I really enjoyed this discussion with Nat Edwards, Leeds-based Director General and Master of the Armouries, Ella Nixon, an academic, curator, and writer, specialising in regional art collections and women’s art; and Lawrence Goldman, Executive Editor of History Reclaimed. After I presented the themes of the discussion as I outline below, they offered fascinating insights into the challenges facing museums today with regard to the collections. I do hope you enjoy this discussion as much as I did.

A recent report by the National Heritage Lottery Fund found that long term shortfalls in funding have put museum collections under severe strain from a crumbling infrastructure, inadequate storage, a reduced workforce and a decline in specialist skills. Museums have long been underfunded and, in the face of the global economic downturn, are increasingly deprioritised by government and philanthropic sponsors.

There is no doubt museums should be funded more generously but perhaps underlying the funding crisis is a deeper crisis of purpose. And a recent parliamentary report on the financial resilience of museums implied that the government can hardly be bothered with museums any more.

Museums are places where historical remains and artefacts are stored, catalogued, researched and displayed. While displayed objects are often a tiny fraction of the collections, behind the scenes a central purpose of museums is storage, conservation, development and care of collections. One of my main concerns is that society has forgotten how to truly value collections and the museums that are responsible for them.

In recent decades museums have been subject to charges of irrelevance, inaccessibility, racist and sexist bias, homophobia and transphobia. They have been attacked for profiting from colonialism and slavery, for perpetuating elitist conservative ideologies and nostalgia, and for not keeping up with the needs and interests of the contemporary world and multicultural communities.

In response, museums have gone to great lengths to demonstrate their relevance, their commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, and their economic and social value. Many museums have attempted to become more appealing to children, young people and various ethnic communities. Some have even embraced the campaigns that challenge them, acquiescing to calls to ‘decolonise’ their collections and labelling their displays to reflect so-called ‘progressive’ interests. Some have gone so far in demonstrating their progressive credentials that they have alienated visitors.

But, in being alert to contemporary preoccupations, have museums failed to pay sufficient attention to securing their collections from theft, cyber attack and ongoing decay and damage? Are museum leaders losing touch with their institutions’ fundamental priorities to preserve the historical record for current and future generations? Could it be argued that the museum sector has given way to a kind of ‘presentism’, at the expense of caring for its historic collections? And is AI going to push them even further away from their traditions?

Can museums find a way through their current crisis back to their basic principles?

In this episode of Arts First podcast, we ask our three illustrious and well-qualified panelists to consider whether museums have failed their collections, and what they think should be done to resolve the current crisis. How do museums keep up with the modern world without losing sight of what makes them unique?

Nat Edwards is Director General and Master of the Armouries. He was previously CEO at the Thackray Museum of Medicine, and has over 30 years of experience in UK cultural and heritage institutions, including the British Museum, Science Museum Group, and National Library of Scotland. Nat Edwards is speaking in this session at the Battle of Ideas, on art activism and this one on the challenges and opportunities in the arts today.*

Ella Nixon is an academic, curator, and writer with a PhD from Northumbria University, specialising in regional art collections and women’s art. She is a postdoctoral researcher at The Women’s Art Collection, Bye-Fellow at Murray Edwards College and Research Assistant at the University of Birmingham. She also writes and comments on the arts for a number of media outlets.

Lawrence Goldman is Executive Editor of History Reclaimed, a group of scholars who challenge contemporary distortions of history, to promote more nuanced understanding. He is emeritus fellow of St. Peter’s College, Oxford, where he taught British and American History for three decades. From 2004-14, he was the Editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Latterly he was Director of the Institute of Historical Research, University of London.

Arts First Podcast presenter, Wendy Earle is chairing and speaking at the forthcoming Battle of Ideas: October 17&18 in central London.*

Further Reading

Lola Salem asks ‘What remains when the state has given up on culture?’ — speaking at the recent Academy on The Hollow Leviathan

Leeds Art Gallery has world-class treasures in its collection, so why is so much of its space devoted to contemporary installations?

