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Exit Ryedale Festival, enter RyeStream, the digital Ryedale Festival for Covid times

Ready, willing and Abel to take part in the digital RyeStream festival: South African-born cellist Abel Selaocoe.

FOR the first time, Ryedale Festival is going virtual, in response to the Covid-19 lockdown.

The revamped remote classical festival will be streamed on the online platform RyeStream from Sunday, July 19 to July 26, with one concert a day without an audience in attendance.

Three locations are being used: All Saints’ Church, Helmsley, St Michael’s Church, Coxwold, and the triple whammy of the Long Gallery, pre-Raphaelite Chapel and Great Hall at Castle Howard.

In the line-up will be pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason, with a 3pm recital of Beethoven and the American piano repertoire on Sunday; violinist Rachel Podger’s Guardian Angel baroque concert on Monday, 11am; clarinettist Matthew Hunt and Tim Horton’s Fantasy Pieces on Tuesday, 1pm, and Anna Lapwood’s organ works by Bach and Barbara Heller on Wednesday, 11am.

Cellist Abel Selaocoe will complement music and stories from his native South Africa with baroque works on Thursday, 6pm; Yorkshire soprano Rowan Pierce and pianist Christopher Glynn, the festival’s artistic director, will combine traditional song with works by Purcell, Schubert, Schumann and Grieg in Music For A While on Friday, 9pm; Glynn will then accompany violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen in an evening of Elgar, invoking the comforting scenes of the English countryside, next Saturday at 3pm.

Streetwise Opera: Performing remotely at RyeStream’s closing concert

The closing concert, next Sunday at 6pm, will present Streetwise Opera, Roderick Williams, Brodsky Quartet, Genesis Sixteen and the Carducci Quartet. “The Carducci Quartet will be a live-streamed performance, but the Streetwise Opera performers – of whom many are affected by homelessness – will be joining us virtually, from around the country,” says Christopher.

He started working on the RyeStream festival six weeks ago. “It has been a race against time and I’m grateful to all the artists who agreed to perform at very short notice,” he says.

“For the locations, I tried to choose three beautiful spaces that represent the range of venues used by the festival and could be filmed effectively. The festival is incredibly lucky to have such stunning locations to perform in and I wanted to try to give a sense of that.

“The authorities at all three venues have been incredibly generous in helping us achieve this.”

In choosing the artists for the eight concerts, Christopher had to consider social-distancing regulations, measures that ruled out the festival opera, for example. “At the time of arranging the concerts, it was clear that anything bigger than two people on stage was going to be very difficult, though we did manage to include a string quartet – one made up of two married couples!” he says.

“In general, I approached artists who lived within driving distance of the festival: at the time arrangements were being made it wasn’t clear what travel would be possible.

Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason: Opening recital at RyeStream. Picture: Robin Clewley

“I also sought to include younger performers in the mix and tried to pick different artists to those that I was aware were appearing in high-profile live streamed series elsewhere.”

Artists will be tailoring their RyeStream programmes to meet the requirements of the new format. “We have tried to adapt everything to suit the new format,” says Christopher. “It’s a steep learning curve!”

Not least facing up to the challenge of filming the concerts. “We’re using several cameras, in the hope of giving a sense of the venue as well as the performance, and live-streaming the results, with the brilliant Patrick Allen looking after all aspects of sound and vision,” says Christopher.

Unlike last week’s online York Early Music Festival, he has decided RyeStream should be free to view, with donations welcome. 

“This was a hard call,” he says. “I do have reservations about adding to the amount of free material online, because the downsides are clear and it’s a situation which cannot continue indefinitely without devaluing the whole currency of live performance.

“On the other hand, research shows that, for the moment, inviting donations is more effective than putting content behind a paywall, and that it’s probably necessary to establish the habit of viewing online – to prove it can be a rewarding experience in its own right – before starting to charge for it.

Tamsin Waley-Cohen: Playing Elgar works on July 25. Picture: Patrick Allen

“Things may be slightly different for festivals with a more specialist slant, such as the York Early Music Festival (which I watched with much enjoyment) or the Oxford Lieder Festival.

“But for a more general programme like ours, it seemed right to go with a donation model for now, while making it clear that we will need to charge in a more structured way for content in the future.”

RyeStream viewers can stream the concerts “again and again” or watch them if they missed the live-stream, until August 16. “In general, we have to realise that people’s lives are very different and no one time of day will suit everyone,” says Christopher.

“I love the idea that people can watch again and again, because it is genuinely one of the great advantages of live-streaming.”

Might Ryedale Festival be tempted to stream live concerts at future festivals, with a charge for the screening, if, for example, a concert has sold out? “Yes, this is very much in our plans. There’s nothing like a crisis to move things forward! There are exciting possibilities for all festivals if we can successfully integrate digital and physical platforms,” says Christopher.

“I love the idea that a live Ryedale Festival event can also be enjoyed online by a housebound pensioner in Pickering, a music-lover in Portsmouth – or, for that matter, in Peru! – as well as the audience at the venue. And of course, even if you have attended a concert in person, you may want to watch it again online.”

“We have set the bar high and said that we want to create a whole new festival experience,” says Ryedale Festival artistic director Christopher Glynn. Picture: Gerard Collett

As Sunday approaches, Christopher is looking forward most to gauging the reactions of RyeStream viewers. “We have set the bar high and said that we want to create a whole new festival experience,” he says. “It will be interesting to see which aspects of live-streaming people enjoy and which need more thought. There’s a real sense of stepping into a new world!

