Philip Spires commonplace book

I have kept a commonplace book for many years. It's a place where scraps of impressions are filed for future reflection. It's not a diary, it's just a mental scrapbook, concentrating on book reviews, concert reviews, visual arts and some occasional pieces on travel. It is also a place where I occasionally reflect on what I write. Details of my books can be found at http://www.philipspires.co.uk

Showing posts with label la nucia. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Joaquin Palomares and Bruno Canino playing Brahms, Grieg and Franck

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The joy of music is that it is new every time it is played. There is no such thing as a definitive version of anything. A composer indicates...

Monday, December 10, 2007

Costa Blanca Arts Update - Interpretation perfected by presentation – the Berlin Mendelssohn Trio in Palau Altea, Altea, Spain

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One of the great, even reassuring, things about what the CD shops ignorantly label “Classical Music” is its freedom, its liberality, its dem...

Sunday, July 15, 2007

An orchestral concert 14 July 2007, Festival – Nits de la Mediterrania, La Nucia - Twentieth Century Ballets

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The final concert of the inaugural La Nucia arts festival took place last night. Starting at 10:30pm, it was staged in the town’s recently c...

Friday, July 13, 2007

Puss in Boots (El Gato con Botas), an opera by Xavier Montsalvatge

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Just occasionally – in fact pretty rarely these days – something utterly surprising emerges from an evening in a concert hall. Almost forty ...

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About Me

philipspires: I was born in Wakefield and was brought up in Sharslton, a mining Village. I went to London University and then became a maths teacher, working initially as a volunteer teacher in Kenya. I spent sixteen years in London, in Balham and Islington. In 1992, I left Britain for Brunei and then Zayed University in Abu Dhabi. I currently live in La Nucia, near Benidorm in Spain. I am interested in the relationship between nature and nurture, birthright and experience. Themes of culture and identity and their relation to economic and social roles underpin my writing. What we are born into relates to what we become, but we are rarely in control. What others do, our interests and intellects and the way we choose to earn a living, all of these shape us into what we become. It may be that culture is the sum of all assumptions that others make on our behalf, whereas identity represents our reactions to them. I did a PhD on the effects of education in economic development in the Philippines. I was President of Alfas del Pi Music Society for twelve years.

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