Calendar of American Culture in the UK

Folk America : Concerts at the Barbican & BBC TV Documentary

Music  Two concerts, produced by the Barbican and in association with BBC Four will celebrate the enduring influence of American Folk music. This is a chance to see fresh young talent as well as bona fide legends. The Folk America concerts accompany a landmark documentary series of the same name on BBC Four, which tells the epic story of the American folk revival from the 1920s to the 1960s.

Full details of the concerts and tickets are available from the Barbican website at www.barbican.org.uk.

BBC Documentary  On three successive Fridays starting on January 23, BBC Four will present Folk America. Celebrating the American Folk Revival, this is a three part series on the making of American folk music, from the recording boom of the 1920s to the folk revival of the 1960s. Both the series and the concerts will be broadcast on BBC Four alongside archive documentaries and sessions on January 23, January 30, and February 6, 2009.

Concerts: 21 & 22 January 2009

BBC Four documentary: 23 & 30 January, 06 February 2009

'Of the people, by the people, for the people': Abraham Lincoln's legacy in the 21st century

The issues of freedom, equality, enfranchisement, engagement and discrimination are discussed by a transatlantic panel of speakers at the British Library. Speakers include Professor Charles Bullock (University of Georgia), Professor Tony Badger (Master of Clare College, Cambridge), and Professor Roger Wilkins (George Mason University), chaired by Allan Little (BBC special correspondent). Full details are available on the Eccles Centre's website.

09 February 2009

Minnesota Orchestra featuring Joshua Bell

In their sixth season together, and almost three years after their last visit to Europe, Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra appear at the Barbican on 24th February 2009 with a transatlantic program full of both energy and lyricism: John Adams (Slonimsky's Earbox), Samuel Barber (the Violin Concerto, with soloist Joshua Bell), and Ludwig van Beethoven (Symphony No. 3). The concert is part of a European tour that also covers Germany, Luxembourg, and Austria.
Full details including tickets are on Barbican website.

24th February 2009

Saul Steinberg: Illuminations

A first for Dulwich Picture Gallery and England, featuring a retrospective collection of more than 100 works by the Romanian born American artist and satirist. His work lit up the pages of the New Yorker magazine for 6 decades. Full details are available on the Dulwich Picture Gallery's website.

26 November 2008-15 February 2009

London Philharmonic Orchestra performing:Rachmaninov, Mozart and Strauss

The London Philharmonic Orchestra featuring the Californian pianist Leon Fleisher performing Mozart's Piano Concerto 23, K488 at the Royal Festival Hall
Details of the event can be found on the LPO's website.

20 February 2009

The Purcell Singers / Barber's Agnus Dei and other pieces

London-based choir, the Purcell Singers, are performing a set of Lenten pieces, including Barber's wonderfully evocative Agnus Dei (the choral version of his Adagio for Strings), at St James's Church, Piccadilly. Full details are available at www.purcellsingers.org/2008/12/04/st-jamess-picadilly/?id=71

Saturday, 21 February 2009, 7.30pm

Blue Heaven by Tennessee Williams

The Finborough Theatre London SW10, presents three works by Tennessee Williams. Blue Heaven focuses on the theme of fantasy versus reality as its characters strive to escape socially unfulfilling lives through the power of dreams. Blue Heaven features Williams' rarely performed short plays "This Property is Condemned"," Moony's Kid" and "Auto-Da-Fe" during the sixty-minute show. The cast features Ben Porter, Tricia Kelly, Alex Beckett, Oliver Coopersmith, Charlotte Beaumont and Victoria Boreham. Supported by Old Vic New Voices.For more information visit the Finbourough Theartre website.

February 8th - 23rd 2009

Woody Guthrie: Hard Times and Hard Travellin'

A live musical programme at the British Library - the songs of Woody Guthrie are both performed and set in the context of the political turmoil of 1930s America by Will Kaufman, professor of American literature and culture at the University of Central Lancashire. Full details are available on the Eccles Centre's website.

25 February 2009

Doctor Atomic

In a major new co-production, ENO and the Metropolitan Opera, New York, present JOHN ADAMS's (Nixon in China) powerful new work on the creation of the atomic bomb and the human relationships behind it. Adam's profoundly beautiful Doctor Atomic focuses on the moral dilemmas of J. Robert Oppenheimer as he becomes 'the destroyer of worlds' (as quoted from Gandhi's translation of the Bhagavad Gita).
For more information, and to book tickets, please see www.eno.org/doctoratomic

25 February - 20th March

London Philharmonic Orchestra performing: Brahms and Tchaikovsky

Featuring the American pianist Nicholas Angelich performing Brahms' Piano Concerto 2, at the Royal Festival Hall
Details of the event can be found on the LPO's website.

1 April 2009

OOHRAH! by Bekah Brunstteter

The Finborough Theatre, London SW10 presents,the European premiere of Oohrah!, by New York Old Vic New Voices writer Bekah Brunstetter, twice winner of the Samuel French Theatre Festival. Directed by Georgina Guy, Brunstetter's play sheds light on the military's psychological effects on an American family living in Fayetteville, North Carolina-a town recently voted the most pro-military in America by a TIME Magazine poll. Supported by Old Vic New Voices.For more information visit the Finborough Theatre website at www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk

March 22nd - April 6th 2009

“The Global Lincoln”

Co-sponsored by the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and the University of Oxford, “The Global Lincoln” will explore the international legacy of the Sixteenth President in the bicentenary of his birth.
For more information, please see: www.lincolnbicentennial.gov or contact Tim Pottle, Assistant Director of Oxford’s Rothermere American Institute, at assistant.director@rai.ox.ac.uk .

03 - 05 July 2009