“If anything good has come out of Covid-19 for the Ryedale Festival, it would be that we have quickly established a new online platform, one that can add a new dimension to the festival even when ‘normal’ concert conditions return.”

Post RyeStream, thoughts will turn to 2021. “It’s too early to say anything with certainty but in general we remain committed to bringing great live music and musicians to beautiful Ryedale locations, and to being as inventive as we can in the way we do it,” promises Christopher.

However, the dark clouds of the Coronavirus pandemic hang over Ryedale Festival, like so many music events across the country. “We have opened a festival appeal and received some very welcome help from the Emergency Fund set up by Arts Council England,” says Christopher.

“We trust that people will understand and make a donation – something equivalent to the cost of a ticket – after watching the live-stream concerts. Looking further ahead, so much is uncertain. The vast majority of our festival income comes directly from box-office sales – around 10,000 individual tickets were sold last year – and if we cannot return to ‘normal’ concert-giving, this will be a huge challenge.”

For full details on the 2020 festival programme and how to stream RyeStream, go to ryedalefestival.com/.

Violinist Rachel Podger: Guardian Angel programme at RyeStream festival on July 20

RYESTREAM festival programme

Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason will open the festival with an afternoon recital of Beethoven’s Sonata No. 2 in A Major, alongside classics from the American piano repertoire such as Gershwin’s Three Preludes.

Sunday, July 19, streamed at 3pm from All Saints’ Church, Helmsley.

Violinist Rachel Podger will play baroque masterpieces, such Biber’s The Guardian Angel, Bach’s Cello Suite No. 6 in D major and Vilsmayr’s Partita 5 in G minor.

Monday, July 20, streamed at 11am from the Chapel, Castle Howard.

Clarinettist Matthew Hunt and pianist Tim Horton will explore fantasy in music, encompassing Jörg Widmann’s Fantasie, Schumann’s Fantasiestücke and John Ireland’s Fantasy Sonata.

Tuesday, July 21, streamed at 1pm from Long Gallery, Castle Howard.

Virtuoso organist Anna Lapwood will play works by Bach, Barbara Heller and Frescobaldi in one of Yorkshire’s most ancient churches.

Wednesday, July 22, streamed at 11am from St Michael’s Church, Coxwold.

Rowan Pierce: Yorkshire soprano performing Music For A While with pianist Christopher Glynn at All Saints’ Church, Helmsley. Picture: Gerard Collett

Cellist Abel Selaocoe will draw on the music and stories of his native South Africa, interwoven with baroque masterpieces such as Dall’Abaco’s Capriccio No. 3 in E flat major.

Thursday, July 23, streamed at 6pm from All Saints’ Church, Helmsley.

Pianist and artistic director Christopher Glynn and soprano Rowan Pierce will perform Music For A While, combining traditional songs with works by Purcell, Schubert, Schumann and Grieg

Friday, July 24, streamed at 9pm from All Saints’ Church, Helmsley.

Violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen and Christopher Glynn will play Elgar works, pairing Chanson de Nuit and Chanson de Matin with his Violin Sonata in E Minor to invoke the comforting scenes of the English countryside.

Saturday, July 25, streamed at 3pm from All Saints’ Church, Helmsley.

Streetwise Opera performers will join Roderick Williams, Brodsky Quartet and Genesis Sixteen remotely to perform Schubert’s The Linden Tree. The Carducci Quartet will then close the festival with Phillip Glass’s String Quartet No. 3, Mishima, and Beethoven’s String Quartet in F minor, Op. 95, No. 11, Serioso. 

Sunday, July 26, streamed at 6pm from the Great Hall, Castle Howard. 

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Greatest hits of digital York Early Music Festival picked for video by director Delma

The home service: York Early Music Festival’s opening online concert, featuring Elizabeth Kenny and Iestyn Davies, mid-stream last Thursday

YORK Early Music Festival administrative director Dr Delma Tomlin is compiling a video of “personal favourites” from last week’s online event.

“We had a blast,” she says, reflecting on the success of the three-day virtual festival of four pre-recorded and two live concerts, streamed from the National Centre for Early Music from July 9 to 11.

“It was fabulous to be able to host musicians at the NCEM from across England – and to welcome online audiences from as far afield as Australia, Japan and the United States.”

Concert recordings were in the hands of digital producer Ben Pugh, filming the socially distant musicians at an otherwise empty St Margaret’s Church, the NCEM’s home in Walmgate.

Artists and audiences alike have given positive feedback to a digital event arranged once the Covid-19 lockdown enforced the cancellation of the Method & Madness-themed live festival from July 3 to 11.

“It was such a success that we’re now pulling together a compilation video of my personal favourites from 2020 Online. Details very soon!” promises Delma.

“We had a blast,” said administrative director Dr Delma Tomlin after the inaugural digital York Early Music Festival, held last week

The revised remote festival of concerts and talks was headlined on July 9 by York countertenor Iestyn Davies – lockdown hair in need of a cut, by his own later admission – and theorbo player Elizabeth Kenny.

Streamed live last Thursday, they presented A Delightful Thing, Music and Readings from a Melancholy Man, combining song and music by Elizabethan lutenist John Dowland with Davies’s extra string to his bow: his rendition of readings and poems by Dowland, Leo Tolstoy and Rose Tremain, among others.

In a surprise encore, they mined the modern-day melancholia of a Mancunian man, Morrissey, digging deep into the pit of The Smiths’ There Is A Light That Never Goes Out.

Performances recorded over ten days ensued, by lutenist Matthew Wadsworth, harpsichordist Steven Devine and lyra viol player Richard Boothby last Friday and BBC New Generation artists Consone Quartet last Saturday afternoon.

