An illustrated lecture, with live music, on a variety of top-end professional recorders (no plastic in sight!).

So often just associated with school music, the recorder has a long and rich history, a favourite of Henry VIII and composers from Purcell, Bach and Handel through to Paul McCartney and Jonathan Dove, not to mention the Hitler Youth! Often used in paintings and operatic scores to represent love, the recorder or ‘sweet flute’, can be heard in the recent film ‘Wicked’. Recorder players include Henry VIII, Paul McCartney, Sir Keir Starmer and David the Android (Alien Covenant)

Founder and Musical Director of The Weaver Ensemble, a baroque theatre troupe, Zero Gravity, Cambridge’s Recorder Band and founder member of Respectable Groove the innovative early-music/jazz group. She made her BBC debut as a recorder player at the age of nine and since then has appeared on BBC TV and BBC Radios 1, 2, 3 & 4 and given concerts and presented lectures in Europe, the Americas and Australia. She was Director of The European Recorder Teachers Association for 5 years and taught recorder at The Royal Academy of Music, Junior Department, retiring in 2022.

Antoni Gaudi's Sagrada Familia is one of the world's most recognisable buildings, the world's tallest church, though still unfinished. Discover the story of its design, and the evolution of the building project, and why it is Spain's most visited monument, attracting global attention. 

Canon Chris Newlands is a retired Anglican priest. Before ordination, he worked for the British Council in Algeria, then became Embassy Chaplain and Envoy of the Anglican Communion to the Orthodox Churches of Eastern Europe. 

This most famous of pre-Colombian cultures had no wheels, no iron, no written language and yet they built an empire in less than 200 years. Learn how they did it and see examples of their skills using gold and other precious materials. This is human ambition at its peak, and its resulting achievements.

Eileen was awarded an MA Egyptology in 2012. Recently she has specialised in the empires of Central and South America, tribal histories of South Africa and Australian Aboriginals, and the medieval Crusades.

Scottish architect, designer and artist Charles Rennie Mackintosh is now famous and a major tourist draw in Glasgow, but following some early success, including his masterpiece, the Glasgow School of Art, his prospects floundered. The lecture tracks him from that early success through years of doubt and struggle, ultimately to the South of France. He travelled with his wife and collaborator Margaret and reinvented himself as a water colour painter.  

Rosalind Whyte, graduate of Goldsmith’s and Birkbeck College, is a guide and lecturer at Tate Britain, Tate Modern, the Royal Academy and Greenwich. 

Country houses are often full of historic portraits, but to today’s visitor it is not always clear who they are or why they are there. 17th and 18th century visitors knew how to ‘read’ and understand their visual cues. This lecture looks closely at clothes, poses and accessories to learn how to decode them and how they communicated status, networks and identities.   

                                     
Amy is an art historian, teacher and publisher specialising in 17th- 20th century British fine arts. She is curator of Cookham’s Stanley Spencer Gallery among others, and teaches at Oxford Lifelong Learning.

Some of the most memorable 20th century images were created, not for galleries or collectors, but record sleeves. A zebra crossing on the Beatles’ Abbey Road is a pilgrimage site. Album covers adorned by Andy Warhol, Peter Blake, Salvador Dali, Richard Hamilton and a host of other artists reveal close connections between visual and musical creativity.

Starting as a BBC journalist, Rupert studied art history, then took a Masters in Dutch Golden Age Studies. He specialises in Dutch and Flemish 16th and 17th century painting and is a guide at the Wallace Collection.

Essential foot protection since ancient times, shoes were rarely inspired simply by comfort or need, but indicate status, identity, taste. Some, like medieval poulaines and Venetian chopines, epitomise fashion’s triumph over function. Heels, invented to keep men’s feet in stirrups, became symbols of fragile female allure. Humble sandals led to sophisticated buckles, kitten heels, buttoned boots, and modern designer footwear. 

        
Curator, lecturer, writer, Jo led Adult Learning at many major galleries, was Curator at Leighton House and Assistant Keeper at Whitworth Art Gallery. and is Director of the Victorian Society Summer School.

To understand Allen and Brooks films, Colin examines them in the context of Jewish history at the time. Hollywood studios were all founded by Jews, but they never appeared on screen until after the war. Why? This was the era of the Marx Brothers, Jack Benny and Sid Caesar. How is the rising power of American Jews reflected in their humour?      

After an award-winning career in TV, radio and film, Colin has lectured on American and British social and cultural history for over 30 years at Cambridge University and elsewhere. A prolific writer, he regards his greatest cultural contribution as choosing the title music for “Juliet Bravo”.