Alexander Woodrow is the sixth organist at our spring 2020 season of Wednesday@One. We spoke to him about his upcoming organ recital to find out what we can expect from his programme as well as finding out more about his career.Could you tell us a little about your organ recital in April?<span style="font-size: 1rem;">I’m playing four pieces. From Germany, there’s a substantial Prelude and Fugue by J.S. Bach, which is a wonderful and intense piece that’s fifteen-minutes long, with brilliant counterpoint and chromatic harmony.</span>Then by Cesar Franck, a Belgium-born composer who spent most of his life working in France, we have the Pièce Héroïque. That really comes alive with the punchy swell reeds of the Bradford Cathedral organ, and the sense of space that the building’s lofty proportions lend it It’s a superb example of Romantic 19th century organ writing.On top of that I’m playing some neo-classical variations by a 20th century Dutch composer called Hendrick Andriessen, written with bright and crisp neo-baroque instruments in mind. They are a really intriguing set of variations, all with different registrations and textures.Then finally from England, the D minor Fantasia and Toccata by C.V. Stanford, which is written very much for an English romantic instrument, which allows me to draw upon the <span style="font-size: 1rem;">warmer colours of the Bradford organ, some of them of historically appropriate Victorian and Edwardian vintage.</span>Does having that variety in a programme showcase what the organ can sound like?<span style="font-size: 1rem;">I think any recital attendant likes to hear a balanced programme. When selecting a programme I try to balance different sounds, different eras and different degrees of variation in dynamics. I think it will work out as quite a colourful programme. I’ve realised that, in retrospect, every single piece is in a minor key but it’s certainly not a depressing programme! It has plenty of variety, contrast and energy.</span>Alongside your organ recital here in February, that month is also an exciting time for you in terms of a new role?<span style="font-size: 1rem;">It is, because I’m moving for at least half of the week back to Yorkshire to take up the role of Director of Music at Leeds Minster, so it will be lovely to be in the next city across from Bradford and indeed to have the cathedral just twenty minutes away from me.</span>I’ll be living in Shipley, which is very much the Bradford patch and only a few hundred yards from where I used to have a house in Saltaire, so it will be lovely to return to that neck of the woods as well.You were the Director of Music at Bradford Cathedral as well?<span style="font-size: 1rem;">Yes, I had a very enjoyable fourteen terms at Bradford and it was a very positive experience for me. I was very young at the time and it was a wonderful experience to make music at Bradford and to get fully involved with the chorister training, the outreach work, and the day to day work of the Cathedral Choir. I felt part of a warm community and met some amazing people.</span>You return to us in April with your coffee concert on piano. Have you got any sneak previews of what we can expect then?<span style="font-size: 1rem;">That will be with my brother who is a professional violinist based over in Manchester. We don’t play that regularly together but occasionally in holidays, if we’re together in York, we have fun preparing different programmes. He’s put down quite a varied selection.</span>There’s some French Romantic music on the programme; a Mozart sonata which will be really super; a Moto Perpetuo by English Composer Frank Bridge; and some Lili Boulanger and Clara Schumann. Clara Schumann’s 200th anniversary of birth was just last year so it’s very nice that her work is being re-discovered and coming more to light. The Lili Boulanger piece was from around the time of the First World War and is very colourful: it sounds a bit like Debussy. I’m looking forward to that too, playing on the cathedral’s wonderful Steinway grand piano.Finally, do you have any big plans for the year?<span style="font-size: 1rem;">For me it’s about settling into Leeds and getting a handle on the music making there, getting fully immersed in that. It’s also becoming accustomed to the idea of having two geographical bases, as I’m going to be spending half of the week in the West Midlands continuing my piano and organ teaching work at Solihull School, and running that in parallel with the post at Leeds. I’m sure to be kept busy!</span>Join us for our weekly Wednesday@One Organ Recitals at 1pm, with a lunch buffet available from 12:30pm. Alexander Woodrow will be playing on Wednesday 19th February 2020. More information on this recital, all others and this season’s coffee concerts can be found in the programme available to buy from the recitals and concerts.
