James MacMillan: 'The 'creative artists' who attacked BP and the Tate do not speak for me'

James MacMillan has entered the debate about BP's arts sponsorship, with a typically hard-hitting article in today's Telegraph: 'When I read that 171 artists had written to the Guardian attacking Tate Britain for accepting sponsorship money from BP, I couldn’t decide whether they were just being stupid, gesturally romantic in true luvvy style, or downright hypocritical. They were certainly being presumptuous in the implication that the arts community (whatever that is) would support them.

I for one, do not, and I know many others involved in culture who would profoundly disagree with their luddite, eco-fascist utopianism.'

Here's a link to the complete article and one to James' own recently started blog.

LondonJazz review

Great review on the LondonJazz blog of our Monteverdi concert last Friday. Sebastian Scotney wrote: 'The trickiest, the most high-wire of the performances was "Che vol che m'innamori." Time and again Julian Joseph on piano and Mark Hodgson on bass pared the volume down, in order to hand over to the the two quietest instruments on the stage: the chittarone of David Miller or/and the harp of Frances Kelly. For my ears, it was Kelly's faultless judgment of the precise length of the silence to leave before taking over the story from Julian Joseph, and her judgment of dynamic and of mood in this piece, which produced the most deeply affecting moment of the evening.' Read the full review here.

Jazz meets Monteverdi on Radio 3

BBC Radio 3 recorded our two Monteverdi concerts at the Spitalfields Festival last night for broadcast on Performance on 3 next Friday 2 July at 7.00pm. Reaction to our collaboration with Julian Joseph was excellent, and there was a stimulating discussion afterwards with members of the audience who wanted to unpick the perennial problem of how jazz musicians 'do jazz' and how you go on to combine its freedom and improvisiation with structured, notated music. What was remarkable was how our continuo section relished the occasion!