A capella Brontës

The Telegraph & Argus reports that the educational team of Oakwell Hall, which inspired Fieldhead in Charlotte Brontë's Shirley, has received a Sandford Award by the Heritage Education Trust:

An historic house with Bronte connections has landed a fifth successive top award.
Oakwell Hall in Birstall, which has English Civil War and Bronte links, is celebrating winning a prestigious excellence award, recognising the education programmes it runs for visitors.
One of the bygone visitors to have enjoyed Oakwell Hall, built by John Batt in 1583, was Charlotte Bronte who was there in the 19th Century when it was a girls’ boarding school.
She was so impressed she featured it as ‘Fieldhead’ – the home of the heroine in her novel Shirley.
Winning the Sandford Award again puts the Elizabethan manor house in an elite group with only 12 other sites in the United Kingdom to have achieved similar status including Beaulieu in Hampshire and Harewood House in Leeds.
Judges said Oakwell Hall deserved the award because the museum “continued to excite the imagination and interest of successive generations of visitors of all ages”.
The judges praised the hall’s dedicated education team for helping give youngsters an excellent insight into Tudor and Stuart times.
Judge Christine Chadwick said: “The children clearly enjoyed the activities and through observing and talking to them I felt they were gaining useful insight into the lives of both rich and poor in Tudor times and were making connections between objects used now and in the past.”
Oakwell Hall received its first Sandford Award in 1988 and this latest one was presented to staff by the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry KBE at a ceremony at Hampton Court Palace, London.
Councillor Liz Smaje, Kirklees Council cabinet member for leisure and neighbourhood services, said: “To receive a fifth successive Sandford Award is a tremendous achievement and a fitting tribute to the effort and dedication of the staff at Oakwell and the museum’s education team who continue to strive to give all visitors an unforgettable experience.” (Kathie Griffiths)

The Telegraph & Argus also publishes further information concerning the recent release of William Grimshaw: Living the Christian Life by Paul & Faith Cook.

The Concerto.Net reviews the current performances of Puccini's La Bohème at the Metropolitan Opera House (in the Franco Zeffirelli's production). The conductor is no other than Frédéric Chaslin and, of course, his Wuthering Heights operatic composition is mentioned:

Especially at a time when much contemporary music requires informed listeners prepared to make a considerable effort to understand and engage, it is easy to assume that being complex – even arcane – is a prerequisite of great art.
One contemporary composer, who has argued against such a view is Frederic Chaslin. In his book, Music in Every Sense, he writes that much of contemporary music does not engage the audience because it is insufficiently accessible. He has been working on his own accessible opera, based on Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights -- not in a garret but in a houseboat on the Seine. Chaslin is also a pianist and a conductor. (Arlene Judith Klozko)

Tonight (South Africa) reviews a recent performance by the South African a capella group Not the Midnight Mass. They performed an a capella version of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights (that was included in their 1992 album Midnight Mass-Live:

Old Mass-heads will enjoy their renditions of Hallelujah and Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights cuddling up next to the Rolling Stones' Start Me Up. (Zane Henry)

EDIT (12/01/09): We read on Tonight:

The Coming of Age runs until January 24 at the Theatre on the Bay (Camps Bay). The a cappella group includes covers of Wuthering Heights, Georgia, the Hallelujah chorus and some original works as well. Tel: 021-438-3300.

Another a capella rendition of the Kate Bush's hit was released some years ago by the Swedish group The Sweptaways.

The Toronto Star presents the new book by Azar Nafisi: Things I've Been Silent About and reminds us of the Brontë references of her previous work, Reading Lolita in Tehran:

It will surprise no readers of Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran to learn that the author is still transfixed by narratives. In that unlikely bestseller, the former literature professor, who walked away from her post at the University of Tehran in protest of the Khomeini regime's dictum that all female teachers wear a veil, described how the students in her breakaway classics seminar were given powerful lessons in the democratic spirit by books. In Nabokov and Flaubert and Austen and the Brontes, Nafisi's students found not only confirmation of the soaring human spirit, but of their own plight as well. Reading fiction became an exercise in resistance, an affirmation of art's inherent revolt. (Geoff Pevere)

The London Free Press (Canada) announces the nominations to the Brickenden Theatre Awards. The Theatre Nemesis production of Wuthering Heighs has an Outstanding Costumes nomination.

Seen reading is a very interesting project by Julie Wilson which deserves a visit (or more than one). She reports a Wuthering Heights sighting:

Caucasian woman, 50s, with ruffled blonde hair, wearing heavy winter coat, Baffin winter boots, carrying a bright floral purse.

Cupcake Chronicles talks about The Tenant of Wildfell Hall 1996, One Girl and her books briefly posts about Lynn Reid Banks's The Dark Quartet, Art Comments reviews briefly Sam Taylor-Wood Yes I No exhibition

Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Brontëana, In the News, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, Opera, References, Shirley, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Theatre, Websites, Wuthering Heights