Day 65: British Composers

(This is for Friday 31 October)

Halloween!!

Since it was our first week back from break, we had our first day in the next unit of the required Images of Britain Through the Arts class on Friday. While my previous unit had been Alternative Theatre, my new one is British Composers.

I wasn't really sure what to expect from this class, but I'm now incredibly excited about it. For the first class, we went over what concerts we are going to and then learned about Ralph Vaughan Williams, who drew a lot of his influence from traditional English folk music. For those who may not know, I am a huge fan of folk music. Probably more than I will admit. We learned about the history of how Vaughan Williams was involved in collecting folk songs in England and then examined the use of the modal scale in his works and analyzed them in general too. This is basically my dream class.

So after a nice first day to a new class, I decided to take the long way home after playing some piano at the London Centre (I was feeling a little musically inspired) and finally made it out to the Millenium Bridge. While wandering back to the flats, I also stumbled across a Braveheart memorial type thing.

St. Paul's Cathedral:

 

Cathedral from Millenium Bridge:

 

 

  

Later that night, almost everyone in the London Program went on a cruise on the Thames that some students had organized for Halloween. It was absolutely gorgeous, though I didn't bring my camera. I wish I had pictures from it though! We went under Tower Bridge and also down past Parliament and the London Eye. It's definitely different seeing the city from the river, and I'm glad I finally made it on a boat, especially at night.