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The Louisa Pesel altar cloth made by the men for the Abram Peel Hospital Chapel, that has been hanging in the Bradford Cathedral chapter house, is currently on loan to Two Temple Place as part of their exhibition Unbound Visionary Women Collecting Textiles. We spoke to Rebecca Hone, Head of Exhibitions at Two Temple Place, to tell us a little more about the cloth, the exhibition and her role.Could you tell us a little about yourself?<span style="font-size: 1rem;">I’m the Head of Exhibitions at Two Temple Place. I work very closely with the curators of the exhibition and our partner organisations. Our Winter Exhibition Programme has been developed to showcase regional public collections. We look to partner with museums, galleries and collections from outside London, and we also want to support emerging curators.</span>We don’t have a particular theme or medium of objects that we want to include in an exhibition; we’re very open to a variety of collections. In the past we’ve had exhibitions on Egyptology, modernism, and jazz, and this year it’s called Unbound: Visionary Women Collecting Textiles. We were approached by three women - June Hill, Amanda Game and Jennifer Hallam – who proposed this exhibition. They wanted to put on an exhibition to highlight the importance of textiles. We employed as an assistant curator - Lotte Crawford – and June Hill to be the lead curator. My work is to work very closely with them and as they develop the object list and narrative as I organise the logistics, such as transport, and speaking to lenders, whether those are our partner organisations or organisations like Bradford Cathedral, where there’s an important piece of work outside of our partner collections that fits into the narrative of the exhibition. The altar frontlet that we wanted to borrow accompanies the Louisa Pesel collection from the University of Leeds. I also co-ordinate the interpretation and the essays that are produced in the catalogue.It must be a challenging role, but a fascinating one to be involved in?<span style="font-size: 1rem;">It can be quite a challenge. It’s very different every year, which is exciting, as there’s a new group of artists, artworks and collections that I work with, so I’m constantly learning something new. We learn as much from our partners, if not more, as they learn from us.</span>The Louisa Pesel piece has come from Bradford Cathedral and there is also work from Cartwright Hall; was it important to work with groups from across the country?<span style="font-size: 1rem;">Absolutely. That’s really key to the mission of what we do at Two Temple Place. We want to showcase collections from outside London. We really want to reach areas and collections that we haven’t been to, or worked with, before, like Cartwright Hall in Bradford. In Unbound all seven collections are new partners for us. What’s a delight in my job is that I’ve known some of these collections already but I’ve also been introduced to many new ones. Like with Bradford Cathedral, I didn’t realise it had such an amazing altar frontal within their collection. It’s a great joy to get to know these collections.</span>What can people expect and get from the exhibition?<span style="font-size: 1rem;">I would say lots of things. What is really exciting for me is that you learn about seven remarkable women. Historically, museum collections have been collected by men and we’re highlighting some of the women who have collected. We’re also bringing to the fore such a range of textiles, which is a huge, huge term for so many different types of objects.</span>I hope that we’re opening up the idea of textiles as something that’s historically, socially and culturally important, but also they are works of art very much in their own right. We’re able to showcase lots of objects that people may not have classed as textiles, but also to encourage new visitors to come in and really enjoy viewing the textiles. Within the exhibition, the seven collections are very, very different and included within that are twentieth century English dress and costume, early twentieth century Balkan dress and costume, contemporary international art and some mid-century printmakers and fabric designers. It’s a huge idea of what comes out under the term of textiles, which is very exciting. I think people will come away with new stories about interesting women, their lives and hopefully some inspiration to build your own collections and build their understanding of the term textiles.In relation to the altar frontal in Bradford Cathedral, Louisa Pesel did important work in therapy following the first world war?<span style="font-size: 1rem;">She was instrumental in starting the Khaki Handicraft Club in Bradford in 1918, which was a club for men that had been in the first world war and had been suffering from shell shock. She taught them needlework and sewing as a form of therapy. She collection Greek and Turkish embroidery, but she was also an embroideress and a very talented sewer and pattern maker. She was inspired by Greek and Turkish embroidery and she taught these men how to sew as this type of therapy, a very early form of how art and crafts, and sewing, can help people’s mental health and well-being. She was absolutely ahead of her game on that front.</span>As well as the exhibition, you also offer supplementary activities, including to London schoolchildren. Is that an important part of what you do?<span style="font-size: 1rem;">It is. We have a really strong education programme. We offer free literacy and creativity workshops to state schools in London boroughs, and we have 33 places and they’re almost all booked up. They are really successful. We also offer lots of family activities. We have a family trail which takes you through the exhibition as a collector yourself, and we have an extended events programme including talks and tours and adult workshops. We try and offer a variety of events throughout the exhibition, hopefully letting a new group of people access the exhibition and helping visitors further explore the ideas and themes of the exhibition. They can also get creative themselves and learn something new, and we sometimes use our talks and tours to discuss themes that we haven’t really been able to develop within the exhibition itself.</span>Finally, what are your plans for the rest of 2020?<span style="font-size: 1rem;">After this exhibition we will start to prepare for next year. We haven’t made anything public yet, but we have put out a call for proposals for our next exhibition. It’s our tenth exhibition next year so we’re very excited, and we’re looking to do something on contemporary collecting practices.</span>Unbound Visionary Women Collecting Textiles runs until the 19th April 2020 at Two Temple Place in London. For more information please visit their website.