Vocal ensemble Stile Antico closed the festival with a live streamed concert, Breaking The Habit: Music by and for women in Renaissance Europe, that evening.

“We’d purchased more video and sound equipment, so it was more like a TV studio environment for the recordings,” says Delma. “It’s fortunate that the NCEM is a big space, being a church building, which helped with social distancing.”

The NCEM was one of the first arts organisations to stream live concerts online during the Covid-19 crisis, beginning with performances by Steven Devine and The Brabant Ensemble. Since March, the fortnightly series of streamed concerts has reached a worldwide audience of more than 70,000.

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Liberation Day arrives on Saturday, but Lockdown is still a block to theatres and gigs. Nevertheless, here are More Things To Do on days in and days out, courtesy of The Press, York. LIST No. 9

Opening the gateway to venturing outdoors once more….

JULY 4 is “Liberation Day”, apparently, but not for theatres and concert halls. They can re-open, not for live performances, however, leaving them in a state of inertia that only exacerbates their growing crisis.

As for cinemas, tipped to return to life next weekend, the consensus is that July 31 is now looking the more likely re-start date for the summer blockbusters.

This column will steer clear of the pubs and bars and restaurants making their comebacks – you can read of that welcome uptick elsewhere – but focus on the widening opportunities for entertainment, enlightenment and exercise beyond the front door, while still highlighting the joys on the home front too.

CHARLES HUTCHINSON makes these suggestions.

Back on track: Jorvik Viking Centre is “Good To Go” from next Saturday

Jorvik Viking Centre, re-opening on July 11

THE ever-resilient Jorvik Viking Centre is back on track from next Saturday with the Good To Go certification from Visit England, so all the boxes marked Government and industry Covid-19 guidelines have been ticked.

One important change is a switch to pre-booked visits only, with designated time slots every 20 minutes, to help control visitor flow and numbers, as well as extended hours over the summer months.

Within the building, in Coppergate, free-flow areas, such as the galleries will be more structured with presentations delivered by Viking interpreters, rather than video content or handling sessions.

Lutenist Elizabeth Kenny: Joining countertenor Iestyn Davies at a socially distanced National Centre for Early Music for York Early Music Festival online concert

York Early Music Festival, online from July 9 to 11

NEXT week’s “virtual” three-day event will be streamed online from the National Centre for Early Music, replacing the July 3 to 11 festival that would have celebrated Method & Madness. Concerts will be recorded at the NCEM’s home, St Margaret’s Church, in Walmgate, with social-distancing measures in place and no live audience.

York counter-tenor Iestyn Davies and lutenist Elizabeth Kenny present The Art Of Melancholy on July 9 at 7.30pm, when John Dowland’s Elizabethan music will be complemented by Davies’s renditions and readings of poetry by Robert Burton, Michael Drayton, Rose Tremain, Leo Tolstoy and Dowland himself.

On July 10, online concerts feature lute and theorbo player Matthew Wadsworth at 1pm, harpsichordist Steve Devine at 3.30pm and lyra viol player Richard Boothby at 7.30pm. July 11’s programme includes Consone Quartet at 1pm and Stile Antico at 7.30pm.

Tickets are on sale at tickets.ncem.co.uk and boxoffice@ncem.co.uk, with a festival package at £30, individual concert tickets at £10 each and illustrated talks at £3.50 each.

Richard Bainbridge RIP: York Musical Theatre Company will mark the first anniversary of his passing on Sunday

Remembering Richard, York Musical Theatre Company, Sunday, 7.30pm, online

YORK Musical Theatre Company will mark the first anniversary of leading light Richard Bainbridge’s exit stage left on Sunday with a special online memorial concert.

Streamed on YMTC’s YouTube channel, the 7.30pm programme will celebrate Richard’s theatrical life with songs from all the shows he loved and the many he graced with the company.

Taking part will be Eleanor Leaper; Matthew Ainsworth; John Haigh; Florence Taylor; Moira Murphy; Amy Lacy; Rachel Higgs; Peter Wookie; Matthew Clare; Chris Gibson; Helen Singhateh, Jessa & Mick Liversidge. Returning to the ranks will be professional York actor Samuel Edward-Cook, alias Sam Coulson in his YMTC days.

Joker: One of the films at the Daisy Duke’s Drive-In Cinema in York

Daisy Duke’s Drive-In Cinema, Knavesmire, York, tomorrow to Sunday

STATIC cinemas remain in the dark, but drive-in cinemas with social distancing rules in place have been given the Government green light.

North Easterners Daisy Duke’s Drive-In Cinema are revving up for four screenings a day. Take your pick from the very familiar Mamma Mia!, The Jungle Book, The Lion King, Frozen 2, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Greatest Showman, A Star Is Born, 28 Days Later, Pulp Fiction and Joker. Tickets can be booked at dukescinema.epizy.com.

Interaction between staff and customers will be kept to a minimum, with cars parked two metres apart and those attending expected to remain within their vehicles for the duration of the screenings on LED screens with the sound transmitted to car radios.

Ready for a reading challenge? Here comes The Silly Squad

The Silly Squad, Explore York Libraries’ Summer Reading Challenge 2020, July 10 to September 18

GIVEN that Explore York’s libraries “aren’t open fully yet”, The Silly Squad Challenge is going virtual this summer, enabling children to take part online. There will be activities to do too, all on the same theme of fun, laughter and silliness.

The Silly Squad is a team of animal friends that loves to go on adventures and get stuck into all manner of funny books. This year, the Challenge features extra special characters designed by the author and illustrator Laura Ellen Anderson.

