Xtra-Diary- Classical and jazz collision - raising money for children's ward at University College London Hospital.
Published: 18 March 2011
Classical and jazz collision
IF only more private companies opened up their premises to public events!
Diary does not wish to plug the concept of the Big Society, about which it is quite dubious but if anything possibly lives up to that ill-conceived idea it is the modern jazz concert soon to be performed in the atrium of law firm Hodge Jones and Allen’s offices in Euston.
Splendidly, the concert is to raise money for the children’s ward at nearby University College London Hospital.
It will all turn around the music of Miles Davis under the baton of the classically trained Peter Wiegold.
“What we’re going to do is improvise in the kind of way that Miles Davis improvised, so we’ll get some riffs going and some solos,” Mr Wiegold said.
Weigold and his band are called Notes Inégales (a French term used to describe a genre of baroque music) which translates as “unequal notes”.
“It’s the closest classical music ever came to jazz,” Wiegold said. “It was the one time when classical music really swung, so that’s why I’ve borrowed the term.”
The band have played at the ICA and the South Bank and were described in our Review section as “one of the most exciting live things seen on a London stage”.
• The Post-Miles Davis jazz night is at Hodge Jones and Allen LLP, 180 North Gower Street, NW1, on March 31 at 7pm.
Tickets £20 – to book call Andrew Ewbank on 020 7874 8345.
‘Share your geospiritual sightings’
LONDON has a reputation as one of the most haunted cities in the world.That’s no surprise considering the capital’s dark history.
The pubs, cobbled streets, and winding alleys that we frequent every day often hide a brutal past.
Now, one of the capital’s oldest bookshops plans to record all spooky goings-on with one big “spiritual map”.
Watkins Books, in Cecil Court, has urged the public to record all paranormal experiences so it can identify ghost hunting hotspots.
Visitors can post mysterious sightings, with a date and time and any photographs they may have taken “…share your geospiritual sightings”.
So far, Westminster’s very own New Year’s Eve phantom seems to be popular. The nature-loving spook of Hyde Park is become increasingly active as spring approaches, and a fair few shady visitors have been hitting the city’s pub scene.
Go to www.watkinsbooks.com/ushahidi/
Fallout at Tepco’s Mayfair offices?
STRANGE, perhaps, that the company responsible for running and maintaining Japan’s nuclear power stations, Tokyo Electric Power Company Incorporated (Tepco Inc), has plush offices in Berkeley Square, Mayfair.
Stranger still that, according to files stored in Companies House, 20 directors were “terminated” from the board in February.
Given the chaos, Diary has been unable to track down anyone at Tepco who can explain this.
The firm’s website reveals that it announced that a major earthquake safety inspection of its Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear power station – the biggest generator of nuclear power in the country – was to begin on Monday.
It followed damage caused by a smaller earthquake in the Nigata prefecture two years ago, according to the press release published the day before the disaster last Friday.
Inspectors were due to “test reactor airtightness” and check the “vessel leak rate”.
This important work had now been suspended following the biggest quake in Japan’s history.
Will it come too late for the country facing nuclear meltdown?