University News Last updated 23 October 2024
Ahead of Friday鈥檚 collaboration between Visiting Professor of Music at Royal 探花直播 Conservatoire, Ustad Johar Ali, and 探花直播鈥檚 Professor of Poetry, Gregory Leadbetter, we go behind-the-scenes with Greg to uncover more about what is set to be a beguiling evening of music and poetry.
鈥淧oetry and music are sister arts,鈥� Greg begins. With his past work duetting the mediums鈥攁 song-cycle featuring poems from his collection The Fetch by composer and pianist Eric McElroy, and a recording with tenor James Gilchrist鈥擥reg is no stranger to multidisciplinary art forms.
鈥淭he relationship between them is an abiding personal interest and theme in my work,鈥� he continues. 鈥淲hile poetry involves words, poetic composition both involves and reaches beyond their dictionary meanings. Similarly, music, even when it uses words, blends those words and their meanings within an aural experience with its own evocative power.鈥�
In the first performance of a new collaboration between world-renowned Indian musician Ustad Johar Ali, Visiting Professor of Music at RBC, and Greg as poet and Professor of Poetry at BCU, the evening will see Johar improvise music in a variety of forms as Greg recites poetry by Rumi, Ghalib, and Shakespeare, together with two of his own poems.
鈥淚t is an intercultural exchange of a kind that both Johar and I wish to encourage and develop, spanning centuries of poetic and musical tradition, highlighting existing connections across those traditions and creating new ones,鈥� Greg adds.
Johar is set to spend six months with RBC and BCU in his role as Chair of the Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR). He has been working with RBC students and musicians young and old from 探花直播's communities, building on the pioneering work of last year鈥檚 ICCR Chair Radhika Balakrishnan.
鈥淲alter Pater famously said that all art aspires to the condition of music, but it might also be said that music aspires to the condition of language,鈥� Greg continues. 鈥淏oth music and poetry involve their audiences in the altered states that they create in these kindred ways.鈥�
What does this exchange spell for the audience? 鈥淚 hope that the audience will be delighted and intrigued by what they encounter, and encourage fresh perspectives on poetry and music 鈥� especially in thinking about intercultural exchange, cultural transmission, and the new connections that we can forge as artists, audiences, and societies.鈥�
Join Greg and Johar for an evening of music and multilingual poetry on Fri 25 Oct at Royal 探花直播 Conservatoire.