‘From collection to connection’: Reimagining museums this article represents the view that museum collections should not be the museum’s raison d’être.

The Museum Association on the crisis in collections

The uncertain future of local museums

A Breach of Trust in Oxford. The Pitt Rivers Museum and the Destruction of the Past

Arts First live at the Battle of Ideas 2026

The Battle of Ideas festival is the UK’s premier annual festival of debate on the biggest issues of our times. The Arts First podcast is actively involved in presenting several sessions and we have a special offer on tickets. Just click on this link: ARTS26 to get your tickets for the weekend at as substantial discount.

And we would love to see you at the following sessions:

From Cultural Boycotts To Pursuing Artistic Renaissance: Challenges And Opportunities In The Arts Today Saturday 17 October, 10:15—11:45, Council Room, Church House

Podcast Extra: Arts First – Sacred Virgin, Spurned Bride With Dolan Cummings Saturday 17 October, 13:45—14:30, Council Room, Church House

When Activism Meets The Arts Saturday 17 October, 16:45—18:15, Council Room, Church House

The Odyssey: Cinematic Sensation Or Sin Against The Greeks Sunday 18 October, 15:45—17:00, Church House Café

Mention the words ‘Venice’ and ‘opera’ together and for most of us that would bring to mind La Fenice, the city’s world-famous opera house, which first opened in the 1790s. But the history of opera in Venice goes back much further, beginning with a small, largely forgotten playhouse called Teatro San Cassiano.

More significantly, it was in fact the world’s first public opera house. Until Teatro San Cassiano opened in 1637, opera had remained a private spectacle, reserved for the aristocracy and performed only in the ducal palaces of cities such as Florence and Mantua.

Our guest today, Dr Paul Atkin, is the founder and CEO of a hugely ambitious project to bring San Cassiano back to life – to reconstruct the theatre in the Santa Croce district of Venice, along the Grand Canal, close to its original site. Niall is joined for this conversation by linguist Elisabetta Gasperoni, who brings her own particular knowledge and perspective on Italian culture and music to our discussion.

It’s a fascinating project that holds out the promise of all kinds of possibilities and benefits. According to the project website, there are three ‘clear objectives’:

* To reconstruct the Teatro San Cassiano of 1637 as faithfully as modern scholarship and traditional craftsmanship will allow, delivering a fully functioning, dedicated Baroque opera house, complete with its own fully operational Baroque stage machinery, moving scene-sets and special effects.

* To restore historically-informed Baroque opera to Venice.

* To establish the Teatro San Cassiano as a world-renowned centre for the research, exploration and staging of Historically Informed Performance – literally studying Baroque opera through its recital on stage and in the orchestra pit.

Dr Atkin is a musicologist and entrepreneur based in Venice. The project he founded launched officially in 2019 with an international conference and exhibition. His vision of recreating the world’s first public opera house goes back much further, and Paul has been working tirelessly on it ever since. In March, he launched the project in the US with high-profile events in New York and Washington. And the list of Paul’s media and press appearances and coverage is exhausting.

One of the difficulties in planning this discussion was where to begin, what to focus on and what to leave out. The project throws up so many possibilities for discussion. We could easily talk about architecture, stage and theatre design, Baroque music, 17th-century Venice, musicology, education, the meaning of Historically Informed Performance, and even tourism.

In a wide-ranging conversation, we certainly touch on many of those themes. We look at how and why the original Teatro San Cassiano came about – thanks to the Venetian noble family, the Trons – and consider its significance and impact on the city and beyond. We explore the musical context of the time, the Early Baroque period, and prominent composers such as Monteverdi and his student Francesco Cavalli.

We also ask what impact Teatro San Cassiano had on the musical landscape. Was Monteverdi’s ‘return’ to opera prompted by the emergence of the new public opera house? And how did opera’s newfound freedom from the royal courts affect the music and the artists who created it? Did opera become a more democratic art form?

We consider why the project matters, what Paul is aiming to achieve, and its significance in terms of musicology and academic research.

Paul draws comparisons with the recreated Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and tells us about the influence and support of key members of the London project, including Globe architect Jon Greenfield (pictured above).

