when a singer inhabits these roles? And what does a performer's own identity subtract from or add to the identities inherent in the works themselves?
The Author
Ian Bostridge is an English tenor, well known for his performances as an opera and lieder singer.
He was a fellow in history at Corpus Christi College, Oxford (1992-5) and in 2001 was elected an honorary fellow of that college. In 2003 he was made an Honorary Doctor of Music by the University of St Andrews and in 2010 he was made an honorary fellow of St John's College Oxford. He was made a CBE in the 2004 New Year’s Honours. In 2014 he was Humanitas Professor of Classical Music at the University of Oxford. In 2016 he was awarded the The Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize for non-fiction writing for his book 'Schubert's Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession'.
The Chair
This event will be chaired by Peter McMullin, Blackwell’s Music Shop Manager.
Pete is a musician and has a wealth of invaluable knowledge in all aspects of classical music. He can be located at our music shop information desk when not performing at venues across Oxford.
The Event
Tickets for this event cost £5 or £15 (which includes of copy of 'Song and Self' *published 6th April) Your copy of the book will be available to collect on the evening.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Blackwell's Bookshop, 48-51 Broad Street, Oxford, United Kingdom
GBP 5.00 to GBP 15.00