Shany Hagan is a Celebrity Charity Artist and she has just finished her painting of Harry Gration MBE, who sadly died suddenly last Friday at the age of 71. She said that Harry loved his coffee in the morning with his family and so decided to use coffee as the medium for her painting.

It is now one year since I wrote a blog entry about the possibility of setting up a web-based poetry bank to help plug a publication gap for poets who write for children.

Singer songwriter Brooke Law recently released her new song We All Need Saving within Mental Health Awareness Week (9-15 May 2022), writing about how our mental health was affected during the pandemic lockdown. As she starts to build towards live shows, we caught up with her to find out what inspired her to write the release.

Every June thousands of rock music fans gather at Castle Donington for what is unquestionably the rock event of the year - the Download Festival. Held over three days alongside the famous racing track the festival attracts the biggest names in rock music.

The cover photograph from the series of ‘Scattered Dreams’ by Susannah Baker-Smith sums up the spirit of this album. Hahn’s beautifully evocative and delectable miniatures are ethereal which Pavel Kolesnikov conveys so brilliantly.

Diane Parkes speaks to the stars of The Play What I Wrote prior to its visit to the north

A paradox lies at the heart of Clare Shaw’s shattering new collection: striving, almost childlike, to order love in an anxiety of intractable images, her disclosure of unease is counter-intuitively strident. For performance is one of Shaw’s strongest suits and the banging of a resounding drum is a sincere means of attempting to negotiate a passage towards self-understanding.

Marc-André Hamelin provides an opportunity to momentarily forget the woes of the world with a fun-filled, entertaining album celebrating the high-spirited world of ragtime.

Together flax jute cotton wire willow wool raffia grass bamboo even a ripped newspaper’s weasel words may be twined braided or knotted woven into a common bond warp and weft synergy from vibrant difference As if to illustrate a sense of natural overlap and complementarity, Robert Gibson’s fine poem of condensed, serpentine power is rendered entirely without punctuation.

This CD, telling the tale of the emotional difficulties of a young journeyman Miller’s infatuation with the miller maid, her acquiescence and subsequent rejection of him for a glamorous huntsman and his suicide in the millstream, completes Gerald Finley and Julius Drake’s survey of the great Schubert song cycles.

Whether an opera lover or not, you probably have an opinion about Richard Wagner. Wasn’t he the favourite composer of Adolf Hitler? Yes he was. Wasn’t he that paranoid anti-Semite? Yes he was. Didn’t critics in his own time describe his music as ‘immoral’, ‘poisonous’ and ‘degenerate’? Yes they did. However, wasn’t he also one of the greatest musical theorists of the European tradition?

Peter Donohoe has chosen a lovely selection of Grieg's Lyric Pieces on this first volume. Starting his recital with Klokkeklang, he immediately sets the scene for what is to follow, delicate, expressive playing with well-controlled crescendos and diminuendos. Donohoe’s playing has an aura of warmth is immensely lyrical and intimate.

Around the world it is widely acknowledged that the British do pomp, pageantry, and ceremonial extremely well. Whether it be the Trooping of the Colour or a service in our de facto national cathedral, St Paul’s, the grandeur of the music from the Kneller Hall State Trumpeters, military bands, organs, or our cathedral choirs, make us proud of our long traditions and our heritage.

A North Duffield artist called Shany Hagan has just finished a painting with a difference. The painting is called The Jubilee High Tea. Shany Hagan is a mum to one son and spends her time painting and donating her art to different charities, so far raising over £250k for some 30 charities. She paints for the NHS, celebrities and their charities, film covers and Royal commissions.

Nestled amongst my collection of often tenebrific Russian classics, the works of Turgenev seem to pulse as soft lucent beacons. His novels do not scar the retina of the reader with the blinding, dramatic lightning of Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy, but instead offer us the altogether more subtle tones and hues of a literary sonata.

If your taste in popular music is Jazz, Blues, Swing, Country or, more broadly, what these days gets called Nostalgia thenthe Retrospective label, brought out by Nimbus Records,might well be for you. Out on the 1st of June is a fine budget-priced 2-cd collection of 48 of the best of the legendary jazz trumpeter Hot Lips Page.

Will Young 20 Years: The Greatest Hits. CD 1 Evergreen; Light My Fire; The Long and Winding Road with Gareth Gates; You and I; Leave Right Now; Your Game; Friday's Child; All Time Love; Who Am I; Changes; Grace; Jealousy; Come On; Losing Myself; Love Revolution; Joy; All The Songs; Daniel; Why Does It Hurt – New Track; Breaking Free – New Track. CD2 Leave Right Now - Z…