NEWS FROM JOHN HALL, April 2012

After the successful trial run in 2011 coinciding with the VENICE BIENNALE, we are postponing the launching of the new VENICE ACADEMY to July 2013, so that it will again coincide with the BIENNALE, a vibrant event when the entire world of Contemporary Art is present in party mood. In collaboration with Sophie Macpherson’s Art Market Careers Academy, London and the Gervasuti Foundation, Venice, this is an entirely new concept, its aim to introduce the internal mechanics of the professional Art World. It is for those interested in working or thinking of working in the Art World, whether employed adults who feel like a change, university students or those between school and university. In 2011, the youngest participant was 19 and the oldest 39. Our team of international experts includes Louisa Buck, critic, broadcaster, writer; Gavin Turk, contemporary artist; Nicholas Hall, International Head of Old Masters, Christie’s and Jasper Sharp, Museum and exhibition curator. The ten days in Venice offer a unique opportunity to meet major players, providing an insider’s view and a personal connection to the Art World.

In December John and Charlie Hall gave a party in the beautiful library of The Travellers’Club, an occasion for our long-standing and loyal referees to meet some of our lecturer, ancient and modern , some alumni with two generations on the Venice Course and a sparkling of alumni from the latest courses. Alumni present included Nicholas Penny, Director of the National Gallery, London, Paul Hills, Professor of Renaissance Art at the Courtauld Institute, Sir Michael Burton, High Court Judge, alumnus on the first Course in 1965 and father of four alumnae daughters.

A wake-up call for older alumni and parents of recent alumni – please look at our John Hall Italian Journeys website at
www.johnhallitalianjourneys.com .
These epicurean cultural tours were started back in 1974 for those many parents who ask why can’t you do something for us. We do. We specialize in Venice and the Marche where I live. In July 2012 there will be another Marche tour - The Secret Heart of Italy, which will include Urbino, the jewel in the crown of Renaissance palaces.

For the last two years our INSIDERS’ VENICE programme has enabled Mature Students to attend part of the Venice Course. In 2013 it will be the last two weeks of the Course, late February and early March. For more details, please see www.johnhallitalianjourneys.com .

As usual, the Venice Course is more than just art history. Our students happily absorb world cinema, literature - the English writers in Italy- Byron, Shelley, Keats, Browning, a big exposure to Music, and brief introductions to contemporary global issues - Islam, climate measurement and global warming, terrorism : even a short shock of Science. We welcomed in 2011 and 2012 two top Cambridge scientists, Professor Malcolm Longair, astrophysicist and former President of the Royal Astronomical Society and Simon Conway Morris, Professor of Evolutionary Palaeology, Cambridge University, who gave mind-blowing glimpses into black holes, dark energy, space time, the big bang, evolutionary convergence theories - fields of awesome scale and interest, a stimulating intellectual revelation to most arts students – all power for the course : there’s life beyond Vasari and Titian. They will be back in 2013.

Our two regular music stars, Jane Glover (Mozart) and Jeremy Sams (Opera) will also be back in 2013. Jane has just conducted the world premier of the new Maxwell Davies opera written for the Royal Academy of Music and has been invited to conduct Mozart’s The Magic Flute at the Metropolitan Opera House New York in 2014. Jeremy is director of the new Lloyd Webber The Wizard of Oz in London, as well as directing a new pasticcio opera, The Enchanted Island, at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in January 2012 - baroque music and a libretto culled from The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He is also directing Fledermaus at the Met in 2013. Also in the music department, Peter Phillips, Director of The Tallis Scholars and of Music at Merton College, Oxford will take us through the Western classical tradition, from plainsong to the grand - scale orchestral pieces of the 19th and 20th centuries and Matteo Sansone, in Florence, reveals the sophistication of Monteverdi’s operas.

We also welcome former student Adam Lowe, (Venice Course 1978 ), whose laboratory Factum-Arte in Madrid is responsible for the remarkable 3-D  1 to 1 scale reproduction of Veronese’s The Marriage Feast at Cana, now in the Palladian refectory of the Benedictine monastery on the Island of S.Giorgio Maggiore . The original, stolen by Napoleon, is in the Louvre. Adam too will be coming again in 2012. to talk about the highly creative work of Factum-Arte.

The very pleasing international flavour of our community continues; in 2012 we had students from Australia, Holland, South Africa, Hong Kong and America plus the regular majority of Brits.

The Venetian Contessa Enrica Rocca’s optional cookery classes in her palazzo off the Zattere continue to be a rave success, with both classes fully booked and enjoyed. Her website is: www.enricarocca.com .

There continue to be reunions, organized by alumni, in Venice and in London. In February 2011, energetic alumni arranged a re-union of the year 1980, most of whom had not seen each other for thirty years! More than 40 turned up.  Read about it in our News and Events section >>