The Silly Squad website provides an immersive and safe environment for children to achieve their reading goals. Head to Explore’s website and join through the Summer Reading Challenge button.

Paul Weller: York Barbican in 2021; new album tomorrow

Keep seeking out the good news

NO Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad at York Theatre Royal from July 14, and Everybody’s no longer Talking About Jamie at Leeds Grand Theatre that week too. Even the Downing Street daily briefings are off after all the unintended humour of 24 episodes of Hancock’s Half Hour.

However, all’s Weller that’s Paul Weller as the Modfather’s autumn 2020 gig at York Barbican is moved to June 29 2021. In the meantime, his new album, On Sunset, is out tomorrow.

Drag diva Velma Celli, the creation of York actor Ian Stroughair, has announced another online outing, The Velma Celli Show, Kitchen, on July 11 at 8pm.

Kitchen sing drama: York drag diva Velma Celli announces latest online show on the home front

And what about…?

BBC One revisiting Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads monologues, each one even starker in their isolation in these dislocated times of solitary confinement, shielding, loneliness and finding other people irritating. The Leeds playwright, now 86, has added two ones to his 1988 collection. “Quite bleak,” he says.

New albums by Neil Young (“new” but unearthed 1970s’ recordings); Jessie Ware, Nadine Shah and Haim.

Scarborough Art Gallery unlocking its doors from this weekend. A walk on York’s city walls with its new temporary one-way system in place for social distancing from Saturday….and then drop down for a drink at Grays Court Hotel’s new walled garden bar, in the shadow of York Minster.

Or a walk along Pocklington Canal, but watch out for the two swans, guarding their nine cygnets by the water’s edge.

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Theatres, cinemas and concert venues are still closed, but Lockdown is easing. Here are More Things To Do on days in and days out, courtesy of The Press, York. LIST No.8

Can’t wait to get out, like these sled dog racers in Dalby Forest from Tony Batholomew’s online exhibition Forest 100: A Year In The Life? If so, read on…

METRE by metre, Downing Street daily briefing by catch-you-by-surprise Downing Street daily briefing, we are moving closer to the beginning of the end of the 10 Things To See Next Week In York shutdown.

However, there is still no theatre, concert venue or cinema re-opening for the foreseeable future, although cinemas are making plans to do so in July. Watch this ever-shifting space.

In the meantime, amid the loosened-lockdown dawn of summer, when football and horse racing are back, albeit with no crowds, and beaches are back, but too crowded, the search continues for entertainment, enlightenment and exercise at home and farther afield.  

From behind his door, increasingly ajar, CHARLES HUTCHINSON makes these suggestions.

Drive-In Cinema parks up in York next month, but unlike in this poster, viewers will have to stay in, not on, their cars throughout each screening

Daisy Duke’s Drive-In Cinema, Knavesmire, York, July 3 to 5

STATIC cinemas, no, but Boris Johnson’s Government has given the green light to drive-in cinemas with social distancing rules in place.

North Easterners Daisy Duke’s Drive-In Cinema have been quick off the mark to announce a Drive-In Saturday (one for David Bowie fans), and a Friday and Sunday too, from July 3 to 5.

Interaction between staff and customers will be kept to a minimum, with cars parked two metres apart and those attending expected to remain within their vehicles for the duration of the screenings on LED screens with the sound transmitted to car radios.

Four screenings a day are in store, with the film line-up taking in The Jungle Book, The Lion King, Mamma Mia!, Frozen 2, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Greatest Showman, A Star Is Born, 28 Days Later, Pulp Fiction and Joker. Tickets can be booked at dukescinema.epizy.com.

Oh, and if theatres are still closed come December, would there be any takers for a drive-in pantomime?

Rosy Rowley: Reprising her role in the 2012 York Mystery Plays as Mrs Noah in the York Radio Mystery Plays

York Radio Mystery Plays, on BBC Radio York, Sunday mornings throughout June

YORK Theatre Royal and BBC Radio York are collaborating to bring the York Mystery Plays to life on the airwaves on the Sunday Breakfast Show with Jonathan Cowap.

Working remotely from home, a cast of 19 community and professional actors has recorded four 15-minute instalments under the direction of Theatre Royal associate director Juliet Forster.

After Adam And Eve and The Flood Part 1, the series continues with The Flood Part 2 this weekend and Moses And Pharaoh on June 28. Hear the earlier ones at bbc.co.uk/sounds.

York In Flood, 2019, taken by Museum Gardens, from Katherine-of-Yorkshire’s exhibition at Village Gallery, York 

Galleries re-opening…

NO, not the big ones yet, such as York Art Gallery, but among those to announce the re-opening of doors in York this week are Simon Main’s Village Gallery, in Colliergate, and Ann Petherick’s Kentmere House Gallery, in Scarcroft Hill.

Village Gallery is presenting a photographic show by Instagrammer Katherine-of-Yorkshire until August 2. “Katherine regularly posts photographs on Instagram, mainly of York, and usually in black and white, using the camera on her phone to take the photos,” Simon says.

“She manages to convey a deep feeling of peace, even when documenting the major floods in York that happen all too regularly, as well as showing a different perspective of well-known places.”

Open by appointment only until further notice, Kentmere House is displaying A Life In Colour, Work from the Studio of Jack Hellewell, 1920-2000, including unframed pieces never seen before, to mark Hellewell’s centenary. 

