Richard Morrison



Profile:
Full name: Richard Morrison

Area of interest: Music, arts, culture

Journals/Organisation: The Times

Email: [mailto:richard.morrison@thetimes.co.uk richard.morrison@thetimes.co.uk]

Personal website:

Website: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/article2789980.ece

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Representation: http://www.faber.co.uk/author/richard-morrison

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Career: Started at Classical Music magazine; The Times: became music critic in 1984; Arts Editor, 1990/99; Chief music critic from 2001 Current position/role: Chief culture writer


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Books & Debate:

 * Orchestra: The LSO - A Century of Triumphs and Turbulance OCLC 53156828, 2003

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Remit/Info: Music, arts, culture

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Role: Chief culture writer

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Email: [mailto:richard.morrison@thetimes.co.uk richard.morrison@thetimes.co.uk]

Website: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/article2789980.ece

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Articles:

 * Being original is a sin. Send in the clones - Not long ago distinctiveness was everywhere. Now architects, chefs, pop stars and designers all blend into one - 2nd August 2014
 * Wonga, 12 pictures and the art of propaganda - Gary Tarn’s new film, commissioned by the payday lender, is a masterclass in surprising and subtle persuasion - 8th November 2013
 * Mary Seacole’s statue: a solution - Richard Morrison has a solution to the fuss over the site of tributes to Florence Nightingale and her black counterpart - 1st November 2013
 * The National needs a shot of anarchy - Artistic genius doesn’t conform to institutional thinking and theatre won’t shock if the same types are always in charge - 18th October 2013
 * Without experts English heritage will crumble - Armies of volunteers are a boon to Britain, but English Heritage is wrong if it thinks it can rely entirely on them - 11th October 2013
 * A warning from New York as fat lady sings - Political philistines are letting New York City Opera shut down. Such a tragedy could easily happen in cutback Britain - 4th October 2013
 * Prom that evoked memory of wartime tragedy - The last surviving crew member of HMS Trinidad was at the Last Night of the Proms for a rendition of the ship’s march - 13th September 2013
 * We need more time to visit all our property - It’s good to let the public into the buildings they own. So why do it for only one weekend a year? - 7th September 2013
 * When languages die, whole worlds die too - If giant cultural forces are allowed to bulldoze obscure, little-spoken languages, they can kill what we value most - 1st June 2013
 * From Tudor seas to modern science - The Mary Rose was built to make foreigners quake with fear, but its name is now a byword for UK scientific excellence - 31st May 2013
 * Cockerel is nothing to crow about - So there really will be a giant cock up in Trafalgar Square. Westminster City Council has confirmed that a 14ft fibreglass blue cockerel will be the next occupant of the empty Fourth Plinth - 10th May 2013
