Recent Events
Zaide: a narration in rhymed couplets to Mozart’s unfinished Singspiel of 1779-80 was commissioned in 2007 from William Radice by Trinity College of Music and performed in London at St John’s, Smith Square (8 November, in aid of CRUSE Bereavement Care) and Blackheath Halls (22 November). The conductor was Tom Hammond, and the role of Zaide was sung by Stefanie Kemball-Read.
On 14 October 2007, William Radice gave a talk at SOAS on ‘Tagore: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow’, as part of a day-long seminar, ‘India’s Tryst with Destiny’, organized by The Tagoreans to commemorate India’s 60 years of independence.
On 15 July, at Shepherd’s Dene, Riding Mill, Northumberland, a hymn was sung by members of the Riding Mill madrigal group, specially written by William Radice to mark the retirement of Rev. Christopher Lewis as Vicar of St James, Riding Mill. The hymn was written to the famous Welsh tune Calon lân. For the words and music, click here.
Card Country (Tasher desh) in William Radice’s translation (see Forthcoming Books) was performed in the summer of 2007 by the Bangalore School of Speech and Drama.
On 6 September 2007 William Radice gave a talk called ‘Combining Bengal with Riding Mill’ to the Women’s Institute in Riding Mill, Northumberland.
On 9 June 2007, he gave a talk called ‘The Future of Rabindrasangit’ in Glasgow, invited by the Glasgow branch of The Tagore Centre UK.
On 14 March 2007 he gave a talk at Sunderland University called ‘Translating Rhythm’.
In December 2006 the children’s opera, Chincha-Chancha Cooroo, or The Weaver’s Wedding, music by Bernard Hughes, libretto by William Radice, was performed by W11 Opera at the Britten Theatre of the Royal College of Music. For information about this and other W11 productions, see http://www.w11opera.org/past_years/2006.html
On 15 November 2006 he spoke at Wadham College, Oxford on Creativity in Poetry and Mathematics, invited by Dr Marcus du Sautoy. (See Sound)
On 26 October 2006 he spoke at the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne on Tagore’s songs.
At the ‘Voices of Bengal’ festival, British Museum, September-November 2006, he spoke on Tagore’s poetry at the Tagore Study Day on 14 October.
On 22 March 2006, he gave a talk on ‘Tagore’s Gifts to English’ as part of an evening function entitled ‘Tagore’s Gifts to English’, sponsored by the English-Speaking Union and the Royal Commonwealth Society, and masterminded by Mr Michael Marland, CBE. The talk has been published in the volume Gitanjali: Song Offerings (Kolkata, 2007: see Other Publications). To read it, click here.
In March 2006 William Radice was given an honorary D.Litt by Assam University, Silchar, India for his services to Bengali language and literature. In April 2006 he was made an Honorary fellow of the Bangla Academy (National Academy of Letters) in Dhaka, Bangladesh – the first non-Bengali to be given this honour.
On a lecture tour of Kolkata, Santiniketan and Dhaka in March-April 2006 he gave the following lectures:
| 'Writing Words for Music' (British Council, Kolkata, 26 March) |
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'Never Not an Educator’ (Ramakrishna Mission, Kolkata, 29 March at a conference on Tagore’s philosophy of education) |
| ‘Translation as Creation’ (Department of English, Calcutta University, 28 March) |
| 'The Future of Rabindrasangit’ (Sudhakar Chattapadhyay Memorial Lecture, Santiniketan, 31 March) |
| 'Translation as Art not Theory’ (Department of English, Dhaka University, 3 April) |
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'Rhythm and Rasa’ (British Council, Dhaka, 4 April) |
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'What Sort of Sonnets Did Michael Madhusudan Dutt Write?’ (Department of Bengali, Dhaka University, 5 April) |
He plans to collect these and other related lectures and essays into a book to be called TAGORE OR MADHUSUDAN? LECTURES AND ESSAYS 1995-2006, to be published by D. C. Publishers in Delhi.
In November 2005, he contributed a paper on the songs of Rabindranath Tagore to the conference CLAIMING A CULTURAL ICON: INTERPRETATIONS & MISREPRESENTATIONS of RABINDRANATH TAGORE, held at New College, University of Toronto and sponsored by the Chancellor Jackman Program for the Arts. At a dinner on 12 November he read out a poem he had written during the night before: ‘Talking at Night to Rabindranath’. To read the poem, click here.
On a trip 30 May – 7 June 2005 to Eastern Europe, William Radice gave lectures on Tagore in the Universities of Koper (Slovenia), Budapest (Hungary) and Miercurea Ciuc (Transylvania in Romania). He also gave poetry readings in Ljubljana (Slovenia) and Miercurea Ciuc. The poetry reading in Ljubljana was held at the Cankarjev dom and was given jointly with the Slovenian translator Ana Jelnikar. For her translation of William Radice’s poem Autistic Children, click here.
On 7 May 2004 at The Bleddfa Centre in Powys (www.bleddfacentre.com), William Radice gave a day-long workshop entitled, ‘Teach me the Tune: the life and works of Rabindranath Tagore’.