North York Moors, by Jack Hellewell, at the re-opened Kentmere House Gallery, York

Mother Shipton’s Pixie Village Trail, Knaresborough

HAVE you ever dreamt of stepping into an utterly enchanted realm, deep in the captivating woodland, filled with fairy rings and secret doorways, where pixies are waiting to play?

If so, at Mother Shipton’s you can tread carefully through the land of the woodland people and keep your eyes peeled as you follow the trail to see their tiny houses.

Visitors will be provided with a trail sheet to explore the natural woodland at their own pace. Please note, open to pre-booked car admissions only, this Pixie Village event will not include any confined spaces and the actors will not be interacting with visitors, in order to reduce large gatherings of crowds and physical contact.

Shed Seven: Rearranging two big outdoors concerts in Yorkshire for their 2021 diary

Seek out the good news

NO York Festival with Madness, Westlife and Lionel Richie at York Sports Club from tomorrow until Sunday. No revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s Just Between Ourselves opening at the SJT tonight for a summer run. No Ronan Keating: Twenty Twenty gig at York Barbican tomorrow.

However, one festival is going ahead, albeit in revised online form, namely the York Early Music Festival, from July 9 to 11, with York countertenor Iestyn Davies’s concert with lutenist Elizabeth Kenny as the stand-out.

Keating’s Twenty Twenty show will now be in Twenty Twenty One, on January 13 to be precise. Meanwhile, York’s Britpop alumni Shed Seven have re-arranged two 2020 outdoor concerts for next year, now playing Doncaster Racecourse post-racing on May 15 2021, rather than August 15 this summer, and headlining an all-Yorkshire bill at the Piece Hall, Halifax, on June 26 2021, instead of the same date this year.

The artwork for Bob Dylan’s new album, Rough And Rowdy, out tomorrow

And what about…

79-YEAR-OLD Bob Dylan’s first album of original songs in eight years, Rough And Rowdy Ways, out tomorrow, on Columbia.  Phoebe Bridgers’ Punisher and Maccabees frontman Orlando Weeks’s solo debut A Quickening as further album recommendations. Spike Lee’s new Vietnam War film, Da 5 Bloods, streaming on Netflix. The Salisbury Poisonings, on BBC iPlayer, York actor Mark Addy among the cast. Talking Heads, Alan Bennett’s isolation monologues re-visited in Covid-19 times with two new additions, on BBC One from Tuesday.

Gardens at National Trust properties re-opening, such as Beningbrough Hall; bookings only. Val and Emma Carr’s Stanley & Ramona dinky coffee house, in Bishopthorpe Road, serving up coffee and cake again, hurrah.

Walks through the rhododendrons at Forestry England’s Wheldrake Wood and watching out for the tiny toads and frogs at the RSPB’s Fairburn Ings. Tony Bartholomew’s Forest 100: A Year In The Life online exhibition of Dalby Forest from spring 2019 to spring 2020 at forestryengland.uk

York countertenor Iestyn Davies: Performing at the revised 2020 York Early Music Festival on July 9. Picture: Benjamin Ealovega

Copyright of The Press, York
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The last idea of the day at 2020 York Festival of Ideas: Tales From My Shed, Tim Dowling’s talk, 7pm, 14/6/2020

Tim Dowling: Shed tales in lockdown

THE Guardian writer Tim Dowling closes the door on the 2020 York Festival of Ideas by shedding light on shed life in lockdown.

In this evening’s closing online talk, he asks: “What happens when a global pandemic shrinks life to a claustrophobic domestic sphere? Some of us adapt, some of us protest, some of us reassess our goals…”

…and some of us, like Tim Dowling, “barely notice the difference”. How come?

For 12 years, Dowling has chronicled a life of small nothings in his Guardian column. Suddenly, in these Covid-19 times, he finds the rest of the world is taking to the bunker too.

Who better to explore life in lockdown at a festival brimful of isolation ideas than this “leading expert in never going anywhere if he can help it”.  

Dowling did make one big move, however: he first came to Britain from the United States at the age of 27. Now, in addition to his column in the Guardian’s Weekend magazine, he is the author of such books as How To Be A Husband and Dad You Suck.

Happy to be joining that CV is How To Be Happy All The Time, his audiobook on the subject of cynicism. Cynics will not be surprised to learn the audiobook is short. Happiness never lasts, as we cynics know.

You can, nevertheless, find it from 7pm to 8pm this evening when joining Dowling, albeit remotely, in his shed world. Online admission is free, but booking is required at: eventbrite.co.uk/e/tales-from-my-shed-tickets-106085837596.

Brought to you virtually by the University of York, York Festival of Ideas concludes today. Visit yorkfestivalofideas.com/2020-online/ for full details of this afternoon and evening’s programme.

Will the last one out tonight, please turn off the virtual festival light. See you next June.

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Idea of the day at online 2020 York Festival of Ideas: How To Be A Good Ancestor, philosophical talk, 4pm, 13/6/2020

The dust jacket to Roman Krznaric’s imminent new book, The Good Ancestor

WILL you even read to the end of this sentence?

I asked because social philosopher and author Roman Krznaric reckons we are “living in the age of the tyranny of the now, where the greatest challenge facing humankind is our inability to think long term,”,as he will discuss in this afternoon’s free talk at the online 2020 York Festival of Ideas.

Sorry, you can’t read his powerful new book just now. Be patient. You will have to wait until July 16 when The Good Ancestor: How To Think Long Term In A Short-Term World will be published by WH Allen (Penguin Random House).

For a taster, tune in this afternoon, when Krznaric will contend: “Politicians can barely see past the next election or businesses past the next quarterly report, and we are addicted to the latest tweet and the ‘buy now’ button.

