Author: GRB

it’s just under three weeks until our very specialmusic and literature event at Bristol Beacon. The evening will feature multi award-winning author, Jonathan Coe, and a live performance from two of Bristol’s most accomplished musicians, Marian Givens and Juliet McCarthy.

This week sees the official publication of the novel Jonathan will be discussing at the event, Lessons in Harmony, a fictional account of the friendship between the composers Ralph Vaughan Williams and Maurice Ravel. To mark the occasion we wanted to share some quotes from a few of the early rave reviews the novel has received, starting with this piece in The Guardian:

‘A tender and generous novel … It is also a masterful examination of national identity and how it shapes us.’ Clare Clark, The Guardian

‘The writing has all the subtlety and wit that is customary for Jonathan Coe, but rare, and there is so much wisdom in it – about the sacrifices demanded of the friends and partners in the orbit of a musical genius, about rivalry, disappointment, and the convulsions of world politics.’ Clare Chambers

‘Lessons In Harmony … is as witty, lapidary and elegant as a Ravel miniature and as rich and deep as Vaughan Williams at his most lyrical.’ Stuart Maconie

‘Absolutely wonderful … A book that slowly, quietly reveals its themes and points of view. Beautifully, elegantly, movingly done.’ Chris Addison

At the event, Jonathan will be discussing the novel (his 16th!) and the influence music has had on his work. And in a celebration of the book’s central theme, Bristol Ensemble’s Marian Givens and Juliet McCarthy will give a live performance of Ravel’s spellbinding Sonata for Violin and Cello – an occasion not to be missed.

We couldn’t be more excited about this unique, one-off opportunity to hear from one of the UK’s leading fiction writers of the last several decades, and to experience live the work of one of the 20th century’s most influential composers.

Tickets for the event are available from Bristol Beacon’s website, here.

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Copies of the new volume, Tolka 12, will be on sale at the event, as will a selection of previous issues.

This is a great opportunity to mark the latest iteration of a groundbreaking and visionary publication, and to hear from some wonderful writers.

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Marianne Brooker is the author of Intervals, which won the Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize and the Bread and Roses Prize. Her work has been published in The Observer, LitHub, Vittles, ArtReview and Parapraxis. She’s currently working on a book about friendship, madness and the welfare state.

Eva O’Connor is an award-winning writer and performer from Ogonnelloe, Co. Clare who makes work for stage, screen and radio and runs Sunday’s Child theatre company with collaborator Hilldegard Ryan. Her plays include MUSTARD, Overshadowed, Chicken (co-written with Hildgegard Ryan), The Kerryman and For Dolores.

Ralf Webb is the author of poetry collections Highway Cottage and Rotten Days in Late Summer, as well as the nonfiction book Strange Relations, which was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. His poems, essays, and fiction have appeared widely. His debut novel, Two Lovers, is out in 2027.

Liam Harrison is a founding editor of the literary journal Tolka and a senior lecturer in creative writing at the University of the West of England.

About Tolka

Tolka is a biannual literary journal of non-fiction: publishing essays, reportage, travel writing, auto-fiction, individual stories and the writing that flows in between. Tolka publishes work that is formally promiscuous and which does not always fall into neat categories. Tolka encourage writers to test the creative boundaries of non-fiction.

Tolka have published some of the most innovative contemporary Irish writers, such as Eimear McBride, Brian Dillon, Roisin Kiberd, Niamh Campbell, Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe, and strongly promote new writers and new writing, and publish writers from around the globe.

What the dresses know is a enlightening history of the modernist age, told through some of the movement’s most significant women and the clothes they fashioned and wore: Frida Kahlo, Gertrude Stein, Zora Neale Hurston, Mina Loy and many more.

‘Pioneering women were at the heart of modernism. In What the dresses know, Sophie Oliver offers a new account of their radical experiments and extraordinary lives, told through the clothes they made and wore.

‘From a dress Vanessa Bell rescued from the London Blitz to Frida Kahlo’s huipiles and a waistcoat embroidered for Gertrude Stein by Alice B. Toklas, these special objects tell a story of artists seeking transformation. But getting dressed is rarely straightforward. Modernist women used clothes to think through the contradictions of the modern world: the inequalities of industrialisation, the terrible conformities demanded by fascism and racism and the call of feminists, socialists and avant-gardists to act differently and take up new forms of art.

‘What the dresses know is an exhilarating account of women’s bold attempts to make history during years of tumultuous change. A distinctive new voice in cultural criticism, Oliver uses clothes to explore the challenges modernist women faced – and to understand her own impulses in writing about them.’

