What's on at LMH

Below are events taking place at LMH. All welcome to attend. The booking details are below.

Tuesday 22 October, 17.45 - 18.45, Monson Room, LMH

Joris Luyendijk In Conversation with Alan Rusbridger

Joris Luyendijk was born in Amsterdam and studied in Kansas, Amsterdam, and Cairo. He is a writer, journalist and anthropologist.

He became a news correspondent for various Netherlands-based media organisations in the Middle East for a number of years. He was based in Egypt, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories. He also reported on the Second Gulf War in Iraq. His book Het zijn net mensen (2006, People Like Us) is a report of his experiences as a news correspondent in the Middle East, and quickly became a bestseller in the Netherlands.

In People Like Us, Luyendijk tells the story of his five years as a correspondent in the Middle East. He chronicles first-hand experiences of dictatorship, occupation, terror, and war. His stories cast light on a number of major crises, from the Iraq War to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, along with less-reported issues such as underage orphan trash-collectors in Cairo. The more he witnessed, the less he understood, and he became increasingly aware of the yawning gap between what he saw on the ground and what was later reported in the media.

In September 2010 Joris Luyendijk was asked to shadow the Dutch Parliament and government in The Hague for a month, resulting in a book on Dutch politics, titled Je hebt het niet van mij, maar... ("You didn't hear it from me, but..."). From 2011 Luyendijk was based in London where he worked for The Guardian. In 2017 he returned to the Netherlands, citing Brexit as the reason. In "The Joris Luyendijk Banking Blog" he provided an anthropological perspective on the financial world. In Dutch-language newspapers NRC Handelsblad and De Standaard Luyendijk commented weekly on his life in the City. His book about the City Swimming with Sharks has appeared in over fifteen countries and was the best-selling book of 2015 in the Netherlands.

Booking Link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/joris-luyendijk-in-conversation-with-alan-rusbridger-tickets-75281263285

Monday 28 October, 6pm, Talbot Hall, LMH

A special City of Sanctuary charity concert featuring acclaimed pianist, Margaret Fingerhut, is taking place at LMH aid of refugee work in Oxford.

The concert, called ‘Far from the home I love’, will be held in Talbot Hall. Drinks will be served from 6pm and the concert will start at 6.30pm.

Described by Gramophone magazine as a pianist of “consummate skill and thrilling conviction”, Margaret Fingerhut has a distinguished career which has taken her all over the world. She is particularly known for her innovative recital programmes in which she explores the highways and byways of the piano repertoire. As a concerto soloist she has appeared with the London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the London Mozart Players, in major venues such as the Royal Festival Hall, Royal Albert Hall and the Barbican. She is often heard on BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM.

City of Sanctuary UK holds the vision that nations will be welcoming places of safety for all and offers sanctuary to people fleeing violence and persecution.

The concert is free. There will be an opportunity to make a donation if you would like to, but there is no obligation.

Booking Link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/concert-with-acclaimed-pianist-margaret-fingerhut-tickets-76068662417

Friday 15 November, 17.45 - 18.45, Simpkins Lee Theatre, LMH

Hella Pick and Neal Ascherson In Conversation with Alan Rusbridger

Hella Pick is one of the trailblazers for the modern female foreign correspondent. She worked across three continents and covered the death of Yugoslavia's leader, President Tito. Yugoslavia was always the saving grace of covering the Soviet bloc,” she remembers. “While in East Germany you were followed and listened to all the time, but Tito’s regime was a symbol of independent communism. Even the American ambassador was predicting the country would survive beyond Tito. Of course, we were all wrong.” Pick will talk about her incredible career, the stories she has covered and the current challenges facing journalism.

Neal Ascherson went to King's College, Cambridge, where he read history. The historian Eric Hobsbawm was his tutor and described him as "perhaps the most brilliant student I ever had. I didn't really teach him much, I just let him get on with it." After graduating he he chose a career in journalism, first at The Manchester Guardian and then at The Scotsman, The Observer and The Independent on Sunday.He contributed scripts for the documentary series The World at War (1973–74) and the Cold War (1998). He has also been a regular contributor to the London Review of Books. Ascherson has lectured and written extensively about Polish and Eastern Europe affairs.

Booking Link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/hella-pick-and-neal-ascherson-in-conversation-with-alan-rusbridger-tickets-74950094751

Friday 15 November, 21.00, Talbot Hall, LMH

Eve Egoyan (Piano) plays Erik Satie, then a conversation with Professor Robert Orledge

