Nicola LeFanu

The last time I met Nicola LeFanu was at a performance of one of her mother's works in Goldsmiths' Hall - in the late 'Sixties or early 'Seventies. That she is now regarded as a well-established composer in her own right was made abundantly clear from the reception a full house gave to her new music drama Tokaido Road at the Parabola Arts Centre yesterday afternoon.

An operatic equivalent of the road movie, it combines the words of Nancy Gaffield's prize-winning collection of poems with projections of Hiroshige's woodblock prints and Wynn White's contemporary photographs; balletic mime with spoken dialogue and bel canto singing, and a score for six very assorted Eastern and Western instruments that wafts exotically overall.

The pilgrim's dilemma, of when and whether to keep moving on was particularly evocative for me having walked through such distractingly beautiful places in April - divided (like Hiroshige's way) by rivers, the Danube and Rhine in my case.

LeFanu's work, which lasts an hour or so, followed a first half dedicated to classical Japanese pieces for sho and koto, and recent works by Howard Skempton for the same two instruments and oboe. I went along apprehensively, and mainly because I thought Mini would be interested. (She was.) Quite apart from some entrancing instrumental sounds, the staging and singing of LeFanu's work were exceptional: a festival highlight surely.

Medicine Unboxed

Agnes knows Dr. Sam Guglani who is on her creative writing course: a man of many parts, Sam is the brains behind the two-day part conference, part entertainment on at our local Parabola Arts Centre this weekend, Medicine Unboxed. Though it has been running for more than a decade, this is the first time I've been brave enough to book for it, and so far without regret.

As I suspected it would be, the 325-seat theatre (sold out) was mainly full of medics of one variety or another, but the balance of contributors ensured that the content was largely intelligible to a general audience. Unusually for an event in a Cheltenham auditorium, I felt well above the average age.

This year's theme was "voice", echoed by contributions from the Birmingham Medical School Choir and the "remarkable" duo, Melanie Pappenheim and Rebecca Askew. (I had first heard them five years ago at the Riverside Studios.)

One of today's highlights was Fi Glover's talk about Radio 4's Listening Project. She described it as consenting eavesdropping, vitamin supplements for the soul. A move to call it "The Talking Project" had been resisted. "The best doctors are the ones who really listen," concluded someone.

Worbey and Farrell

Perhaps Ida is a bit young for concert-going, but she seemed enthusiastic, so off we went this morning to the Parabola Arts Centre. Worbey and Farrell play piano four hands, with a camera to display their dexterity on a big screen above: when eventually they came on stage - a ten-minute delay must seem an age for a 5-year-old - they quickly showed how clever they are, and the wide range of styles they can deploy. The trouble was, the novelty soon wore thin, and I sensed a restlessness beside me. So we didn't stick it to the end of the 75 minutes.

Coming out into the bright sunlight that filled the Parabola's Gallery we bumped into Mary Paterson. Despite her years, she had, she told us, much enjoyed The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, performed the previous weekend, with illustrations. I wish we had been at that, rather than the rather too blokey "comedy piano duo".

Who's the boss?

We had planned a picnic in Imperial Gardens to go with our four tickets for the Swingle Singers this evening, but the tickets have gone in the bin. Our guests preferred a cosy stretched out supper in our sitting-room while we watched Murray struggle through his tennis semi-final: nail-biting stuff as always, as he bids to win the Wimbledon men's title. Singles, not Swingles therefore.

When the match was eventually done and dusted, some of us got in the car for the other half of the curious cultural double bill for which we had booked - Poulenc's one-act opera, La Voix Humaine. Arriving a little late, we squeezed in at the back of the Parabola: it then took a while to adjust from the brutal serve and return routine we'd been watching on TV, to a stage bedroom where we listened to one end of a 40-minute long telephone conversation, sung in French to a piano accompaniment.

With the telephone now more than ever the bane of our lives, this Poulenc (written 50+ years ago) seems oddly prescient.

On our way out, a little dazed, we passed through the exhibition of Noye's Fludde props (brought from Tewkesbury after last night), and were able to admire James Mayhew's beautiful designs at close quarters.

Impressed

This month Gloucestershire is hosting an international printmaking festival across no less than 26 venues. I have just been along to the Parabola Arts Centre, where "Impress '13" exhibits work under the title of "The Silk Road".

