Delighted to have a new article in the Frontline magazine:
“The middle style marks a phase in a musician’s life when thought and craft entwine so completely that invention flows without the scaffolding showing.”
frontline.thehindu.com/arts-and-cul...
13500. Incredible support within just a week. But we need to keep the momentum going. Please sign if you haven’t and share widely. Tell a friend and get them to share too.
c.org/WvV2srykpn
The petition has crossed 5k. But we need more momentum and support. Please sign and share widely.
#appeal #saveUoNMusic #Nottingham
Heartbroken to share the news that recruitment to Undergraduate Music courses at the University of Nottingham has been suspended.
Please do contact us on protectuonmusic@gmail.com if you would like to support us.
On Wednesday 5 November, the very same day the Prime Minister publicly reaffirmed the importance of music education, staff in the Department of Music at the University of Nottingham were informed of the immediate suspension of recruitment to all undergraduate degree programmes. This announcement precedes proposed plans to permanently close all Music degrees at the University. This decision threatens to end over a century of music education in the East Midlands, offered continuously since the University opened in 1881. Across that time, the Department has educated thousands of composers, researchers, performers, educators and other creative professionals. Its graduates have taken up leadership roles within the country’s leading arts organisations, fostering creativity and growth within the UK’s dynamic creative industries. It remains a centre of world-leading research, using music to explore and address complex societal and global challenges.
The Department is deeply embedded in the local community, working with schools, music hubs, community groups and venues. Its closure would not only dismantle a thriving academic and cultural institution but also severely diminish musical life and future opportunities across Nottingham, the wider East Midlands and the nation as a whole. As staff we are devastated, especially on behalf of our students, but also for the future of music education and research in the UK. We remain committed to advocating for the value of Music programmes at Nottingham and beyond. If you share our concern and wish to support efforts to protect music education at the University of Nottingham, please get in touch with protectuonmusic@gmail.com. Your voice can make a difference. Thursday 6 November 2025
Devastated to share the news that was broken to colleagues in Music (and other departments) at the University of Nottingham yesterday. This is obviously a very difficult time for us and our students.
Please contact us on protectuonmusic@gmail.com if you would like to be involved.
Horrific, stupid news from @uniofnottingham.bsky.social — they are closing their music department. Apparently they all found out suddently in a meeting yesterday.
It is one of the best music departments in the country — solidarity with my colleagues and their students
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Enchanted to have interviewed the living legend Ustad Irfan Muhammad Khansahab.
Here’s a clip of him talking about his wonderful mother.
Rutgers bans caste-based discrimination across all campuses!
Rutgers also outlines further steps for reporting, collecting more data about caste on campus, and developing trainings.
This took a lot of work & is a big win for caste equity! laborrelations.rutgers.edu/updates-anno... #caste #Rutgers
This exciting new art exhibition at Somerset House explores the iniquitous colonial salt tax. The artists, Hylozoic Desires, have drawn inspiration in part from my work on a powerful courtesan, Mayalee, who defied the British at Sambhar Salt Lake in the 1830s. www.theguardian.com/world/2024/d...
Zakir Hussain shall ALWAYS be. Past tense shall never touch him. So long as a tabla plays somewhere in this world, Zakir Hussain is.
A bit like how “patience” (~patient) and “passion” come from the same Latin root: “pati” (suffering).
2/2 MNIK also experimented with a new lyricist, not particularly exciting imo. Javed Akhtar is certainly much more adept. I think ZNMD gets my vote! But KHNH is a good case study to see the evolution in both SEL’s music & the films, esp wrt India’s relationship to and imagination of the global.
Interesting to see how from KHNH to ZNMD the soundtrack sounds increasingly transnational. KHNH’s Pretty Woman credits Javed Akhtar as translator, and not lyricist, and thereby hangs a tale. The foreign setting itself becomes more n more like a character from KHNH to ZNMD.
The Afghan rabab has FINALLY been recognised by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage! amu.tv/141402/
