In occasione del compleanno di William Blake, che domani compirebbe 267 anni, è in programma via Zoom una speciale conversazione online promossa dalla Blake Society londinese che tra notizie, commenti, musica e festeggiamenti vedrà la partecipazione di Susanne Sklar, Jason Whittaker e John Riordan a illustrare il nuovo Vala, pubblicazione annuale giunta al quinto numero e ora disponibile anche in formato digitale. Al suo interno c'è anche un bel contributo di Mike e Kate Westbrook, e a questo proposito si segnala che al WestbrookJazz sono ancora disponibili alcune copie - ormai piuttosto rare - del Glad Day registrato in audio e video presso i Toynbee Studios londinesi il 7 e 8 dicembre 2008. A interpretare il capolavoro di Westbrook sulle poesie di Blake con Mike e Kate c'erano allora Phil Minton, Karen Street, Billy Thompson, Steve Berry e il London College of Music Chamber Choir diretto da Paul Ayres. Da segnare sul calendario!
Vala is the name of Blake’s great unpublished work. Vala is also a character in Blake’s mythology. She is restless and difficult to pinpoint and gets almost immediately pushed into the background of Blake’s story about the fall and resurrection of Albion. Hence, Vala is referred to as the shadowy female and is a liminal, dark but potentially alluring force to be reckoned with. She represents what is fallen about ‘man’. She is also a stand-in for Nature in Blake’s complicated world of symbols and carefully layered and only gradually emerging mechanisms of meaning. Each issue of the annual magazine is loosely built around a subject. Issue 1 is themed around Children and Lockdown, issue 2 focuses on concepts of Gender and (Invisible) Female Bodies and Issue 3 explores Blake and Nature. Issue 4 tackles the topic of War and Peace in order to yet again engage with a topic of global reach. The theme of Vala issue 5 is God, and attitudes towards religion from a Blakean angle and at the interface of art, religion and science.
https://blakesociety.org/blakes-birthday-bash-and-launch-of-vala-5
https://blakesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/VALA-5.pdf
https://mikewestbrook.bandcamp.com/glad-day-live
https://www.westbrookjazz.co.uk/smithsboard/Nov2024.shtml