We also look at the project in terms of wider public understanding and education, tourism and more, before looking ahead to some of the challenges and obstacles that remain before the project can finally be realised.

Links, listening and reading recommendations

Teatro San Cassiano project

Greenfield Architects

‘The Eight Book of Madrigals’ Claudio Monteverdi (link to Apple Classical)

‘Carnevale 1729’ Ann Hallenberg (Apple Classical)

‘Calisto a le stelle: Cavalli and the staging of Venetian opera’ Series of filmed Gresham College lectures led by Ellen Rosand.

‘Sustainable Musicology’ by Marco Bizzarini

‘From Madrigal to Opera: Monteverdi’s Staging of the Self’ by Mauro Calcagno

In our 50th episode we take a bit of a roundabout look at the Odyssey on film. We discuss some of the creative challenges and opportunities faced by filmmakers who choose to take on this epic poem that inspired Classical Greece, but predated it by many centuries.

Of course, its influence casts a very long shadow over Western art and culture down the ages, and its origins – most likely in oral, semi-improvised song/storytelling – have intrigued academics and historians for centuries.

As the focus of our discussion is the creative interpretation of the filmmaker, we look in a bit more detail at one film, Jean-Luc Godard’s 1963 Odyssey-themed Le Mépris (Contempt), starring Michel Piccoli, Brigitte Bardot, Jack Palance and Fritz Lang.

Our guests are Maren Thom and Alex Dale, writers and commentators on film, TV and theatre, and presenters of the podcast Performance Anxiety.

We’ve been thinking about how to approach this episode for a while. I had read author and Classics scholar Daniel Mendelsohn’s 2017 memoir, An Odyssey.

Mendelsohn explores some of the themes in the Odyssey through the prism of a term spent teaching it to a class of young undergraduates, along with his 81-year-old father. Mendelsohn Senior is a seemingly hard-nosed, Brooklyn-raised Maths professor who sees in Odysseus not a hero but a ‘sissy’ who cries too much and is rescued by the Gods whenever he gets into bother.

The experience reveals much, changes and deepens the relationship between father and son, who have never quite seen eye-to-eye. An Odyssey, then, is partly a study of relationships – father-son, teacher-student, intergenerational etc. And Mendelsohn uses this as a very subtle pretext to explore similar themes in the Odyssey itself. In short, there’s much more to the epic poem than nymphs and one-eyed monsters.

Over the Christmas holidays I got around to reading the Odyssey itself for the first time. Daniel Mendelsohn’s own translation was published in 2025. I read mainly that, but took the opportunity to dip in and out of different translations on the way, from Penguin Classics, to Emily Wilson’s alleged ‘feminist’ take, to Alexander Pope’s early C18th classic, which Mendelsohn describes as the best translation of anything, ever.

I barely scratched the surface of the book, but reading it threw up some possibilities for podcasts – the idea of the journey in art and literature, translation as a creative endeavour perhaps, ancient tradition of oral/improvised storytelling.

And then of course there’s film, which is why I thought immediately of the wonderful Performance Anxiety podcast, and sought the help of Alex Dale and Maren Thom.

So we agreed a show based on simply comparing films wouldn’t be the best approach, and I was scratching my head to find films that might give us something to work with. I carried on reading, carried on thinking, then I stumbled upon Le Mépris, Godard’s film that, per chance, seemed to address both my original question and theirs (which we talk about in the podcast).

Godard’s film is centred on an ambitious young playwright who is invited, or perhaps enticed to become involved in a production of the Odyssey (to be shot on the island of Capri) by the film’s brash American producer, who wants a blockbuster and thinks the current director, Fritz Lang (playing himself), is making some incomprehensible European arthouse cinema.

But that’s the starting point for the film, which then becomes about the playwright’s relationship with his beautiful and enigmatic wife, played by Brigitte Bardot.

We thought that Le Mépris might provide us with an ideal opportunity to talk about the creative process of the filmmaker, and ask if maybe Godard was trying to find ways to express truths – symbolic or moral etc. – from the Odyssey that maybe a more straightforward telling might not.

