Today marks the culmination of this year’s Women’s Six Nations Championship. This year due to Covid restrictions, the sides have played in two groups. Group A – England, Scotland and Italy: Group B – France, Ireland and Wales. The top team from each group will play in the final. The six sides will be in […]
Agnes Obel
Today our musical journey takes us to Denmark. Agnes Obel is a Danish singer, songwriter, and musician. She was born in Copenhagen and learned to play the piano at a very young age. About her learning, she said: “I had a classical piano teacher who told me that I shouldn’t play what I didn’t like. […]
Fado
Today our musical journey around Europe continues with a visit to Portugal to sample the best of Fado. Fado (destiny, fate) is a music genre that can be traced to the 1820s in Lisbon, Portugal, but probably has much earlier origins. Fado historian and scholar Rui Vieira Nery states that “the only reliable information on […]
La Oreja de Van Gogh
La Oreja de Van Gogh (literally The Ear of Van Gogh) is a Spanish pop band from Donostia- San Sebastian. The band was formed under the provisional name Los Sin Nombre (The Nameless) in 1996 by four college students: Xabi San Martín (keyboard), Pablo Benegas (guitar), Álvaro Fuentes (bass guitar) and Haritz Garde (drums). They […]
Camille
Camille Dalmais, better known by her mononym Camille, is a French singer, songwriter and occasional actress. She was born and raised in Paris. As a teenager, she studied ballet and developed an interest in bossa nova music and American stage musicals. She attended the prestigious Lycee International de Saint Germain-en-Laye, where she obtained her baccalaureate […]
This Is Soul
As a teenager I used to play table tennis in the basement of a house in Cheltenham and as we practiced for our youth league games, we would listen to music. Unfortunately we only had one LP. That LP was called ‘This Is Soul’ and we played it to extinction. It from this time that […]
Kyrie Eleison
Kyrie, is a transliteration of the Greek Κύριε, the vocative case of Κύριος (Kyrios), is a common name of an important prayer of Christian liturgy, also called the Kyrie eleison (ancient Greek: Κύριε, ἐλέησον, –. ‘Lord, have mercy’). The phrase Kýrie, eléison (Greek: Κύριε, ἐλέησον), or one of its equivalents in other languages, is one of […]
The Cardigans
The Cardigans are a Swedish rock band formed in Jonkoping, Sweden, in 1992 by guitarist Peter Svensson, bassist Magnus Sveningsson, drummer Bengt Lagerberg, keyboardist Lars-Olof Johansson and lead singer Nina Persson. Living together in a small apartment, The Cardigans recorded a demo tape with Persson providing lead vocals on only one of the songs towards […]
In The Court of the Crimson King
King Crimson are an English progressive rock band formed in London in 1968. They have exerted a strong influence both on the early 1970s progressive rock movement and on more recent rock and experimental artists. Although the band has consistently undergone changes in personnel throughout its history, guitarist and primary composer Robert Fripp, the only […]
Anime Day
Anime is hand drawn and computer animation originating from Japan. In Japan and in Japanese, anime (a term derived from the English word animation) describes all animated works, regardless of style or origin. However, outside of Japan and in English, anime is colloquial for Japanese animation and refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. Animation […]