The Baggs Memorial Happiness Lecture with Charles Hazlewood

This year, we are pleased to welcome you back on to campus once again, to the Baggs Memorial Happiness Lecture, with Charles Hazlewood.

Charles Hazlewood won first prize in the European Broadcasting Union Conducting Competition while still in his twenties, and has since conducted many of the world's greatest orchestras.

He has played New York's Carnegie Hall, the BBC Proms, performed the first ever orchestral headliner at Glastonbury Festival and collaborated with artists as diverse as Nigel Kennedy, Wyclef Jean, Philip Glass and Goldie.

Charles founded and is Artistic Director of the world's first large-scale professional ensemble of virtuoso musicians with and without disabilities - Paraorchestra - who made their debut at the Closing Ceremony of the London 2012 Paralympics.

Charles has authored, presented and conducted the music in multiple landmark films for BBCTV and Sky Arts, and has won three Sony Radio Academy Awards for his shows on BBC Radio 2 & 3. He was a recent castaway on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, and has three TED talks to his name.

We look forward to welcoming Charles to hear his personal insight into the subject of Happiness and how it can be achieved, and the role music plays in this.

The Baggs Memorial Happiness Lecture began in 1976. Born in Birmingham in 1889, Thomas Baggs was an alumnus of the University who went on to become a teacher, journalist and a war correspondent for the Daily Mail before pursuing a successful career in advertising and publicity for the USA automobile industry.

When he died in 1973 Thomas bequeathed a substantial sum to the University to provide for an annual public lecture on the theme of ‘Happiness - what it is and how it may be achieved by individuals as well as nations.’

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