Oct 24 – Lit Fest Highlights: Ben Okri Talks To Paul Blezard With Music Of The Orchestra Of St John’s

Written by YGTV Team on 24 October 2014.

Saturday 15 November 2014

1pm

1 Hour 45 Minutes

King’s Chapel

Ticket price: £20

Booker-Prize-winning novelist and poet Ben Okri celebrates the launch of his new novel, The Age of Magic, and reflects on life as one of the world’s greatest novelists and poets during this unique lunchtime concert. Okri will talk about his new work and his life and will select pieces of music that have a special meaning for him. His selections will be performed by the outstanding Orchestra of St John’s, conducted by John Lubbock.

The Age of Magic is Okri’s first novel in seven years, and is a beautiful work full of poetic and metaphysical revelations. The novel takes the reader on a journey, a magical and a literal one, as a tightly-knit group of filmmakers travel from Paris to a remote Swiss mountain village. Once there, they are compelled to confront the demons they have been trying to escape.

Okri is considered one of the foremost African writers of the post-modern period. At 21, he published his first novel, Flowers and Shadows, and in 1991, The Famished Road, which won the Booker Prize. The mixture of the real and the spiritual worlds, in which he particularly draws on the myths and beliefs of his African heritage, has often led Okri to be categorised as a magical realist, although it is a categorisation he rejects. Altogether, Okri has published eight previous novels, as well as collections of poetry, short stories and essays, and his work has been translated into 20 languages.

The Orchestra of St John’s was founded by Lubbock. Its aim is to bring together outstanding musicians who share an ethos of bringing music to people of all ages and from all walks of life. It has performed with world-famous soloists such as Dame Felicity Lott, Sir James Galway, Yuri Bashmet, Tasmin Little and Stephen Isserlis. Alongside its public performances, the orchestra gives around 40 concerts a year to autistic children and others with learning difficulties through the charity, Music for Autism, founded by Lubbock following the birth of his own autistic son.

This event lasts one hour 45 minutes including a 20-minute break.

For tickets, visit: http://gibraltarliteraryfestival.com/literature-events/2014/november-15/the-age-of-magic-to-the-music-of-the-orchestra-of-st-johns-conducted-by-joh