We have been asked to post funeral arrangements for the popular British soprano, who died last week at 80.

We now have the details of Catherine’s funeral. All are most welcome to attend. The funeral is at St. Joan of Arc’s Church, Highbury at 11.00 a.m. on Tuesday next, 19th July. The Church is on the 4, 19 and 236 bus routes and the nearest tube stations are Highbury & Islington and Arsenal. Catherine will be buried in Yorkshire the following day. The family have asked for no flowers but Catherine had asked for any contributions to Cancer Research UK.

 

catherine wilson

Gregg Smith, founder of the Gregg Smith Singers, has died at 84.

His chorus blazed trails in contemporary music. He recorded 100 albums and composed 400 works.

gregg smith

First obit here.

 

A Russian pianist of 23, Arseny Tarasevich-Nikolaev, has just made it it to the finals of the Sydney International Piano Competition.

The locals are getting excited. ‘I cannot remember the last time I was so moved and so affected by musicianship of th(is) calibre, nobility, poetry and charisma,’ enthuses one music manager.

Arseny is the grandson of the indelible Soviet-era pianist Tatiana Nikolaeva.

 

arseny nikolaev

The other Sydney finalists are: Kenneth Broberg, Andrey Gugnin,Oxana Shevchenko, Moye Chen and Jianing Kong.

Essential reading for this sombre weekend.

Ben Judah, a young English journalist of French extraction has been trawling the parts of France that have fallen to alien ideologies – Islamism on one hand, LePen-ism on the other.

He has written a long essay in Standpoint magazine. Sample:

You only really know Paris when you know the Métro. When you  recognise the Roma rapping on La Ligne 13, when you know without needing to look which stations let the sleeping bags in at night, when you get that instinctive feel for the hour the homeless beggars do their rounds up and down the carriages — “Mesdames, Messieurs.”

You only really know Paris when you know the spots where women look behind themselves at night. Get out quickly from the tunnels at Stalingrad — watch out for your bag, they say, that’s where the Eritreans are sleeping. Don’t get yourself a commute on La Ligne 13, they joke, it may be light blue but it goes from Romania to the banlieue end of hell. And with this ticket this is where I am going. I have to see the new France for myself to ask: is this country in danger? This is not just any old question to me. This is about my family. 

Read on here.

ligne_13

 

Replacing Ed Vaizey  in the new UUK government as Minister of State for Culture & The Digital Economy is Matt Hancock.

He used to be an economic adviser to the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, later becoming George Osborne’s Chief of Staff. His last job was Minister for the Cabinet Office, in which capacity he often sat in on Cabinet meetings.

Apparently he’s in Culture to beef up the digital economy.