Finally, we discuss some of the themes in Maren’s recent article about pre-release criticisms of Christopher Nolan’s film of the Odyssey, and look forward to the release of the film (we recorded this episode before the film’s release).

Links

Performance Anxiety podcast

Can Nolan’s Odyssey survive the culture war?

An Odyssey by Daniel Mendelsohn

Le Mépris by Jean-Luc Godard

During this episode, I changed my mind about Tracey Emin and started to understand her as an artist who is not necessarily as narcissistic as some see her. Rather she plumbs the depths of her own experience to create works which are multilayered, shocking, challenging, disturbing and sometimes beautiful.

Tracey Emin’s exhibition, A Second Life, is currently running at Tate Modern in London (until August 31 2026). A retrospective of her 40 year career as an artist, it has received rave reviews from most critics.

One of the things that has struck me about the reception of this exhibition is how it shines a light on the way Tracey Emin has transitioned from being one of the most shocking artists of the 1990s, relentlessly exposing her private life, most notably with the Turner Prize nominated installation of My Bed (1998), to now being one of the most successful and highly regarded of contemporary British artists, to the extent she been honored with a CBE and Dame-hood, without compromising her art-making.

So when Professor Jean Wainwright, a specialist in contemporary art who has interviewed Emin a number of times, suggested doing a podcast for Arts First about her exhibition, I leapt at the opportunity.

Much of Emin’s work seems to be focused inwardly on her life and its trials. She ignores or disregards the separation between public and private in a way that can be deeply discomforting to the viewer. Indeed, much of her significance seems to lie in her exposure of her rather troubled private life to public view. Because of this some people think she is hopelessly narcissistic, successful because she reflects the narcissism of the current age. But others regard her as courageously breaking open a sphere that is all too often suppressed, where very personal anxieties, insecurities and experiences that many share are subject to intense levels of self-examination and self-expression.

To explore the significance and impact of her work, Professor Jean Wainwright, art historian and critic starts off an analysis of a small selection of works in the exhibition and what they reveal about Emin as an artist. A very special guest, Jean’s particular expertise is Andy Warhol, and she talked about an exhibition of his work in Milton Keynes for one of our early episodes. She has conducted interviews with Tracey Emin and we are really grateful she offered to come back to help us understand Emin’s importance as an artist.

Commenting and elaborating on Jean’s analysis are Dido Powell and Rachel Jordan, both practicing artists with an active critical interest in contemporary art and art history. Both have appeared on Arts First episodes before, and Dido is the leader of an informative and enjoyable series of tours in London art museums.

There is a tendency — especially among those of us who are not great fans of conceptual art — to define Emin in terms of the reverberating shock of her early installations and her obsession with her damaged self, but for many her work appeals deeply in all its rawness, authenticity and honesty. There is also a tendency, which I shared, to see Emin as a narcissistic artist reflecting and expressing the narcissism of our age. After discussing Emin’s work and achievements with Jean, Dido and Rachel, I now understand her to be an artist who uses her own experiences to create art that plumbs the depths of engaging in a messed up world, living a troubled existence without giving in to it. I don’t love all she has done but I can see that she makes art that mediates and reflects our age back to us in a way that is worth paying close attention to.

Wendy Earle June 2026

The four works we discussed in detail were:

Why I’ll Never Became a Dancer

The film can be viewed on YouTube (after a few ads):

I followed you to the end:

Exorcism of the last Painting I ever made (1996) photo of installation:

You kept it coming (2019)

David Hockney died on June 12, 2026 at the age of 88. The Arts First team, meeting for a planning session just a few days after he died, decided to do an impromptu appreciation of him on video. Wendy Earle, Niall Crowley, Michael Owens and Rachel Jordan talk about what he meant to them, as a true free spirit, totally committed to creating art — talented, innovative, inventive, inimitable, hardworking, prolific and brave.

We hope to do a more detailed consideration of him as an artist in the not too distant future.