The show is dominated by the work of a Chinese artist from Yunnan province, He Kun who was there this evening. His huge, colourful "reduction" prints (immensely detailed) are made by cutting into a wooden block. Ink is then rolled across the surface: those areas not cut away retain the ink and mark the paper when run through the press. More of the surface is cut away as another layer is added - and so on, using the same block: a total of 20 different colours were used in the work on display! Every sheet of paper in the edition has to be printed stage-by-stage.

He Kun's work highlights the way the industrial, urban way of life is encroaching upon rural and culturally traditional China: his motivation is the protection of the government-designated "new rural areas" from careless development.

The thick of it

I took this photograph in 1999, when we were walking along a strada bianca near Pienza: it hardly does justice to the lichen, an extraordinary colour. I remembered it this morning, as I caught up with the latest goings on in The thick of it. It really does get better and better - and in the whole hour of this bumper episode there isn't a single F word (well, in direct speech anyway). How do they keep a straight face?

I couldn't watch it on Saturday as we were at the Parabola Arts Centre, where they were showing a recording of the Royal Opera's 2011 Tosca: a great cast, and - still more important - Antonio Pappano conducting. Before we went out, there was another Royal Opera House recording on Radio 3: Otello, Pappano again conducting. And earlier in the day, I'd been catching up on the Covent Garden Ring. Conductor? Pappano again.

Caroline's week-long Wagner widowhood ended last night. The highlights of this Ring for me were Act 2 of Die Walküre, with Sarah Connolly outstanding; and Act 2 of Götterdämmerung last night - Tomlinson terrific as Hagen, notwithstanding that wobble: only to be expected in a 66-year-old. (What contemporary relevance in the Prologue too - with all the Norns' talk about ash dieback.)

Are there other operas besides Tosca and Götterdämmerung where all the principals end up dead? (Is there a post on my blog containing more hyperbole?)

The Montpellier wasteland

Nine days after the end of our ten-day Festival of Literature, this is what Montpellier Gardens looked like at lunchtime. Still, there were people at work from the marquee hire firm - but who's going to restore the messed up park, and how soon?

I'm all in favour of the Festival, but would propose that it concentrates its tents upon Imperial Square, and uses other venues such as the Everyman, the Parabola and the Playhouse - instead of ruining both of our major gardens for what is surely a disproportionate part of the year. I may be repeating myself (as well as the view of others), but it seems to me to be a no-brainer. At present the tail is wagging the dog.

Nor is our gargantuan event pleasing to all the publishers who come. I was chatting with a representative of one well-known international firm on Saturday last: "How does Cheltenham rate amongst all the literary festivals you must go to?" I asked. "It's too commercial, too impersonal," she replied, without missing a beat.

Joanna Trollope

“Simplex munditiis” is one of those phrases that, like others in Horace, a schoolboy may long be able to recall. Anyway, this one does: its translation, “artless in her elegance” came to mind as I listened to Joanna Trollope on the theme of “Real Life: Real Stories” yesterday evening.

With her immaculate appearance, commanding presence, bejewelled sentences and warm involvement of an all-too-small audience, she charmed us in her discussion with Edward Gillespie. And in the second part of the evening, she displayed a deft touch, turning the tables on her interviewer. “How do you stay a fresh-minded nuisance?” she asked Edward, as he contemplated life after Cheltenham Racecourse. (I rather wish he had done so more succinctly: listening to him was less interesting.)

Alongside such as David Attenbrough, Judi Dench and Imogen Cooper, Joanna Trollope is surely now close to attaining the status of National Treasure. On the strength of her performance – it was in aid of the Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum’s appeal – she certainly counts as one of Gloucestershire’s treasures. Born near Minchinhampton Common (“an offered up upland,” as she described it), she clearly acknowledges both her roots in our county, and that our causes are also hers – encouraging philanthropy amongst Gloucestershire’s super rich, opposing threatened library closures, not to mention “Building a New Future”, the title of the Art Gallery appeal. On the screen behind her, the first image projected was Piero della Francesca’s “country” Christ Risen: she told us how she had been to see it this Summer in Borgo San Sepolcro (lucky her).