“How can we overcome this frenetic short-termism and extend our time horizons to tackle long-term challenges from the climate crisis to threats from artificial intelligence and genetically engineered pandemics?”

Krznaric will reveal how you can expand your imagination far beyond the here and now. Exploring everything from the seventh-generation thinking of indigenous peoples and politically empowered “guardians of the future” to the history of the London sewers and the latest neuroscience research, he will argue that we have an inbuilt capacity to become “cathedral thinkers”.

“It is time to confront one of the most vital questions of the 21st century: How can we be good ancestors?” says Krznaric, a “public philosopher who writes about the power of ideas to change society”.

His books, such as Empathy, The Wonderbox and Carpe Diem Regained, have been published in more than 20 languages. His new one, the aforementioned The Good Ancestor: How To Think Long Term In A Short-Term World, is “the book our children’s children will thank us for reading”, says U2 guitarist The Edge.

What did Roman ever do for you? Write books, plan long term, found the Empathy Museum, give a talk online today….

After growing up in Sydney and Hong Kong, Krznaric studied at the universities of Oxford, London and Essex, where he gained a PhD in political sociology.

Founder of the world’s first Empathy Museum, he is a research fellow of the Long Now Foundation in San Francisco and his writings have been influential among political and ecological campaigners, education reformers, social entrepreneurs and designers. H

His public speaking, talks and workshops have taken him from a London prison to Google’s headquarters in California. Learn more at romankrznaric.com and @romankrznaric.

Online admission is free to today’s talk but booking is required at: eventbrite.co.uk/e/how-to-be-a-good-ancestor-tickets-105238182236.

Oh, and good news, if you have only a short-term attention span, the talk shouldn’t take up too much if your time. It lasts only 50 minutes.

Brought to you remotely by the University of York, the 2020 York Festival of Ideas is into its last two days but is still brimful of ideas this weekend, gathered under the new online umbrella of Virtual Horizons. For full details, visit yorkfestivalofideas.com/2020-online/.

Did you know?

FOUNDED by Roman Krznaric, the Empathy Museum’s offices are in London but this international arts project does not have a permanent home. “All our projects are travelling, nimble pop-ups – they’ve been across the UK and to Belgium, Ireland, the USA, Australia, Brazil and even Siberia,” says the website.

“The Empathy Museum is an experiential project exploring the art of empathy through stepping into the shoes of other people and looking at the world though their eyes.” In a nutshell, “outrospection”, rather than introspection.

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Idea of the day at online York Festival of Ideas: Human Flourishing In Times Of Stress, panel discussion, 6pm, 12/6/2020

On the panel tonight: Franziska Kohlt, Tim Radford and Penny Spikins, hosted by Tom McLeish

THIS evening’s panel discussion at the online York Festival of Ideas will explore how stories, things and thinking can bring comfort in times of stress. Times like now in Covid-19 2020.

Taking part under the chairmanship of Tom McLeish, the University of York’s first professor of natural philosophy, will be Dr Franziska Kohlt and Dr Penny Spikins, from the University of York, and science journalist Tim Radford.

Franziska Kohlt asks why many of us have felt drawn to the comfort of childhood classics, often unjustly dismissed as “escapism”, she argues.

This evening, she explores how books such as Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland, Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind In The Willows, or Charles Kingsley’s The Water-Babies, were written in times of epidemics, illness and crisis, and how these works can be valuable emotional tools to carry us through such times.   

Penny Spikins asks why, when in crisis, we turn to programmes such as BBC One’s The Repair Shop to find some sense of comfort, and why cherished possessions seem to help when we feel stressed or isolated.

She examines where our tendency to attach to things came from in our evolutionary past and how finding attachments to objects can compensate for missing human relationships at times of stress or isolation.

Tim Radford’s contribution is drawn from his book The Consolation Of Physics. “It is both a conversation with the past and a celebration of the shared scientific tradition of generosity and co-operation that has taken human understanding, mediated by international experiment, to the edge of the solar system, to the origins of universe and to cataclysmic star-death in distant galaxies,” he says.

Franziska Kohltis a research associate with the University of York’s department of sociology and editor of The Lewis Carroll Review. She is a researcher in the History of Science and Fantastic Literature and an active science communicator with an interest in the socio-psychological history of what narratives make science communication effective.

She has explored a broad variety of topics, from insects to AI, in journal articles and exhibitions, and regularly appears on international media as an expert on Lewis Carroll.

Penny Spikins, senior lecturer in the archaeology of human origins at the University of York, is a Palaeolithic archaeologist with a particular interest in the evolution of human emotions.

Her research has covered the human origins of our sense of compassion, gratitude and tolerance and has been published in many journal papers and in her book How Compassion Made Us Human.

Now, she is completing a new book, Hidden Depths: The Palaeolithic Origins Of Our Most Human Emotions.

New Zealand-born freelance journalist Tim Radford has spent most of his life in weekly, evening and daily newspapers. He retired as science editor of the Guardian in 2005 and is now a founding editor of climatenewsnetwork.net.

Tom McLeish is professor of natural philosophy in the physics department and in the centre for medieval studies and the humanities research centre at the University of York.

He has won awards in the UK, USA and EU for his interdisciplinary research in “soft matter and biological physics” and also works across science and humanities on medieval science, theology, sociology and philosophy of science. He is the author of The Poetry And Music Of Science and appears regularly on BBC radio.

Admission to this online panel discussion is free but booking is required at: eventbrite.co.uk/e/human-flourishing-in-times-of-stress-tickets-105648158486.