David Hockney: A Year in Normandie

In this episode we interview writer, broadcaster and artist, Lachlan Goudie who recently published his remarkable new book — The Secrets of Painting: The Hidden Art of the Masterpiece from Prehistory to Today (Thames & Hudson 2026).

Lachlan Goudie is a writer, broadcaster and artist. His previous book, The Story of Scottish Art (2020) was linked to a TV series of same title which he presented. It’s clear he loves painting and has a huge interest in and knowledge of its history as an art form.

The Secrets of Painting is a big fat lavishly illustrated book: in 20 chapters it examines 20 magnificent works and reveals more about painting than you ever thought you wanted to know: but it’s stuff that’s really worth knowing!

It’s a masterpiece of research and synthesis. I found reading it revelatory, each painting is opened out, in the context of its time, to reveal what the painter did in raising his or her work to a new level of artistry. It reveals how artists over the centuries have used and adapted innovations in technologies and materials, to create masterpieces that have since inspired awe in millions of people. It’s a fascinating account and I strongly recommend it to anyone who enjoys art.

It is clear that a lot of thought and planning went into the book. It offers an impressively deep view of painting: the painter’s processes and how a painting takes shape — how individual painters pushed themselves to use, manipulate and invent materials to create transcendent works. It engenders a profound sense of the painter’s craft and knowledge.

In this episode, Lachlan Goudie kindly agreed to talk to us about what motivated him to write the book and how he went about making his selection. He also explains the particular innovations and qualities of some of the paintings he chose, and talks about the artists behind the masterpieces, and how their lives and times influenced their works. To begin the interview, I wondered if his own experience of art school, which was less than satisfactory, had anything to do with his decision to write it.

I then asked Lachlan how he chose the works from the thousands of possible examples — how personal were his choices for example — as there is an interesting range of both familiar and less familiar choices. He describes his process, drawing on research from numerous sources, of making the final selection.

I wanted to know why he started in prehistory, with the cave paintings in Chauvet, France, which are not part of a continuous artistic tradition, as such. However he points out that they are impressive evidence of the creativity and skill of pre-historic artists — something he is particularly keen to highlight.

The book presents a chronological picture of how advances in available materials, and the innovations and inventions of individual artists changed the course of art history. Each painting represents a moment of change or development in the technology available to an artist, and the way an artist pushes the boundaries of what was previously thought possible. It also illustrates other shifts in the history of painting.

Most of the paintings that Lachlan selected are from the European tradition, but he chose a small sample from elsewhere in the world over the period of time the book covers: one each from Egypt, China, India, Japan and Aboriginal Australia. He explains that he wanted to demonstrate that there are numerous traditions of artistic creation which have produced stunning masterpieces across the world and that Europe is not alone in the inventiveness, skill and talent of its artists. This helps contextualize Europe in a global context without claiming to fully represent other art traditions.

I selected several paintings from the book and ask Lachlan how each represented a moment of change and development in painting. You can examine the images below while listening to Lachlan’s explanation of them.

Giotto’s, The Dream of Joachim, part of the stunning sequence in Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy, 1303-5, shows Giotto taking Renaissance fresco painting to new heights.

Jan van Eyck, Arnolfini Portrait, 1434, (at The National Gallery, London) exemplifies how oil paint provided a way of reaching a high degree of precision, depth and perfection in portrait painting.

In Judith Beheading Holofernes c1612-13, Artemisia Gentileschi (in Palazzo Barbarini, Rome, Italy) drew on her personal experience as a woman in a ruthless and violent man’s world, and used contemporary innovations pioneered by Caravaggio create paintings of intense personal drama.

We then skipped a few centuries. Although art tradition builds on previous achievements in skill, technique and style, modern art, especially since the early 20th century, seems less a continuity and more a rupture point, transforming ideas about what it means to represent the world visually. Pablo Picasso’s Still Life with Chair Caning (1912) was inspired by the innovations of Picasso’s fellow artists, George Braque, and is a prime example of this shift.