 * Whatever happened to Thomas Gray’s famous poem? - Why has hardly anyone under 35 heard of Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard? - 19th April 2013
 * Colin Davis freed music from tyrants’ egos - The conductor hated imposing himself. Instead he unlocked the creativity of whole orchestras - 16th April 2013
 * Beeching’s axe: still shaping Britain - So many regrettable things stem from the 1963 day when an ICI physicist with no railway expertise presented his report - 16th March 2013
 * Rebuild the Southbank Centre! - Those 1960s concert halls and the soulless Hayward Gallery are dysfunctional eyesores - 8th March 2013
 * Can a slum choir make a difference in Mumbai? - A British musician who has set up choirs in Mumbai and Bangalore hopes to get millions of Indian children singing - 1st March 2013
 * Where did UK film investment go? - Why do we make so few great British films? - 8th February 2013
 * Prepare for a land of philistines - A new Emin, Hockney or Bowie will have no chance thanks to Michael Gove - 1st February 2013
 * Gergiev’s rule is as absolute as his nice friend Putin’s - No doubt about it: the man’s stamina is matched only by his ambition. Valery Gergiev’s marathon press conference at the Russian Embassy this week was even longer than his new recording of the Leningrad Symphony - 2nd January 2013
 * 100 years of the Royal Variety show - The Royal Command Performance (as it was first called) was considered a dangerously radical innovation back in 1912 - 29th November 2012
 * Savile’s was another BBC - Some of us are unfortunate enough to remember the overly louche, raucous and unchecked days of the BBC in the 1970s - 31st October 2012
 * The epistle of a great diva, Kirsten Flagstad - The Norwegian soprano Kirsten Flagstad’s swan song - in letter form - has been uncovered after nine years under wraps - 12th October 2012
 * Raking up a royal rumpus - I wonder how I would feel if, at the age of 91, I discovered someone putting on a musical that raked up rumours about an alleged affair I was said to have had, 64 years earlier, with Britain’s most glamorous female entertainer - 10th October 2012
 * In arts, a disability is no bar to greatness - I have mostly led a charmed life. But four bad bike prangs in 30 years — two on motorbike, two on pedals — have mangled enough Morrison limbs to give me some slight insight into what it means to be disabled - 12th September 2012
 * What art has to say about sporting glory - Wacky or wonderful, from football to rugby, (thanks to readers) our list of masterpieces about sport is longer than first thought - 27th July 2012
 * Get on the ball and nominate your sporting masterpiece - Despite the current jollities, it’s striking how few works of art concern themselves with sport. Or do you know better? - 25th July 2012
 * Anthony Burgess’s Clockwork Orange still fascinates after 50 years - This is a world in which the kids’ language, enriched with a virtuosic relish that James Joyce might have envied, has a Russian twist (regarded as very sinister at the height of the Cold War), and the anti-hero narrator, Alex, has hijacked Beethoven, the composer most revered by the middle-aged middle classes, to supply a soundtrack for his spree of rape and murder - 29th June 2012
 * Displays of contrast: a Diamond Jubilee vs Thomas Heatherwick - We do nostalgia well, but the future needs much more attention - 8th June 2012


