Musical Pictures

March 17, 2020 2:28 AM

James Mayhew is a children's author and illustrator who, with musicians and singers, presents illustrated concerts. Here is Shakespeare Brought to Life (5 minutes). Here he is illustrating Baba Yaga (4 minutes). Mayhew writes about these projects here: Musical Pictures.

Mayhew talking to children (3 minutes). Mayhew giving a talk on Flying Carpets at a conference about children's books and migration (41 minutes). Mayhew and children's author Jackie Morris interviewed about their book Mrs Noah's Pockets (16 minutes) (Morris: "The only time Mrs Noah gets a mention is because she's grumpy, and I thought, no, I'm not having that").

YouTube region restriction checker says none of these links are region-restricted, but apologies if that is wrong.

posted by paduasoy (2 comments total)

This was fascinating. I've frequently thought of setting stories to music and it's nice to read about people doing that. From the article linked above, these were my favourite portions:

"My mission is to present concerts of classical music, usually complete works, with the correct story restored to it. Everyone hears famous music in adverts, at the movies, on TV. But very few people (not even orchestra musicians) know the stories that inspired it. And these are fantastic stories! Mostly myths and folk tales, they are stories that deserve to be heard. "

And later: "As the world of publishing changes and become more challenging, I find fewer and fewer opportunities to publish the sort of material that I believe in and am inspired by. At the same time, as arts funding is squeezed and creative activities worryingly sidelined in schools, I find I become more determined than ever to find new ways of sharing these things – art, music and literature – with the next generation."

Thanks for posting this.
posted by (bra) at 8:27 AM on March 17, 2020

Thanks, (bra). I came across Mayhew at the weekend when I went to one of his concerts - Holst's Planets. We hadn't realised beforehand that it was targetted at children, but really enjoyed it.
posted by paduasoy at 9:05 AM on March 17, 2020