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 valencia. Show all posts

Monday, January 12, 2026

Nacho de Paz in Valencia conducts Scriabin and Messiaen and achieves revelatory sounds

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Nacho de Paz had a challenging program to conduct in his concert with the Orchesta de València. It ’ s not that the music was especially dif...

Thursday, December 11, 2025

Verdi's Luisa Miller in Les Arts Valencia is a triumph for all concerned

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Giuseppe Verdi set Salvador Cammarano ' s adaptation of S c hiller’s Kabale und Liebe (Intrigue and Love) to music to produce the fi...

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Edmon Levon conducts the Valencia Youth Orchestra in Coleridge-Taylor, González Gomá, Rossini and Tchaikovsky, with Ignacio Soler

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In human affairs, enthusiasm is often associated with youth, whereas competence that approaches perfection is usually only possible in mat...

Monday, December 18, 2023

Gustavo Gimeno and the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana in Sibelius and Mahler

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Gustavo Gimeno conducted the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana in the latest concert of ADDA’s Pasions season. The program juxtaposed two...

Friday, February 17, 2023

It’s all in the detail – Madama Butterfly in Valencia, December 2021

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Puccini’s Madame Butterfly is a very well-known, much loved, and indeed popular opera. The genre is replete with femmes fatales , Butterfly,...

Monday, January 23, 2023

Jenufa by Leos Janacek in Valencia – simple triumph for Corinne Winters

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Of all operas, there are a couple by Leos Janacek that I would profess to ‘know’, in that I have seen multiple productions, read and studied...

Tuesday, January 25, 2022

Costa Blanca Arts Update – Orquesta de Valencia under Trigueros and guitarists in Alicante

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Two concerts in five days might sound quite a lot, but we achieved that by skipping the others on offer. But could one imagine two more diff...

Thursday, December 16, 2021

It’s all in the detail – Madama Butterfly in Valencia

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Puccini’s Madame Butterfly is a very well-known, much loved, and indeed popular opera. The genre is replete with femmes fatales , Butterfly,...

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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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