Eve Egoyan

Eve Egoyan is an internationally acclaimed concert pianist based in Toronto, Canada. Eve’s curiosity draws her to re-invent the piano for herself and her audiences, to curate exceptional programmes and to commission new works by like-spirited artists and composers. Her recordings have received accolades including "Best Classical”, The Globe and Mail (1999), for her first solo CD, and one of “Ten Top” classical discs, The New Yorker magazine (2009), and “Top Classical Disc of the Year”, The Globe and Mail (2011). Eve’s recent releases include Thought and Desire, works by Linda Catlin Smith, and De Puro Amor / En Amor Duro, Maria de Alvear’s epic diptych. Recent touring includes solo recitals at the following festivals: Transart, Italy; Klangspuren, Austria; the Huddersfield Festival, U.K.; the Canberra International Music Festival and the Modulus Festival, Vancouver, Canada. Eve’s project, SOLO FOR DUET, is a deeply integrated virtuosic mix of sound, image, and unspoken narrative challenging traditional conceptions of piano and pianist is currently touring internationally. Eve was selected as one of the 25 greatest Canadian classical pianists of all time by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. She is an elected Associate of the Royal Academy of Music. www.eveegoyan.com

Erik Satie

“Dismissed as a bizarre eccentric by many, Erik Satie (1866-1925) has come to be seen as a key influence on twentieth century music. In later life he gathered round him “Les Six” and the cream of the new generation of French composers. His influence has continued to widen; John Cage and the New York School composers hailed him as “indispensable”, and more recently certain of his pieces have been seen as prefiguring both Minimalist and Ambient music.

He was a valued friend of his most illustrious contemporaries: Debussy, Brancusi, Picabia etc., and the nonconformity of his private life seems deliberately calculated: he assumed various personae at different periods of his life, from the mystical “velvet gentleman" to the Dadaist disguised as quizzical bureaucrat.

Satie referred to himself as “a man in the manner of Adam (he of Paradise)” and added: “My humour is reminiscent of Cromwell's. I am also indebted to Christopher Columbus, as the American spirit has sometimes tapped me on the shoulder, and I have joyfully felt its ironically icy bite.” He died as he lived: “without quite ceasing to smile”.

– Robert Orledge

Booking Link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/eve-egoyan-piano-plays-erik-satie-then-conversation-with-robert-orledge-tickets-72673258673

Friday 22 November, Simpkins Lee Theatre, LMH

Kamila Shamsie In Conversation with Alan Rusbridger

Kamila Shamsie is the author of seven novels, which have been translated into over 20 languages. Home Fire won the Women’s Prize for Fiction, was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and long listed for the Man Booker Prize; Burnt Shadows was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction and won the Premio Boccaccio (Italy); A God in Every Stone was shortlisted for the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature (India), and won the Anisfield-Wolf Award (USA). Three of her other novels (In the City by the Sea, Kartography, Broken Verses) have received awards from the Pakistan Academy of Letters. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and one of Granta’s ‘Best of Young British Novelists’, she grew up in Karachi, and now lives in London. She is an LMH Visiting Fellow.

Booking link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/kamila-shamsie-in-conversation-with-alan-rusbridger-tickets-72084804591

Tuesday 26 November, 17.45, Simpkins Lee Theatre, LMH

Lord Sumption In Conversation with Alan Rusbridger

Lord Sumption became a Justice of The Supreme Court in January 2012. After reading history at Magdalen College, Oxford, and serving for four years as a history Fellow of the College, Lord Sumption was called to the Bar (Inner Temple) in 1975 and took Silk in 1986. His practice covered all aspects of Commercial, EU and Competition, Public and Constitutional Law. He was appointed as a Deputy High Court Judge in 1992 and served as a Recorder between 1993 and 2001. He was appointed as a Judge of the Courts of Appeal of Jersey and Guernsey in 1995. Lord Sumption was a Judicial Appointments Commissioner from 2006 to 2011. He is also an accomplished historian.

Lord Sumption is well known for his role as a barrister in many legal cases. They include appearances in the Hutton Inquiry on the UK Government's behalf, in the Three Rivers case, his representation of former Cabinet Minister Stephen Byers and the UK Department for Transport in the Railtrack private shareholders' action against the British Government in 2005, for defending HM Government in an appeal hearing brought by Binyam Mohamed, and for successfully defending Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich in a private lawsuit brought by Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky.

He retired from the Supreme Court on 9 December 2018 .

Lord Sumption was appointed an (OBE) in 1998 and is also known for writing a substantial narrative history of the Hundred Years' War.

Booking Link https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lord-sumption-in-conversation-with-alan-rusbridger-tickets-72667645885

Tuesday 3rd December, 17.30-19.00, Paul Oster Room, LMH

Q&A with Martin Kettle, The Guardian

Martin Kettle is a British journalist and author. He studied at Balliol College, Oxford University.

Kettle worked for the National Council for Civil Liberties (now known as Liberty) as a research officer from 1973. He then began his career in journalism as home affairs correspondent for New Society (1977–1981) and moved to The Sunday Times in 1981, working as a political correspondent for three years. He has been with The Guardian since 1984. He writes a column on classical music in Prospect magazine.

Kettle is best known as a columnist for The Guardian, where he is assistant editor, having worked as the newspaper's Washington D.C. bureau chief 1997–2001. He was formerly a leader writer (1993–1997) and chief leader writer from 2001 onwards.

Booking Link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/qa-with-martin-kettle-tickets-74957372519

Queries? Email us at events.assistant@lmh.ox.ac.uk