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‘This bold, sensitive and beautifully written book probes the seams where art and life collide, exploring the material realities – and imaginative possibilities – revealed by the intriguing clothes of these fascinating modernist women.’ Francesca Wade, author of Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife

‘Sophie Oliver not only writes brilliantly about the history of garments, she writes about the bodies in them and the narratives that made and unmade them, dressed and undressed them. This is an essential work of scholarship and insight and heart and care.’ Hilton Als, author of The Women

‘Extraordinary, profound and inspiring… every chapter felt like a form of magic.’ Claire Wilcox, author of Patch Work: A Life Amongst Clothes

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Sophie Oliver is a critic, curator and academic at the University of Liverpool, where she teaches modernism and feminism. An AHRC/BBC New Generation Thinker, she writes for the TLS, Literary Review and Art Review and has curated exhibitions at the British Library, the National Poetry Library and the Harry Ransom Center.

Sian Norris is a writer and journalist. Her work has appeared in The Times, Guardian, Observer, i news, and openDemocracy. She is the author of Bodies Under Siege: how the far right attack on reproductive rights went global.

We have a unique, very special evening of music and literature lined up for you.

The event will feature a conversation with the much loved multi-award winning writer, Jonathan Coe, and a live performance from two of Bristol’s most accomplished classical musicians, Marian Givens and Juliet McCarthy

Jonathan is the author of a host of modern classics such as Middle England, The Rotter’s Club, The Proof of My Innocence and What a Carve Up! His new book, Lessons in Harmony, is a stunning, heartfelt novel about the exhilarating beauty and power of music. Set between Britain and Belle Epoque Paris, it is a fictional account of the unlikely friendship between composers Ralph Vaughan Williams and Maurice Ravel, during the turbulent years leading up to and following the First World War.

This is a unique, one-off opportunity to hear from one of the UK’s leading fiction writers of the last several decades, and to experience the work of one of the 20th century’s most influential composers.

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‘Please God … if there is a next life, let me write as well as Jonathan Coe.’
Anthony Bourdain

‘A novelist who gains in range and reputation with every book.’ Pat Barker

‘Lessons In Harmony … is as witty, lapidary and elegant as a Ravel miniature and as rich and deep as Vaughan Williams at his most lyrical. With his love of music, European culture and the foibles of Britishness, Jonathan Coe is uniquely equipped to craft this story of male friendship, art, love and nationhood.’ Stuart Maconie

‘The writing has all the subtlety and wit that is customary for Jonathan Coe, but rare, and there is so much wisdom in it – about the sacrifices demanded of the friends and partners in the orbit of a musical genius, about rivalry, disappointment, and the convulsions of world politics.’ Clare Chambers

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Jonathan Coe is the award-winning, bestselling author of fifteen novels, including What a Carve Up!, The Rotters’ Club, Middle England and, most recently, The Proof of My Innocence. He has won the Costa Novel Award, the Prix du Livre Européen, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the Prix Médicis Étranger and the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize, among many others. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His work has been translated into twenty-two languages.

Marian Givens studied at Royal Holloway University and the Royal Academy of Music. She currently enjoys a varied career, combining her love of both pop and classical music with session and West End work. She has toured with Beverley Knight, Sophie Ellis Bextor, Giorgio Moroder, and is co principal second violin of the Essential Orchestra, touring regularly with Pete Tong and making TV appearances. She also plays in orchestras such as the BBC Concert Orchestra, London Mozart Players, and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and leads string sections for Leo Green and Benjamin Clementine in live shows. She deps on touring shows and recent productions have been Moulin Rouge, Annie, Greatest Showman, Book of Mormon, and Dear Evan Hansen. Marian is a core member the Bristol Ensemble.

Juliet McCarthy played in musical theatre productions on tour and in the West End for 15 years, including two years in London playing on West Side Story. She has played principal cello with Bristol Ensemble, the National Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra de Cymru, Swansea City Opera, the British Sinfonietta, and the British Philharmonic Concert Orchestra among many others. As a session cellist Juliet has worked with former Massive Attack producer, Neil Davidge, on Britannia, In the Dark, Black Mirror,The Fear Index and Criminal Record. She also recently played on two Aardman animations productions, As a soloist she can be heard on many productions, including the RTE documentary North Atlantic, the film Ben is Back starring Julia Roberts, The Third Day, an HBO series starring Jude Law and Naomie Harris, and most recently on a short film, Dadio, with Sean Penn and Dakota Johnson. Juliet also teaches at several Bristol schools.