 * Without music, war is the only option - Music is the first and last refuge of dialogue between people. Suppress that and the only option is war - 21st September 2011
 * Flying Finns - In classroom and concert hall, Finland leaves us in the blocks - 7th September 2011
 * in a disused car park: the future of music'' - A multistorey car park makes a thrilling venue for Kate Whitley’s Rite of Spring - 24th August 2011
 * nobody wants to pay a tenor for an album'' - An ageing multimillionaire opera singer makes a poor figurehead for record companies’ anti-piracy compaigns - 3rd August 2011
 * must ensure that music remains in schools'' - The lesson is simple: children who learn music will fare better in all subjects - 6th July 2011
 * Sizewell I saw the future glowing in the dark'' - I can’t begin to imagine how many journalists have descended on Glastonbury. Probably more than covered the entire First World War. But Glastonbury isn’t the only place in England offering extraordinary alfresco entertainment this week - 29th June 2011
 * to the bandstand'' - They say that prowess at snooker is a sure sign of a misspent youth. Well, here’s another: an intimate knowledge of the park bandstands of north London - 22nd June 2011
 * Mahler, Edith Piaf and female emancipation'' - A rather melancholy anniversary has hit me. It was 40 years ago that I had my first serious snog. With a human being, I mean - 15th June
 * The Times will now credit show sponsors'' - Last week I was challenged by a reader who is a Glyndebourne regular. Luckily his chosen duelling weapons were e-mails at dawn rather than pistols - 8th June 2011
 * mission to Mars, anyone?'' - It would take a stony heart not to be moved by the spectacle at Cape Canaveral on Monday. After clocking up 103 million miles the space shuttle Endeavour blasted off for the final time - 25th May 2011
 * amiss in mis-selling scandal'' - We let off bankers with barely a slap on the wrist but throw the book at a Brownie treasurer. Call that justice? - 18th May 2011
 * fines won’t stop hostility on our roads'' - Draconian penalties are the only way to knock sense into aggressive British drivers - 12th May 2011
 * tale of Witold Orlowski’s bones reveals power of faith'' - At Worcester Crown Court the story of a smuggled body, the trauma of exiled Poles and The Wind in the Willows have come together - 6th May 2011
 * new transport of delight . . . walking'' - Frightened off my beloved two wheels, I now use the oldest form of travelling - 26th April 2011
 * has too many bad statues'' - If you want to laugh, feel nauseous and be utterly bewildered all at the same time, head down to Craven Cottage in West London, home of Fulham Football Club - 13th April 2011
 * man with a plan for abandoned Tube stations is no April fool'' - Like beauty, madness is in the eye of the beholder. And a proposal that seems bonkers one moment, or at least so unfeasible as to be unworthy of serious discussion, can look like a wizard wheeze the next - 6th April 2011
 * play about knife crime might just change lives'' - Can a play or a movie change the world? Can it make even a small permanent difference to the way people think? - 16th March 2011
 * Brighton Festival chose Aung San Suu Kyi'' - To call it a gimmick would be churlish - 23rd February 2011
 * Mr Gove, endorse the report on music education'' - If he doesn’t act to keep music a statutory subject in schools he should get a tuba wrapped around his neck - 16th February 2011
 * looters are stealing heritage'' - The biggest blow is to the country’s credibility as it tries to recover its ancient treasures from ruthless looters - 9th February 2011
 * of Britain showed a forward-looking country'' - Unlike today, the 1951 Festival of Britain reflected a nation eager to look to the future - 21st January 2011
 * your local museum'' - Councils have been let off too easily for their Ceausescu-like attack on community heritage. It’s time to fight back - 12th January 2011
 * funding for arts education is a costly act of idiocy'' - The creative industries contribute enormously to the economy, but if we don’t train our artists and musicians we risk killing the golden goose - 17th December 2010
 * the Cultural Olympiad avoid ignominy?'' - With a new supremo for the Olympic culture-fest, past mistakes can be forgotten to let us show the world our best - 11th December 2010
 * culture in a state of violent flux?'' - Changes in technology aftect human affairs and the arts - but it’s a little too early to tell exactly how - 8th December 2010
 * traditional versus trendy?'' - Musical starch is inevitable in any royal wedding, but surely there’s still room for some Amy Winehouse or Cheryl Cole? - 17th November 2010
 * play’s often a copy'' - While a new row rages over accusations of plagiarism in a hit musical it’s worth remembering Shakespeare pinched plots - 17th November 2010