After that, painters took new directions, continuing to experiment with new materials that 20th century innovations made available. Blast Off (US 1970) by Alma Thomas exemplifies the way acrylic paint gave artists access to a vibrant colour palette while expressing a sense of excitement and optimism in America in the 1960s and 70s.

Such innovations also made it possible to bring ancient traditions into the modern world, such as Warlugulong, by Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri (1976).

Finally we look at the thorny issue of what artificial intelligence makes possible in painting; Rafik Anadol’s Unsupervised: Machine Hallucinations (2022) and Lachlan explains why this could be described as painting.

Many thanks to Lachlan for participating in this interview. I certainly learned a lot, and enjoyed it, and I hope you do too.

(With thanks to Kate Burville to Thames&Hudson for facilitating this interview and helping to provide images for this page).

I have long wanted to do an episode on the subject of art education but have found it difficult to decide how to focus a discussion. It’s a huge subject, ranging from teaching school children art, to the work of art schools in the development of artists and designers, to questions about who now gets into art school and the costs of an advanced art education and about why art education is important anyway.

As mentioned in this episode, while art education in some schools is well resourced, the statistics indicate that at GCSE and A Level Art is in severe decline, with schools prioritising STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths). Last year, fewer than 5% of students took Art A level (the lowest level since 2010).

To kick off this discussion, which Arts First will return to in future episodes, we consider how art education, and more specifically art schools, work towards the development of young artists. This in itself raises broad questions which we tussle with in this slightly longer than usual episode.

Art schools train budding artists and foster their talent, creativity, discipline and inspiration. The curriculum ranges across fine art, crafts and design — in theory and in practice. Arguably there is a duality within the process of art education. To justify their existence (at least in terms of funding), art schools may feel the need to highlight their use value — the way their work contributes to the economy and/or social good. The Royal College of Art, for example, currently celebrates on its website, being winner in a global ‘design for betterment challenge’. And it’s a fact that art schools, via the artists and designers they train, probably contribute to the quality of our daily lives in ways that most of us take for granted — in the design of our environs, our clothes, our machines and many of the things we see and use. But art schools also teach fine art, which historically has tended to be at the centre of the idea of ‘art for art’s sake’. Schools of Art and Design now tend to resist the way, in the past, art forms were constituted in a high to low hierarchy with fine art at the top and craft and design below. So how do they help young people choose their art disciplines and develop as artists who can flourish whatever form(s) they choose?

Our contributors to this discussion have direct and varied experience of art education. They all make varied and nuanced observations, so the episode offers important insights into art education today. The following summary provides just brief touch points from the speakers. It really was a fascinating discussion!

Gregor Claude, art teacher at Coopers Company and Coburn School in Upminster, talks about how he wants to teach his students that  being human is an adventure, and that art education can help them learn how to see and to think about what they see. It can develop in them an  appreciation of what it is to have an aesthetic mode of engaging with the world.

Eliza Bonham Carter is a Royal Academy artist and Head of Royal Academy Schools*. Explaining the unique character of the Royal Academy Schools, she believes art school can offer artists a  period of time to develop their understanding of their own personal approach to art, rather than being limited by preconceptions of what an artist is or should be. Art school is an opportunity for artists to develop a way of living through art,  sustainable discipline that can carry them through the rest of their lives.

Two students, Tacita Twaddle (who is pursuing an interest in sculpture) and Eliza Friend (who is interested in a career in fashion) tell us about their experiences of their art foundation courses at University of the Arts London, opening up possibilities for working in the arts.

NQT (newly qualified teacher) Anna Keenan, who did part of her BA in Art History, explains why she thinks art history should play a more central role in education because of what it reveals about the human existence and achievements of the past.

Finally, Colin Searls and Niall Crowley provide insights from their experiences of art school in the 1970s and 80s:

Colin Searls went to art school in the 1970s and experienced some of the changes prompted by the art student revolution of the 1960s; he explains the pivotal role of the foundation art year (or two years), an innovation of the late 60s. Foundation courses provide the opportunity for students to discover for themselves what is involved in the different disciplines within art and design.

