CLASSICAL MUSIC / On Classical Music
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Your support makes all the difference.The most eccentric festival in London, or quite likely anywhere, is back - with a new name for its 10th anniversary - billed as the only event of its kind to take place inside a sculpture, the 1994 Colourscape Music Festival is most easily found by heading south from Clapham Common station keeping eyes right. En route to the Windmill pub, a rambling and improbable tent-like structure will come into view. This is Colourscape itself, a series of interlinked, inflatable tubes and chambers of assorted hues (right) which let through a diffused light.
It has given new life to what was formerly known as the Nettlefold Festival, named after an obscure hall in Norwood where it used to attract audiences of three men and a critic before uprooting to seek pastures and premises new. It has made a surprisingly poetic and involving scene for dance, and with movement and action promised for many of this year's events, the old magic should be working again.
Music happens on the Saturday and Sunday afternoons of the next two weekends, and during the intervening days Colourscape is open as a 'walk-in sculpture'. Expect the sounds to be experimental (the most conventional group is the Smith Quartet this Sunday) but don't be deterred - what might sound weird in a Prom falls wonderfully into place in this surreal environment and a healthy crowd of the curious usually turns up and stays. Highlight of the second weekend is likely to be The Snow Queen from Jane's Minstrels on 17 Sept, an unseasonal but touching and friendly operatic version of Hans Christian Andersen starring children and grown-ups which was the talk of Tunbridge Wells, no less, at its first outing. Just turn up: top prices are pounds 3.50.
Colourscape Music Festival, 10-18 Sept on Clapham Common between the Windmill pub and Long Pond boating lake. 12pm-6pm weekends, 10am-4pm weekdays (081-763 9298) Clapham Common
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