Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
Christmas is big at Oxford University Press and carol-related tasks continue virtually all year. We publish most of the festive music that the world knows and loves, and our editors started working on carols for this Christmas in the summer of 2012. We’re all carolled out every year by August! October, November, and December are particularly frantic for our Music Hire Library.
Every year, around mid-April, music lovers await the news that the BBC proms schedule has been announced. We look forward to the old favourites, the new commissions, the excited atmosphere, and some of the best performers in the world. When summer arrives, scores of people—young and old alike—travel to London to visit the Royal Albert Hall and be part of this great British tradition.
By Ruth Fielder
At the age of sixteen I was told that I would no longer be able to play my beloved trumpet, due to medical complications. The only alternative, to uphold my county scholarship and commitments to orchestras and brass bands, was to take up the tuba. The arrogant trumpeter that I was back then was horrified at this cumbersome instrument, cuddling a great lump of brass that seemed to prove no merit to my sense of style or popularity.
By Simon Wright
One hundred years ago this month the bodies of Captain Scott and his companions were discovered, eight months after they had perished from starvation, frostbite, and exposure on their return journey from the South Pole. Ostensibly a scientific and research expedition, Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his party had raced against Roald Amundsen to be first at the South Pole, and lost.
It’s September, which means back-to-school in the world of education, but for classical music it’s a different start, that of the 2012-13 opera season. In the old days opera was a grand affair; the first night of a production meant black tie and opera cloaks. These days its far more relaxed, and you won’t be frowned upon if you’re wearing jeans at the Royal Opera House.