 * high tech save the high arts?'' - Is technology the arts world’s greatest defence against cuts? - 8th November 2010
 * tower builders are altering our skyline'' - Do we want a Square Mile that retains its medieval alleys and courtyards or a bland ‘downtown’ of corporate glass? - 5th November 2010
 * Berlin Phil and the Nazis'' - The ease with which the Berlin players took to their roles as cultural ambassadors of the Third Reich is nauseating - 15th October 2010
 * do Norman Wisdom and Hastings Pier have in common?'' - 8th October 2010
 * cheer for Gove’s plans for music education'' - Millions of children have real musical talent, so one cheer for Michael Gove’s plans to develop it - 2nd October 2010
 * the age of the internet do we want knowledge to be available to all — or jealously guarded by copyright laws?'' - 17th September 2010
 * around our own heritage'' - With English Heritage Open Days this weekend we get to poke our noses into places usually closed to us, even if we own them - 15th September 2010
 * has become of British female musicians?'' - There is still a clear gender bias against female conductors and soloists at the Proms. This is a tragedy for music - 4th September 2010
 * pictures, sponsored bike rides: what will the arts need to do for cash?'' - The world’s first graffiti-funded film is launched this week. Or rather, its funding is - 27th August 2010
 * Festival promises to be one helluva party'' - My only hope is that next year it’s not a wake - 30th July 2010
 * Golden Tips of Blathering'' - 19th July 2010
 * is shaking up the capital’s arts'' - London’s cultural geography is in flux as theatres and arts communities are uprooted - 13th July 2010
 * Morrison misses US orchestras at the Proms'' - 11th July 2010
 * anorak mentality provides the concerts with a living archive'' - No other classical festival in the world has an audience that’s quite so enthusiastic, knowledgeable or seemingly indestructible - 5th July 2010
 * architecture makes for beautiful music'' - Great concert halls inspire great performances, so why has London missed its chance to build at least one new one? - 6th June 2010
 * have all the contraltos gone?'' - What’s happened to women? Physiologically, I mean. In my youth all Russian females were hatchet-faced super-heavyweights who arm-wrestled polar bears for recreation. Now the world’s tennis tournaments are crammed with golden-limbed Siberian sylphs who look as if they should be modelling for Dior - 28th May 2010
 * knitting caught me by surprise'' -Knit one, purl two, change the urban landscape, three. All hail the gentle anarchists of the “yarnstorm” or “k nitwit” faction - 7th May 2010
 * Morrison: the great British eccentrics and the Ring'' - Anybody got a spare £1 million to help the Grahams realise their dream — Wagner’s Ring staged in their back garden? - 30th April 2010
 * are the arts in the parties’ manifestos?'' - I wouldn’t want them round for dinner. So boring, so bland, so platitudinous. I’d be asleep before pudding - 16th April 2010
 * word 'crossover' has become an insult'' - We happily mix musical genres on our iPods — so why do we kick up a fuss when musicians want to do the same? - 9th April 2010
 * is a skilful fake worth less than an original?'' - A “Schiele” or a “Shakespeare” that is good enough to fool experts surely has some artistic merit of its own - 19th March 2010
 * arts world’s chance for a royal knockout'' - Never mind the Olympics, there’s a chance for the arts to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012 - 12th March 2010
 * that's gripping academia and the arts'' - The fear about what the future holds is even worse among luvvies and academics than I remember in the 1980s - 24th February 2010
 * not my fault, I just have irritable columnist syndrome'' - Spend all day in front of the telly? You must have sluggish cognitive tempo disorder or some other pyschobabble - 17th February 2010
 * I found the entente to be very cordiale indeed'' - Cheerful, helpful Parisians are a shock to the system, but once I'd overcome my bemusement, I found it very pleasant - 12th February 2010
 * can't we give classical the same pizzazz as pop'' - The V&A is banishing musical instruments - as if they don't fit its trendy new image - 3rd February 2010
 * on a moment, I want some new technology that lasts'' - Modern life is whizzing by faster than we can keep up. By the time I’ve learnt how to use a gadget it’s already redundant - 27th January 2010
 * we must treasure our regional accents'' - The British are reasserting their regional distinctions in the one area over which we have control — the way we speak - 6th January 2010
