Courses in London & Online

Explore the astonishing range of poetic responses to a hundred years of warfare, acts of witnessing, endurance, defiance and condemnation by writers across the globe: Sassoon and Wilfred Owen in Britain, Brecht, Milosz, Celan, Akhmatova and Stepanova in Europe and Russia, Darwish and Zhadan in the Middle East and Ukraine, and many others. How do they describe the indescribable? High art or doggerel, what does it matter once the bombs start to fall?

String quartets developed new musical forms and ensured success for many composers, whilst allowing an intimate conversation with their audiences. We trace the quartets of the masters from Haydn and Mozart to Shostakovich and beyond.

During the 1960s British cinema re-established itself as a leading producer of films, including realist dramas such as Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), and action and adventure fantasies with the highly popular James Bond films. This course explores these developments through a range of critical approaches and considers the way in which they contributed to a revitalised British cinema.

Understand how to produce the sounds of Welsh with increased accuracy, confidence and intelligibility on this practical and popular online course.

Discover the rich cultural and geographical diversity which have influenced Brazilian popular music and learn about the wide variety of Brazil's musical styles both past and present.In English with some Portuguese.

This talk will explore some of the connections which maintained the Anglo-Saxons' feeling that Rome was part of their heritage.

The images of the Adoration of the Magi will be taken from medieval illuminated manuscripts, as well as panel paintings done for churches and chapels and fresco cycles. Artists covered include Italian artists such as Duccio, Giotto, Botticelli, Fra Filippo Lippi, Fra Angelico, Gentile da Fabriano, and northern Renaissance artists including Gossaert and Breughel.

Beginning around the middle of the 19th century, a ‘new Christmas’ came into the fore; a reinvented Christmas, if you will. Why did this Christmas shift as it did – to produce the modern celebration many people still enjoy today? In this course, the stories of those groups and individuals who impacted this ‘reinvention of Christmas’ will be shared.

Do you want to sound more confident, grounded, self-assured and assertive? Improve your vocal skills through a series of exercises that will support you to become more vocally confident, expressive and dynamic without appearing arrogant. This course will be delivered online.

Discover the artistic treasures of our most remote past, when our ancestors in the Ice Age created beautiful cave paintings and astounding sculpted works.

The music history book club meets towards the end of each term to discuss novels and biographies with musical themes and references relevant to the music history programme.