By way of contrast, Joanna’s second image was a Gwen John interior, reflecting the fact that a decade ago she left Gloucestershire for self-imposed exile in London, from where she does not now contemplate a return. After all, she maintains – rather controversially so far as our household is concerned – “men are more romantic about landscape than women.” And, as a writer, “you do get terribly sick of the inside of your own head.” (Her solution? To go and sit anonymously in Caffè Nero in the King’s Road.)

For someone so outwardly conventional, even middle-brow – Joanna listens to Korngold, looks fondly upon black Labradors, and has a way of speaking that might best be described as retro – she espouses some surprisingly radical ideas. Feminism, naturally. (“Now that we have the vote, we are in quite a hurry.”) But more than that, she possesses a brave candour. The cuttings don’t let us forget the furore that blew up when she compared the plight of the villagers of Aston Magna with those in Moss Side, Manchester. As she said last night at the Parabola Arts Centre, “We all have equal human validity… It won’t do to live in a bubble.” “What gets my goat? Injustice.” Inside the rather stoical velvet glove, there is an iron hand.

Yet her cheek is still soft: this I can tell from the nice double kiss she gave me during the interval yesterday. Not so long ago I looked through the nearly-50-year-old bundle of thank you letters my mother had received from those who came to my 21st birthday party. (What a pity no such archive will exist for this generation of 21-year-olds! Even if – unlikely – they get round to writing to say thank you, they will at best do so by email.) Anyway, in the bundle I found one signed “Joanna”. A reminder that we had known each other at Oxford.

Cheltenham Music Festival - day 3

Festival Director, Meurig Bowen, posing for this photograph at the end of the interval in tonight's rather splendid Town Hall concert, said, "I bet it'll be up on your blog within half an hour!" Well, it's been a little longer...

That's because we've only just returned from a second event this evening. A silent film may seem an odd choice for a music festival, but this showing of the 1923 Salomé (with its lavish Beardsley-based costumes) was something special. You could sense it upon entering the Parabola, the screen flanked by two scaffolding towers, giving platforms for four percussionists: they played throughout, the score (including a vocal tape) composed by Charlie Barber.

The story line takes little time to relate, but every twist of the plot was here played out in ultra slow motion, like a Noh play almost. Without music it could have been risible, and perhaps even with a conventional piano accompaniment. But the tension created by the quartet of musicians, and clever lighting changes, made it a gripping 70-odd minutes. There were some astonishing performances in the film itself, not just from Alla Nazimova in the title part. I had vowed never to see Salomé performed again after the last time I went to the Strauss version (at ENO), but am now glad that I'd forgotten this when booking the tickets for this evening!

Earlier, I'd been apprehensive about paying £35 for a bench seat to hear a bunch of young amateurs from Singapore tackling a programme that included Delius and Holst, hardly my favourite composers. But my ear warmed to the sound of the Orchestra of the Music Makers, and Holst's Oriental Suite was a genuine surprise - a pleasure to hear.

Cheltenham Music Festival

Another Festival has come round! The programme has something of an austerity feel about it: not many big names are in evidence. However, the subject matter lacks compromise, as evidenced by this evening's Parabola Arts Centre recital.

But was "recital" the right word for it? Normally, James Gilchrist (tenor) with a pianist for a set of English songs (Britten, Finzi, Tippett) would warrant that description, but here the accent was upon a stage setting of a "long and silent night passed by a nightwatchman", with grainy video as a backdrop: no interval, and no clapping save at the end. More Voix humaine than Winterreise.

The technical side went off splendidly, particularly the beautifully weighted singing of Gilchrist and Anna Tilbrook's accompaniment. But even with Gilchrist the words (all Hardy T. and Hudson W.H.) are never so distinguishable as one would like, and no "libretto" was on offer - nor even much of a programme note. So, I emerged rather baffled: what was the object of the exercise?

"Made in the country"

Niki Whitfield has been busy again, curating this her second show at the Parabola Arts Centre within a month. I particularly liked Diana Green's etchings. Caroline bought some of Robin Walden's pots. Wine flowed and live music played: a jolly hour all told - and I met friends I hadn't seen for years.