 * giving nature puts a song in my heart'' - Little old ladies carrying their bodyweight in luggage fight to give us coins -23rd December 2009
 * but sex please, we’re vicars . . .'' - I’m not a theologian but as far as I can recall, Christ said nothing about sexuality — either his own or anyone else’s - 9th December 2009
 * is the Royal Mail blocking McQueen's Queen and Country?'' - Steve McQueen’s stamps make an eloquent tribute to our war dead. It's time the Royal Mail issued them - 11th November 2009
 * hopes and dreams from the water's edge'' - I am struck by how much the Games is still perceived as belonging to London alone - 4th October 2009
 * startling idea from Deborah Cohen's The Secret Life of Things'' - A special aura: inanimate objects do exert an influence over us that goes far beyond the immediately understandable - 14th October 2009
 * could celebrate your 100th birthday - make the most of life'' - Imagine being born the day that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and living long enough to use the internet - 7th October 2009
 * Herbert and lasting beauty from a dark age'' - Archaeology is at its most gripping when it uncovers tantalising enigmas for which there is no rational explanation - 30th September 2009
 * cycle of reverence, please, for the Age of New Simplicity'' - We seem dissatisfied with the tame passivity of life. We shop till we drop, but can’t get no satisfaction - 23rd September 2009
 * Charles Mackerras and an act of creation that had me in tears'' - You felt as if you were receiving the wisdom of not one great musical veteran, but two — communing across the centuries - 26th August 2009
 * Scots and their one-track minds'' - In a few years, at tremendous cost, Edinburgh will be equipped with the latest 19th-century transport technology - 19th August 2009
 * Times as it was — one century and several light years ago'' - Did journalists of the Edwardian era sigh as the silly season approached and prepare their dispatches on the beast of Bodmin? - 12th August 2009
 * and Amazons and the amazing story of Arthur Ransome'' - Isn’t it odd how often modern biographers disover an unexpected and invariably ugly side to a revered hero - 5th August 2009
 * view about assisted death seems suicidal to me'' - Saying that assisted suicide is OK is some circumstances is a recipe for chaos, hypocrisy and tragedy on a mass scale - 29th July 2009
 * booze than surf: teenagers and the Newquay experience'' - Newquay shouldn’t have to degrade itself by appealing to the lowest common denominator — unsupervised, drunken mayhem - 15th July 2009
 * beats a glorious British summer'' - All our summer rituals are outdoor events - and that's rather odd when you think about our often vile weather - 24th June 2009
 * we all need a little railway romance'' - Train companies want to reopen some long-since extinct local lines. Hallelujah! We can learn a lot from rail history - 17th June 2009
 * no business like show business — and it’s all in a good cause'' - Musicians across the globe are about to take part in World Busk for children's charity - 10th June 2009
 * brush with easyJet law'' - Do we belt up or let it all hang out? - 3rd June 2009
 * we should all grieve for Newcastle United'' - Let’s all share the Toon Army’s pain - 27th May 2009
 * Britain’s canals need our support'' - Canals have a therapeutic, balm-like power - 20th May 2009
 * wrong with Margate'' - Clean up Margate and those other seedy seaside resorts - 13th May 2009
 * on camera: tasteless and verging on the obscene'' - Are we revealing too much? - 6th May 2009
 * wrong with the arts establishment'' - Outrageous: this blatant demand for the arts to have special treatment - 29th April 2009
 * the Last Night of the Proms has been hijacked'' - Why the Royal Albert Hall is no longer “the nation’s village hall” - 22nd April 2009
 * kids should watch out, I've had enough'' - Adults prefer to sit idly by while antisocial children run amok. Well, a line has to be drawn, and I'm drawing it - 8th April 2009
 * Hahn-Beer and Mary Thomas: one remarkable generation - two courageous women'' - I'm an avid obituary reader and those that grip me are of people thrown into circumstances for which they were completely unequipped - 1st April 2009
 * tribal loyalties are better than outright war'' - The idea of sport healing relations between countries may be a pipe dream, but sporting passions have always been with us - 25th March 2009
 * of change have made us strangers in our own families'' - Only a tiny minority of Britons die within a mile of where we were born. Is that progress? - 18th March 2009
 * friends? Then you're one of life's losers'' - Many youngsters seem to collect friends the way that Imelda Marcos collected shoes - 4th March 2009
 * of the Alice Tully concert hall'' - The breathtaking transformation of this Broadway building is an act of defiance amid the gloom of the recession - 26th February 2009