Brought to you remotely by the University of York, York Festival of Ideas is brimful of ideas until June 14, gathered under the new umbrella of Virtual Horizons. For full details, visit yorkfestivalofideas.com/2020-online/.

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Idea of the day at the online York Festival of Ideas: This Golden Fleece. Talk is sheep at 6pm, 11/06/2020

Wool Britannia: This Golden Fleece author Esther Rutter weaves her way through Britain’ s knitting history this evening at the York Festival of Ideas

WOOLLY thinking will be encouraged at the online York Festival of Ideas this evening.

At 6pm, author Esther Rutter will weave a journey through Britain’s long history of knitting in her talk This Golden Fleece.

Esther grew up on a sheep farm in Suffolk, learning to spin, weave and knit as a child. On re-engaging with that past, over the breadth of a year, she travelled the length of the British Isles to discover the fascinating stories of communities whose lives were shaped by wool, knitting them together in her book This Golden Fleece (Granta Books).

Esther unearthed tales of mill workers of the Border countries, English market towns built on profits of the wool trade and the Highland communities cleared for sheep farming. She also found tradition and innovation intermingling in 21st century knitwear industries.

Esther, who read English at Magdalen College, Oxford, is writer-in-residence at the University of St Andrews (2017-2020) in the School of Geography and Sustainable Development.

She also works as a freelance project manager for UNESCO, developing cultural engagement projects in collaboration with Edinburgh’s City of Literature Trust.

Join Esther this evening, albeit remotely, for her discussion of the craft and history of knitting, exploring wool’s influence on our landscape, history and culture. Admission is free but booking is required at eventbrite.co.uk/e/this-golden-fleece-tickets-105237367800.

Brought to you remotely by the University of York, York Festival of Ideas is brimful of ideas until June 14, gathered under the new umbrella of Virtual Horizons. For full details, visit yorkfestivalofideas.com/2020-online/.

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York Early Music Festival embraces new technology to go online for three-day event

Iestyn Davies: York countertenor switches from Bach arias on July 8 to John Dowland and The Art Of Melancholy on June 9

THE cancelled 2020 York Early Music Festival is back on…online, headlined by York international countertenor Iestyn Davies.

The virtual version of the summer festival will be streamed from the National Centre for Early Music from July 9 to 11, replacing the original live event from July 3 to 11.

Concerts will be recorded at the NCEM’s home, St Margaret’s Church, in Walmgate, with social-distancing measures in place and no live audience.

Booking will open on Friday, June 19 at tickets.ncem.co.uk and boxoffice@ncem.co.uk, with a festival package at £30, individual concert tickets at £10 each and illustrated talks at £3.50 each.

The artwork for the 2020 York Early Music Festival , now replaced by a streamlined, streamed version of the festival next month

Iestyn Davies would have been performing Bach: Countertenor Arias with Scottish instrumentalists the Dunedin Consort on July 8 at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York. “We figured we couldn’t get the whole of the Dunedin Consort down from Scotland under the lockdown rules,” says festival administrative director Dr Delma Tomlin.

Instead, Davies will present The Art Of Melancholy, joined by lutenist Elizabeth Kenny, a former artistic adviser to the York Early Music Festival and frequent performer at the NCEM, for a concert streamed on July 9 at 7.30pm.

The music of Elizabethan lutenist John Dowland will be complemented by Davies’s renditions and readings of poetry by Robert Burton, Michael Drayton, Rose Tremain, Leo Tolstoy and Dowland himself.

“Iestyn lives in York but he’s a countertenor of truly international prowess and we’re delighted he can join us for the revised festival,” says Delma.

Dr Delma Tomlin: Administrative director of the York Early Music Festival

“Dowland is known for his music of extraordinary misery but utter beauty. He knew that in love, the only thing sweeter than happiness was sorrow. Few living interpreters understand his music more profoundly than Iestyn, who has devised this evening of poetry, music and drama for voice and lute to explore a composer for whom a single teardrop can hold a universe of emotion.”

On July 10, festival artistic advisor John Bryan will provide an illustrated introduction to the day’s online festivities at 10.30am, with each concert linked by a theme of fantasy. Lute and theorbo player Matthew Wadsworth will perform Echoes In Air, a 1pm programme of works by Kapsperger and Piccinini, Dowland and Francesco da Milano, alongside a new piece written specially for him by Laura Snowden, Echoes In Air. 

At 3.30pm, harpsichordist Steve Devine will continue his NCEM series of Preludes and Fugues from Book 1 of J S Bach’s The Well-tempered Clavier, here performing Nos 13 to 24. The day will end with Richard Boothby’s 7.30pm concert on lyra viol, with his programme yet to be announced.

Pianist and professor David Owen Norris will give an illustrated introduction to the July 11 online concerts at 10.30am.

Stile Antico back in the days when you could stand together on a staircase. Social distancing will prevail at their July 11 concert. Picture: Marco Borggreve

BBC New Generation artists Consone Quartet, comprising Agata Daraskaite and Magdalena Loth-Hill, on violins, Elitsa Bogdanova, on viola, and George Ross, on cello, will play Beethoven’s String Quartet in G Major Op 18, No 2 and String Quartet in D Major Op 18, No 3 at 1pm.

York Early Music Festival luminary Peter Seymour, a leviathan of the York classical music world, will introduce the story behind his recording of Bach’s St Matthew Passion at 3.30pm.

Stile Antico will present Breaking The Habit: Bringing to life the music of the Renaissance through song at 7.30pm.

“The 16th century saw an unprecedented number of female rulers,” says Delma, setting up the concert’s premise. “From the powerful Medici women of Italy to the great Tudor queens of England, women across Europe held more power than ever before. 

