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

Monday, May 5, 2025

A concert that surely made history - Pablo Sainz Villegas in Arturo Marquez's Concierto Mistico y Profano with Josep Vicent and the ADDA orchestra

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It is possible to run out of superlatives. We can easily pepper any description with the words “best” or “greatest”, but they have been so...

Tuesday, April 29, 2025

ADDA Alicante hosts RTVE orchestra and chorus in Brahms, Nielsen, Strauss and Borodin

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Alicante’s ADDA hosted the Orchestra and Chorus of RTVE in a concert entitled “Don Juan and Prince Igor”. The title rather ignored the fir...

The third Gonzalo Soriano Piano Competition in Alicante

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From 23rd April 26 April 2025, some 90 competitors took part in the third Gonzalo Soriano Piano Competition. The participants competed acr...

Tuesday, April 8, 2025

Vilde Frang, Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra play Beethoven and Schumann in ADDA Alicante

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A few years ago, a concert program comprising two works by Beethoven, and one by Schuman would not, for me, have aroused much interest. Th...

Sunday, March 23, 2025

La Leyenda del Príncipe y el Lago Helado: Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky in ADDA, Alicante with Orfeón Donostiarra and Silvia Tro, plus Beethoven!

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I last heard Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky in April 1985. It was a performance of the complete film score alongside the film itself, recently...

Saturday, March 1, 2025

A concert of surprises - Beethoven Piano Concert No4 and Symphony No4 featuring Joachim Gustavsson and Antonii Baryshvskyi

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What could possibly be surprising about a concert whose program listed two works by Beethoven, both numbered four, one a piano concerto and ...

Sunday, February 16, 2025

Beethoven, Bruch and Mendelssohn in ADDA Alicante with Max Bragado-Darman - a concert of surprise and excellence

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This was a program that seemed so middle-of-the-road that attendance might mean getting hit from both directions, from both predictability...

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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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