 * show must go on'' - Failing lights at the Royal Opera House reminded me that the irreducible core of humanity is not nihilism but resilience - 18th February 2009
 * Morrison on awards ceremonies, escapism and 'serious art''' - there's undoubtedly a growing feeling in cultural circles that artists, writers, musicians and film-makers should be squaring up to their social responsibilities - 13th February 2009
 * train journey to hell, via Wymondham'' - One rail chief is anxious not to 'over-service' customers. There's no danger of that on Britain's railways, or elsewhere - 11th February 2009
 * Miller's new Bohème'' - His plans to advance the opera into the 1930s have the critics queueing up already - 31st January 2009
 * Art: how a bunch of shameless kids came to rule the art world'' - Tracey Emin is a tabloid celeb in the same league as Russell Brand and about as useful - 28th January 2009
 * the British Council wins hearts and minds'' - 24th January 2009
 * little prayer from the Queen of Soul'' - We were expecting the sounds of youth, but instead Aretha Franklin and a greying composer serenaded the crowd. The result was a surprisingly beguiling display of racial harmony - 21st January 2009
 * Woolies with market halls is an idea to cherish'' - Can we be weaned away from our out-of-town malls and into local markets? - 20th January 2009
 * into the City and Canary Wharf recession'' - This was a ghost town I was crossing - 14th January 2009
 * we could transform our mean streets with music - and a lot of hard graft'' - Venezuela trained its teenage underclass to make music of virtuoso standard, so why can't we? - 7th January 2009 (see: El Sistema)
 * I know that music, it's dum-de-dum-dum'' - Why do tunes go round and round in our heads when we can't remember their titles or where we heard them? - 17th December 2008
 * all about giving ... but that's the embarrassing bit'' - there is one aspect of Christmas - the very essence of it, really - that casts a gloom over my waking hours for weeks beforehand - 10th December 2008
 * university challenge that faces Oxbridge'' - Alumnal pride is fine - the chauvinism that underpins Oxbridge oligarchies is not - 3rd December 2008
 * here . . . and other reasons to be cheerful'' - I can't remember the last time I was so perishing cold in England - 26th November 2008
 * the year when the experts lost the plot'' - Ours is the first era to value mass mediocrity above individual genius - 19th November 2008
 * skulduggery, distortion and lies'' - England is prone to loaded image-making by map-makers - 12th November 2008
 * a whistling and distorted nightmare'' - When London sounded as if it was under water - 5th November 2008
 * a nation with a history, but no destiny'' - We no longer have control of our future - no ideal of what we want to be - 22nd October 2008
 * of a cyber columnist'' - Computers have glitches - and they force us to do things their way - 15th October 2008
 * life tends to be a hit and myth affair'' - Why did thousands flock to see Ancient Egyptian and Chinese treasures? - 8th October 2008
 * clubs and fat cats should follow Aston Villa's lead'' - The club's Acorns initiative is a beacon that lights the way for all of us in dark times - 1st October 2008
 * homework? That's the right answer'' - The mental oppression of leaving school for the day, and then facing hours of slog, alienates many - 24th September 2008
 * Lake: just a gory fantasy'' - Fear of being overrun by thugs has been with us for 200 years - 17th September 2008
 * price of happiness? £365 a year I'd say'' - Virtually nobody in Britain actually needs new shoes - 10th September 2008
 * death of the British pub'' - The middle classes and the middle-aged have abandoned pubs in droves - 3rd September 2008
 * anonymous heroes who really deserve a medal'' - in a fortnight, when Britain has got over its astonishment at winning something sporty, the euphoria will evaporate, the famines and wars will crowd back into the news, and we'll be desperate for any scrap of good tidings to cheer us up - 20th August 2008
 * importance of being called Richard'' - Names go in and out of fashion, but changing them is no guarantee of miraculously casting off our former woes - 16th August 2008
 * sort of person pays £995 for the Last Night of the Proms?'' - 13th August 2008
 * France and an apple'' - On an Air France flight last week I encountered a tiny object that seemed to epitomise the absurdity of modern life - 6th August 2008
 * Edinburgh Festival refreshes the soul'' - The Festival reaffirms beliefs in 'things other than material', which is hard to do when materialism is society's driving force - 30th July 2008

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