Steven Devine: Bach to the future as he works his way through Preludes and Fugues

“Many of these monarchs used their patronage to facilitate the production of music of exquisite beauty by the finest composers of the day, extravagant showcases of their power contrasting with intimate and personal compositions. 

“The century also saw the first publication of music by female composers, often Italian nuns, whose convents supported musical groups of astonishing ability.” 

To bring the online festival together, the NCEM is working with digital producer Ben Pugh.” We’ve purchased more video and sound equipment, so it’s more like a TV studio environment now,” says Delma.

“It’s fortunate that the NCEM is a big space, being a church building, which will help with social distancing. The opening and closing concert will be streamed as live, and the other concerts will be pre-recorded over a ten-day period.

Elizabeth Kenny: Joining Iestyn Davies for July 9 concert

“After their concert, Stile Antico will stay on at the NCEM for three days of recordings for their Mayflower project, now put back to 2021.

“We’ll also be putting the remainder of Steven Devine’s Bach’s Preludes and Fugues series online in the autumn as his Bach concerts streamed from the NCEM during lockdown have been received really well.”

The 2020 festival was to have run from July 3 to 11 with a theme of “the Method & Madness of musical styles, from the wild excesses of the Italian Renaissance, through the soothing virtuosity of Bach, to the towering genius of Beethoven”.

Among the artists would have been Davies; Devine and Consone Quartet; The Sixteen, singing The Call Of Rome at York Minster, and Barokksolistene, from Norway, with their vivacious festival opener, Alehouse.

Violinist Rachel Podger: Scheduled to play 2021 York Early Music Festival

Lined up to take part too were Rose Consort of Viols; Voces Suaves; Prisma; Profeti della Quinta; L’Apothéose; Hubert Hazebroucq & Julien Martin; The Society of Strange & Ancient Instruments; the University Baroque Ensemble and Peter Seymour directing Handel’s opera Orlando.

Already Delma has confirmed the 2021 festival will run from Friday, July 9 to Saturday, July 17. “Guest artists scheduled to join us next summer include The Tallis Scholars, The Sixteen, Brecon Baroque, led by violinist Rachel Podger, and gamba specialist Paolo Pandolfo,” she says.

The 2020 York Early Music Christmas Festival will go ahead, “but it may all be online,” reveals Delma. “That should be a little bit easier to arrange than for this summer’s festival.

“I should be able to work it all out in good time, whereas re-organising the summer event on a big scale became utterly impossible because the majority of performers were from overseas.

Consone Quartet: Performng Beethoven String Quartets on July 10

“So, instead, we’re doing a digital festival of musicians based in England willing to come to the NCEM next month for this very exciting venture that’s turned out to be brilliant, but for different reasons than the festival we first envisaged.”

The NCEM’s spring series of streamed concerts in lockdown has gone well. “They’ve been free with the option to donate to the NCEM afterwards, and we’ve even had people tuning in from Ecuador, Australia and Southern India, which has been fascinating for us,” says Delma.

“It gives us a chance to connect with a much broader audience and we may well re-share these concerts in the future, but we’re now going to have to find a way of earning money from streamed concerts, setting up a paywall to pay for watching them, in order to help us still be here in a year’s time. The free model can’t continue; we will have to get people into the habit of paying for streaming.”

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Another idea of the day at the online York Festival of Ideas: Friendship: Nature’s medicine, a friendly talk at 8pm, 10/6/2020

The hand of friendship: nature’s “little helper”, according to author and professor Robin Dunbar, who needs to talk tonight. Image: Symbolon from Noun Project

AT this pandemic-enforced time of alienation, disconnection, lockdown, social distancing, shielding and virtual gatherings when everyone’s gone to the Zoom, how topical for the York Festival of Ideas to host a talk on Friendship: Nature’s medicine. Online, of course.

At 8pm tonight, psychology professor and author Robin Dunbar, from the University of Oxford, will explore the psychological and neurobiological mechanisms involved in friendships and how they produce these remarkable effects as nature’s “little helper”.

“Like all monkeys and apes, humans are intensely social,” says the festival website. “Close relationships, whether family or friend, are our way of buffering ourselves against the stresses that life puts us under.

“In fact, loneliness has turned out to be the biggest killer. It turns out that friendships have a bigger effect on our quality of life, as well as our ability to resist and recover from illness, than almost anything conventional medicine can throw at us.”

The cover to Robin Dunbar’s 2010 book of evolutionary quirks, How Many Friends Does One Person Need?

Robin Dunbar is professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Oxford, an Emeritus Fellow of Magdalen College and an elected Fellow of the British Academy.

His principal research interests focus on the evolution of sociality with particular reference to primates and humans. He is best known for the social brain hypothesis, the gossip theory of language evolution and Dunbar’s Number (the limit on the number of relationships that we can manage).

Among his science books are: Grooming, Gossip And The Evolution Of Language (1996); The Human Story (2004); How Many Friends Does One Person Need? (2010); The Science Of Love And Betrayal (2012); Human Evolution: A Pelican Introduction (2014); Human Evolution: Our Brains And Behaviour (2016), and Evolution: What Everyone Needs To Know (2018).

Online admission tonight is free but booking is required at eventbrite.co.uk/e/friendship-natures-medicine-tickets-105701357606.

Brought to you remotely by the University of York, York Festival of Ideas is full of ideas until June 14, gathered under the new umbrella of Virtual Horizons. For full details, visit yorkfestivalofideas.com/2020-online/.