"Through a glass, darkly"

This is the title of a show just opened at our local Parabola Arts Centre - "a mixed-media exhibition of soulful work that speaks of mystery and struggle, peace, hope and love." Curated by Niki Whitfield, it brings together a handful of artists of contrasting styles, and runs in collaboration with a more overtly Christian art show at the nearby Christ Church Hub Gallery. I visited the Hub on Thursday evening: despite some interesting work, I found the juxtaposition of styles there unsatisfactory. At the Parabola however, a very different mood is created: in one room, Chris Hoggett's marvellous dream pictures opposite the burnished gold of Jake Lever's meditative hand works, and in the other Pam Crook's enigmatic reliefs alongside Claire Watson's very physical pottery - Niki has conjured up a degree of synergy that I haven't felt in a mixed exhibition for some long while.

Art presents itself as a gift for the photographer: less easy is it to find illustrations for experiences such as hearing, late at night, Angela Hewitt play Couperin, Rameau, Fauré - and Bach. I missed the live relay, but Listening Again I was mesmerised by the pieces Hewitt selected from this mainly - to me - unfamiliar genre. Catherine Bott's advocacy (as presenter) undoubtedly helped. You have four days left to catch it!

"Colour and clay"

This is the title of the current exhibition at our Parabola Arts Centre: I popped in this afternoon. My photograph shows Plum Naismith's mixed media work, "The Day Fell into Summer" hanging above a set of porcelain clay vessels by Claire Watson. Another potter (not exhibiting) I bumped into there told me, just a hint of bitterness in her voice, that the criterion for entry into the show was that work should not be functional.

I'm bound to say that none of a vary varied set of pieces moved me much. Rather more positive was my reaction to this year's open west show - we were in Gloucester for it yesterday (but I left my memory card in my computer, so my camera wasn't much use). At least some of that, mainly three-dimensional, work is challenging, the artists and curators having combined to make something of the awesome surroundings of the Cathedral.

"Operation Greenfield"

Today's photograph was taken less than a mile from last Sunday's (of another old tree). This field, however, is not under threat, being virtually part of the Cotswold escarpment. Nor does the church in the distance, St Peter's, in any way resemble that portrayed in the play we saw last night, at our local Parabola Arts Centre. "Operation Greenfield", a presentation by Little Bulb Theatre, received warm commendation in the national press ("recklessly talented... insanely brave"), but it went off like a damp squib with the meagre Cheltenham audience. Was it meant to evangelise or (mildly) scandalise? Whatever, it was nothing like the piece of theatre brought to Cheltenham last month by Kneehigh: The Wild Bride.

Cheltenham Festival of Literature

The Festival - it starts today - has taken a giant leap forward: not only Imperial Gardens, but Montpellier Gardens too has this year become a tented city for the duration. Indeed, the construction process began weeks ago, causing noise and traffic sufficient to upset everyone within a wide radius no doubt. Pity those who have hired the Gardens Gallery during those weeks! Indeed, the Gallery isn't even marked on the Festival map!

My lack of sympathy for the scale of this hyper-festival has been made plain in previous years: expansion into Montpellier runs parallel with withdrawal from the Everyman Theatre and the Parabola Arts Centre. What will hostelries and shops near those two sites make of the non-passing trade? This morning, I toured the campuses on my bike: the only people I saw around were yellow-coated security guards and minions from sponsors such as The Times and Sky. Coming away, I saw an elderly gentleman emerge from a car and fiddle with his pipe: Tony Benn it was, taller than I expected. (Though he didn't refuse to have his photograph taken, he seemed a little taken aback with the speed at which I produced my camera.)

Leaving Levers

Our local comprehensive, Bournside School will be closed tomorrow, along with many others, but the strike action is not - as it might be - because the school is abandoning its visual arts specialism. As a result of that bit of educational vandalism, Jake Lever, Head of Community Arts at Bournside, is having to find another job: thankfully, he has done so, and will soon, along with his family, be on the move to Birmingham.

Over the eight years he has been in Cheltenham, Jake has built up thriving community links: there has been a myriad of amazing projects involving professional artists and enthusiastic participants. The Visual Arts Specialism has enormously enriched the experiences of Bournside students.

So, tonight's private view at the Parabola Arts Centre was also a time to say farewell to one of Cheltenham's most prominent artists, Jake's wife Gillian. Gillian's abstract paintings, inspired by music, form the stunning centrepiece to this year's main Cheltenham Music Festival exhibition. With weavers Sue Hiley Harris and Anna Glasbrook showing alongside, it's a vibrant display in excellent surroundings - probably Cheltenham's premier exhibition space of that size.