Autumn events at Burgess Foundation ft Muriel Spark

The International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester’s award-winning literary and cultural foundation, hosts a reading by Forward Prize winning poet, Kei Miller, world premieres of Burgess’ classic compositions, newly discovered recordings and a debate about the end of the world with sci-fi authority Andy Sawyer this Autumn – plus much more. Booking is recommended for all events listed below.

Writers Return: Kei Miller & Elif Shafak, discuss how travel influences fiction
How does travel inspire new writing? Celebrated authors Kei Miller and Elif Shafak explore this subject at this co-production with the British Council. Jamaican writer Kei Miller was the recipient of this year’s Forward Prize and a Next Generation Poet. He has travelled to the likes of Brazil and Iraq, yet his work often returns to the linguistic pleasures of his Jamaican heritage. Miller will be joined by Turkish writer, Elif Shafak. Translated into over 40 languages, Shafak has received numerous awards for her writing, fusing Western and Eastern storytelling traditions and employing the voices of women, minorities, subcultures, immigrants and global souls. The writers will explore the particularities of their cultural homelands and tell stories about experiences of other places. The discussion will be chaired by Ted Hodgkinson.
Wed 19 Nov, 6.30 pm, £4/£3. Tickets: www.skiddle.com

UK premiere of Burgess’s Shostakovich-influenced String Quartet by The Heath Quartet
Formed in Manchester in 2002, and with recently acclaimed performances at the 2014 BBC Proms (‘delivered with wonderful intensity’ -The Telegraph). the Heath Quartet are an inventive young chamber ensemble. This special programme demonstrates the quartet’s technical prowess and skill. Opening with the UK premiere of Burgess’ Shostakovich-influenced String Quartet (originally dedicated to the Primavera Quartet, winner of the 1977 Naumburg Award), the Heath Quartet will also perform Bartok’s wild String Quartet No. 6 (1939) and Beethoven’s monumental String Quartet No. 14 in C Sharp Minor.
Thu 20 Nov, 6.30 pm, £5/£3 – multi-concert tickets available. Save by booking a joint ticket for this and the below. Detailed below. Tickets: www.skiddle.com

‘Love is Not Love…’ A concert of music inspired by Shakespeare
Following the recent discovery of a musical setting of a Shakespeare sonnet by Burgess (written for a woman other than Burgess’ wife!), IABF presents a concert of music inspired by Shakespeare on the Bard’s 450th anniversary. As well as performing the world premiere of the newly found Burgess composition, Zoe Milton-Brown (soprano) and Ben Powell (piano) will perform music by Finzi (from Let Us Garlands Bring), Argento (from Six Elizabethan Songs) and Quilter (Three Shakespeare Songs). There will be a drinks reception before the concert from 6pm. This concert features the world premiere of this piece (which is only short – a few minutes long) as well as recently found recordings of Burgess reading Shakespeare in Elizabethan pronunciation, which Burgess claims should properly sound much like the broad Lancastrian of his youth. The recordings are entertaining and have never been heard before.
Wed 26 Nov, 6.30 pm, £5/£3 & multi-concert tickets available. Tickets: www.skiddle.com

Literary lives: Muriel Spark (pictured)
Muriel Spark’s shrewd, unsentimental and hilarious novels are among of the finest of the 20th Century. Perhaps best known for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Spark’s distinctive mix of realism, satire and allegory was hugely influential for a generation of writers. Join Martin Stannard – author of the acclaimed biography Muriel Spark – and critic Ellie Byrne for a lively discussion of Muriel Spark’s fascinating life and work. Chaired by Andrew Biswell.
Thu 27 Nov, 6.30 pm, FREE. Reserve your place by emailing events@anthonyburgess.org or call 0161 235 0776

Discussion: Science Fiction and Apocalypse
‘We have had the end of the world with us ever since the word began,’ wrote Anthony Burgess in Apocalypse and After. Alien invasions, outbreaks of pestilence, natural disasters and man-made nuclear destruction all feature in the bleak apocalyptic fantasies of writers, artists and filmmakers. In conjunction with the End Of The World News film season at Cornerhouse cinema, IABF welcomes world authority Andy Sawyer, librarian at Europe’s largest science fiction collection, and Heather Morison, leading artist and creator of the mobile library of apocalyptic literature, Tales Of Space and Time, for a discussion of their work and an exploration of the hopes and fears that drive scifi literature and film from the 1930s to the present day.
Wed 3 Dec, 6.30 pm, FREE. Reserve your place via events@anthonyburgess.org or 0161 235 0776

International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Engine House, Chorlton Mill, 3 Cambridge Street, Manchester, M1 5BY. Tel: 0161 235 0776, www.anthonyburgess.org