Our very own Niall Crowley attended art school in the 1980s. He felt challenged by the commitment required by the Foundation Course he took when he was 18. Although the experience transformed him he didn’t continue on to art school for another 10 years, when he took up a History of Design degree course at the University of Brighton. But like Anna, he felt doing History of Art would have better satisfied his desire for deeper knowledge about art.

The discussion continues around the various issues raised in their opening remarks. Sadly we had few technical problems with the sound at the end, so this conversation is a bit curtailed. However, really this was just a starting point and we are very keen to return to this topic in the not too distant future, so please offer feedback on the issues you think we might address.

*This article provides background on Royal Academy Schools.

N.B. This is a video episode but starts off for the few seconds as audio-only as we had a few technical problems. We hope it doesn’t spoil your enjoyment of the show.

In this episode we turn our attention to opera, particular at life away from the major institutions. Beyond the large companies there’s a plethora of small independent opera companies, festivals and ensembles, often working in intimate venues and with limited resources. Today we explore some of that world through the work of one such company, Ensemble OrQuesta, a leading independent opera company operating in London and the South East.

Our guest is Marcio da Silva, Ensemble OrQuesta’s founder and Artistic Director. Marcio is a opera singer, performer, musician, conductor, chorus master, artistic and musical director, composer and educator. We first encountered Marcio and his company a couple of years ago at Grimeborn, the annual fringe Opera Festival in East London, where they were performing their ‘chamber-scale’ production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.

Alongside Ensemble OrQuesta, Marcio is involved in a number of related projects, including the Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra and Hastings Philharmonic Choir, the EO Opera Academy and the conducting courses Marcio also runs. His work then spans performance, training and mentoring, bringing together professionals, students and emerging performers.

We are also joined by Elisabetta Gasparoni, a linguist specialising in Italian language and literature, founder of the Aesthetic Study Group, and a long-time supporter of Arts First. Elisabetta has organised and spoken at discussions on opera and the arts.

Marcio talks about his own background and the development of Ensemble OrQuesta. We discuss the importance of mentoring and training new performers, and more broadly the challenges of trying to sustain both classical and operatic musical traditions.

We touch on how the smaller opera companies relate to one another. Are they competing for audiences and resources, or working within a network of like-minded artists? And what about audiences themselves - who comes to these productions, and how do companies reach them? We discuss the practicalities and difficulties of working on a small scale.

We talk about Baroque opera, Ensemble OrQuesta’s specialism. Does Baroque opera lend itself especially well to smaller venues and more ‘minimalist’ productions? Does Marcio see Baroque opera a niche, or an opportunity to introduce audiences to something different?

This is an audio episode. We had a few difficulties with video this time around, but we do have some video footate from the interview that we may release in the form of a shorter episode in the near future.

We hope you enjoy the show.

Links

Marcio da Silva:

Ensemble OrQuesta

Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra

Hastings Philharmonic Choir

Grimeborn Opera Festival

You can hear more from Elisabetta Gasparoni on opera at the Battle of Idea website. If you would like to find out more about Elisabetta’s work, please get in touch at [email protected]

Events

Marcio is conducting Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra Saturday 2 May

MOZART: Overture 'Il re pastore', Clarinet Concerto in A majorSerenata Notturna, Symphony No 41 'Jupiter'

More information and tickets here.

Ensemble OrQuesta will be performing at the Cockpit Theatre in Marylebone in June and Grimeborn in Dalston August.

Today we dive into the world of contemporary art, focusing on the New Contemporaries exhibition, currently on show at the South London Gallery.

We’re joined by two good friends of the show: artist Rachel Jordan and curator, writer, and campaigner Manik Govinda.

New Contemporaries is a long-running institution within the UK art scene. It began in 1949 as Young Contemporaries, an annual exhibition established to showcase new work by emerging artists. Today, it organises a nationally touring exhibition, with works selected by leading figures from across the art world. This year’s show opens in South London before travelling to Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art later in April.

Listeners may remember that last year’s exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts drew media attention, with protests outside the gallery relating to its sponsorship. We’ll return to some of that context later - but first, the art itself.

