CREATIVE PEEBLES FESTIVAL LECTURE 2019
Sponsored by the Tweeddale Society
Tuesday, 27th August 2019
MacFarlane Hall, Peebles, 7.30 p.m.
The Painters in my Garden
Prof. Nigel Osborne MBE, BA, BMus(Oxon), DLitt, FRCM, FEIS, FRSE
Emeritus Professor, University of Edinburgh
Consultant, Peking University
Field officer, SAWA for Development and Aid, Bekaa Valley, Lebanon
The speaker writes:
“‘The Painters in my Garden’ and ‘The Painters in my Garden 2’ are titles of a pieces of music I wrote celebrating the Glasgow boys, who in the 1890s painted in my small village in the Scottish Borders, Cockburnspath, and even in my garden.
“Their paintings remind us of many other stories about the village, ranging from Hutton’s discovery of modern geology among the cliffs beside the village, to the bell which the family who made Beethoven’s favourite piano, the Broadwoods of nearby Oldhamstocks, placed in the tower of Cockburnspath church.
“My talk is a meander among the paintings and their stories, with a little music.”
Nigel Osborne is a creative musician, community musician and aid worker. As a composer he has received wide international recognition, including the Netherlands Gaudeamus prize, the Opera Prize of Radio Suisse Romande, the Koussevitzky Award of the Library of Congress, Washington and the British Academy of Songwriters and Composers Inspiration Award; for his humanitarian work he has been awarded a Queen’s Prize and the Freedom Prize of the Peace Institute Sarajevo.
He has pioneered methods of using music to support children who are victims of conflict in the Balkans, Caucasus, Middle East, East Africa and South East Asia, and has worked extensively in the field of creative arts and medicine as both practitioner and researcher.
