OPEN LECTURE: Music of the Night

Music of the Night – Spiritual Yearning and Religious Influences in the Work of Andrew Lloyd Webber
5pm Saturday 27th July at Gladstone's Library
Tickets £10. Click here to purchase.

Clearly established as the leading and most successful practitioner of musical theatre over the last fifty years, Andrew Lloyd Webber is not usually thought of as having a deeply religious or spiritual side. Yet research by Ian Bradley, which will be shared in this lecture, reveals the strong influence on him of his Anglo-Catholic composer father, his love of High Anglican churches and liturgy, and the theme of spiritual yearning which underpins much of his work.

Analysis of Phantom of the Opera and Whistle Down the Wind will feature prominently, as well as consideration of more obviously spiritual and religiously inspired works like Jesus Christ Superstar and his Requiem.

For twenty years Ian Bradley taught the only university course in the world in the theology and spirituality of musical theatre. He is the author of You’ve Got to Have a Dream: The Message of the Musical and is currently writing a book for Oxford University Press. Provisionally entitled Music of the Night, it focuses on religious influences and spiritual resonances in operetta and musical theatre. He has previously led two weekends on musical theatre at the Gladstone Library which sold out and were warmly commended by those taking part.

Cover image by Kevin Lund. Released under Creative Commons licence.