We first visited the exhibition at the South London Gallery, before settling in the garden over a beer, a coffee, and cake to share our initial impressions. A few days later, we reconvened online for a more considered and in-depth conversation.

For those unfamiliar with it, the South London Gallery sits on Peckham Road, close to Camberwell College of Arts. Founded in the 19th century by philanthropist William Rossiter, it was established to ‘bring art to the people of South London’, and today presents a wide-ranging programme of exhibitions by both established and emerging artists.

We’re grateful to the gallery for allowing us to photograph and film.

Art choices - Rachel

Painting: Ally Fallo - In My Beginning Is My End, 2025. Oil on Canvas. 130cm x 100cm

Photograph: Timon Benson - Compression, 2023.

Film: Viviana Almas - Solus

Art choices - Manick

Alia Gargum, This was a Mosque, 2024

Varvara Uhlik, Slide, 2025. Mild steel, 90 x 200 x 40cm

Video: Gregor Petrikovič, Sincerely, Victor Pike, 2024. Duration, 12 mins, 22 seconds

In recent years the National Trust, Britain’s largest heritage organisation, has faced growing criticism for shifting its focus. Once dedicated to preserving historic houses, gardens and landscapes for their architectural, artistic and historical value, the Trust has increasingly emphasised ‘decolonisation’, ‘social justice’ campaigns and reinterpretations centred on Britain’s links to slavery and colonialism.

Critics argue that this approach reflects a loss of confidence in the Trust’s original purpose: stewarding the nation’s built heritage and presenting it on its own terms. Reports and public statements have spoken of “repurposing” historic houses, moving beyond the “outdated mansion experience,” and prioritising contemporary relevance over the buildings’ intrinsic qualities. At the same time, selective historical framing and changes to displays have raised concerns about the erosion of authentic engagement with the past.

A particularly stark example is the Trust’s handling of Clandon Park, a Grade I-listed Palladian house that was gutted by fire in 2015. Initially expected to be restored, the property is now the subject of approved plans to conserve it largely as a fire-damaged shell rather than reinstate its celebrated interiors. The scheme includes modern interventions such as viewing platforms and a new roof terrace, using insurance funds that many argue should have supported full restoration. The decision has been pushed through with minimal scrutiny — approved by Guildford Borough Council in March 2025 despite widespread objections — and has highlighted broader concerns about how the Trust interprets heritage significance and overrides member opinion.

This episode examines what is at stake for Britain’s country houses and the wider heritage sector. Has the National Trust abandoned its historic role as custodian of the nation’s cultural inheritance? What does genuine stewardship of heritage require today? And why does the confident transmission of history and beauty matter more than ever?

Joining Niall and Wendy are three guests with deep knowledge of the issues: Cornelia van der Poll, chair of the campaign group Restore Trust; architectural critic and lecturer Calvin Po; and educator and campaigner Dr Alka Sehgal Cuthbert, director of Don’t Divide Us.

The discussion explores the origins of the current controversies, the importance of beauty and historical imagination, parallels with earlier cultural upheavals, and practical ways forward—including the role of membership, education, traditional craft skills, and alternative models of heritage management such as Historic Houses.

Guest Biographies

Cornelia van der Poll is a co-founder and current chair of Restore Trust, the campaign group formed in 2020 to encourage the National Trust to return to its core mission of caring for historic houses and landscapes. She is a former lecturer in ancient Greek at the University of Oxford.

Calvin Po: is a designer, researcher, writer and educator based in London. He lectures at the Architectural Association School of Architecture and writes on architecture for publications including The Critic and The Spectator. His perspective is informed by both his experience of the British Empire’s final outpost and a deep appreciation of Britain’s architectural heritage.

Dr Alka Sehgal-Cuthbert is an educator, academic, author and director of the campaign group Don’t Divide Us, which advocates for a common-sense approach to race and against the politicisation of education and culture. She stood for election to the National Trust council in 2024 and is a founding supporter of Arts First. She has written and spoken widely on the importance of historical and aesthetic education.