This is a great venue, expensively restored not long ago - it would be a real shame for Halifax to lose it: www.megaphone.org.uk/petitions/sa...

So…about AI’s energy use… “…to create a five-second video, a newer AI model uses ‘about 3.4 million joules, more than 700 times the energy required to generate a high-quality image’. That's the equivalent of running a microwave for over an hour.”

West Midlands film enthusiasts - one of the great silent comedies, with live improvised piano accompaniment, later today www.regaltenbury.co.uk/events/safet...

Can anyone with a highly trained editorial eye spot the mistake on this front page ? 😂

Picked up piano parts for playing in orchestra later this week; this sign-off from the copyist at the end of John Adams Short Ride made me smile

The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People. A couple of years old now, from @georgemonbiot.bsky.social A long read so get yourself a cuppa. TLDR = 8 billion+ people need an efficient food system not a rural fantasy. #food #sustainability #doughnuteconomics www.monbiot.com/2023/10/04/t...

The right time of year for the satisfyingly cynical 'Spring' by Edna St Vincent Millay (1892-1950). I discovered it thanks to the wonderful @kukukadoo.bsky.social who posted it on X (but sadly doesn't seem to post on here).

In a change to the schedule, our final concert of the current organ recital series this Monday lunchtime at Leeds Cathedral will be a tribute to Simon Lindley. I'll be joined by David Greed, violin, to perform pieces he regularly played with Simon, as well as some of SGL's favourite organ pieces.

Remember that public outrages in the name of 'authority' are committed in the UK too. www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Two new concerts from Leeds online - Tom Winpenny's fantastic recital from February, and mine for International Women's Day - here's a taster from that of Rachel Laurin's spectacular Toccata - a lot of work but worth the effort! www.leedsconcertseason.co.uk/watch-online/

A gobsmacking story. Water companies let toxic waste disposers, for cash, dump their loads into sewage farms. The sewage sludge is then spread, untested, on farmland, potentially poisoning vast areas, entire ecosystems and the people (you and me) eating the food. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

A suitable epitaph for a musician? ‘A life devoted to the study of musical science, and shortened by unremitting application and anxiety in attainment of its object’. Stephen Storace, aged 36, English composer and brother of Nancy (who was the first Susanna in Marriage of Figaro).

Any organ music enthusiasts in Central London this Saturday, it would be great to see you at Bloomsbury Baptist church at 4pm - I’ll be playing Demessieux, Bach, Saint-Saens, Mendelssohn, Franck, Coates and Lemare.

The hidden-away bill charting a course back to Europe: No-one wants you to look at the product safety and metrology bill and there's a really good reason for that iandunt.substack.com/p/the-hidden...

Rehearsing Philip Glass with the Halle today with the Halle with the Halle the Halle the Halle with the Halle with the Halle with the Halle the Halle with the Halle the Halle with the with the Halle the Halle with the Halle etc (repeat 3x) (also trying to avoid RSI)

Just finished this, and can’t recommend it highly enough. So moving and beautifully written.

A concert millions of years in the making! 🦕🦖 'Unearthed', a choral celebration of palaeontology in Oxford, includes works by Pearsall, Clara Schuman, and Whitcare as well as the world premiere of 'Monster' by @hutchingsmusic.bsky.social. Tickets on sale now. 🎟️ oumnh.ox.ac.uk/event/city-o...

Hoping to get Leeds Concert Season to leave the other place and start posting here, but meanwhile I'll be posting our recital videos here. This is Gordon Stewart's excellent concert from last week with some rarities! www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMOo...

I enjoyed this thread, learnt some useless zoological info as well

I know academics who use AI regularly, for work and play, and I'd really like them, and universities, to tell me how they contend with AI's bottomless appetites for power and water. Is asking ChatGPT to interpret a Xmas song or making it write your syllabus worth this to you?

Youngest gave me a John Cooper Clarke collection. Think this is my favourite. Brutal but true

Today in Liverpool.

The amazing Robert and Debra have completed the Leeds Town Hall facade pipe restoration! Have a look for the video on FB from the Upright Gilders (I can’t make the link work here, so here are a couple of pictures.)

I love it when @petroc.bsky.social plays something that makes you stop what you're doing and just listen - that Earl Wild/Gershwin was just wonderful - thank you!

Was recently entertained to learn that Herbert Howells used to call his ABRSM examining duties 'ass-boarding'. I hope he would have enjoyed my examining room this week, complete with bar and slowly rotating glitter-ball, as much as I did.

I can’t believe that a year ago I didn’t know this piece, and now I’ve played the organ for it 3 times, with 3 choirs, 2 conductors, and directed many choir rehearsals. I still find more in it every time, the beauty, intensity and total mastery of harmony and orchestration. It’s just extraordinary.

It was a great recital - well worth a listen!