On Thursday 26 April, students and staff went to Symphony Hall in Birmingham to listen to Shostakovich's 10th Symphony performed by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.
In an event organized by Stephen Bates, a group of students and staff went to went to Symphony Hall in Birmingham to listen to Shostakovich's 10th Symphony performed by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. The trip was organised as part of Stephen's final year module, "Politics, Music & the Arts" which examines the relationship between politics and the arts by considering key works (including Shostakovich's 5th) produced within, or associated with, three years central to the political history of the 20th Century: 1937, 1968 and 1989.
As well as the concert (and ice creams during the interval), students enjoyed a talk beforehand with members of the CBSO which explored the influence of Soviet politics, Stalin's death and Shostakovich's personal life on the composer while he was writing the symphony.
Image by Trevor Cox [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons