Kate Kennedy – författare

Notable writers—including UK poet laureate Simon Armitage, Julian Barnes, Margaret MacMillan, and Jenny Uglow—celebrate our fascination with the houses of famous literary figures, artists, composers, and politicians of the pastWhat can a house tell us about the person who lives there? Do we shape the buildings we live in, or are we formed by the places we call home? And why are we especially fascinated by the houses of the famous and often long-dead? In Lives of Houses, notable biographers, historians, critics, and poets explores these questions and more through fascinating essays on the houses of great writers, artists, composers, and politicians of the past.Editors Kate Kennedy and Hermione Lee are joined by wide-ranging contributors, including Simon Armitage, Julian Barnes, David Cannadine, Roy Foster, Alexandra Harris, Daisy Hay, Margaret MacMillan, Alexander Masters, and Jenny Uglow. We encounter W. H. Auden, living in joyful squalor in New York's St. Mark's Place, and W. B. Yeats in his flood-prone tower in the windswept West of Ireland. We meet Benjamin Disraeli, struggling to keep up appearances, and track the lost houses of Virginia Woolf and Elizabeth Bowen. We visit Benjamin Britten in Aldeburgh, England, and Jean Sibelius at Ainola, Finland. But Lives of Houses also considers those who are unhoused, unwilling or unable to establish a home—from the bewildered poet John Clare wandering the byways of England to the exiled Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera living on the streets of London.With more than forty illustrations, Lives of Houses illuminates what houses mean to us and how we use them to connect to and think about the past. The result is a fresh and engaging look at house and home.Featuring Alexandra Harris on moving house ● Susan Walker on Morocco's ancient Roman House of Venus ● Hermione Lee on biographical quests for writers’ houses ● Margaret MacMillan on her mother's Toronto house ● a poem by Maura Dooley, "Visiting Orchard House, Concord, Massachusetts"—the house in which Louisa May Alcott wrote and set her novel Little Women ● Felicity James on William and Dorothy Wordsworth's Dove Cottage ● Robert Douglas-Fairhurst at home with Tennyson ● David Cannadine on Winston Churchill's dream house, Chartwell ● Jenny Uglow on Edward Lear at San Remo's Villa Emily ● Lucy Walker on Benjamin Britten at Aldeburgh, England ● Seamus Perry on W. H. Auden at 77 St. Mark's Place, New York City ● Rebecca Bullard on Samuel Johnson's houses ● a poem by Simon Armitage, "The Manor" ● Daisy Hay at home with the Disraelis ● Laura Marcus on H. G. Wells at Uppark ● Alexander Masters on the fear of houses ● Elleke Boehmer on sites associated with Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera ● Kate Kennedy on the mental asylums where World War I poet Ivor Gurney spent the last years of his life ● a poem by Bernard O'Donoghue, "Safe Houses" ● Roy Foster on W. B. Yeats and Thoor Ballylee ● Sandra Mayer on W. H. Auden's Austrian home ● Gillian Darley on John Soane and the autobiography of houses ● Julian Barnes on Jean Sibelius and Ainola

The first comprehensive biography of an extraordinary English poet and composer whose life was haunted by fighting in the First World War and, later, confinement in a mental asylumIvor Gurney (1890–1937) wrote some of the most anthologized poems of the First World War and composed some of the greatest works in the English song repertoire, such as “Sleep.” Yet his life was shadowed by the trauma of the war and mental illness, and he spent his last fifteen years confined to a mental asylum. In Dweller in Shadows, Kate Kennedy presents the first comprehensive biography of this extraordinary and misunderstood artist.A promising student at the Royal College of Music, Gurney enlisted as a private with the Gloucestershire regiment in 1915 and spent two years in the trenches of the Western Front. Wounded in the arm and subsequently gassed during the Battle of Passchendaele, Gurney was recovering in hospital when his first collection of poems, Severn and Somme, was published. Despite episodes of depression, he resumed his music studies after the war until he was committed to an asylum in 1922. At times believing he was Shakespeare and that the “machines under the floor” were torturing him, he nevertheless continued to write and compose, leaving behind a vast body of unpublished work when he died of tuberculosis. Drawing on extensive archival research and spanning literary criticism, history, psychiatry and musicology, this compelling narrative sets Gurney’s life and work against the backdrop of the war and his institutionalisation, probing the links between madness, suffering and creativity.Facing death in the trenches, Gurney hoped that history might not “forget me quite.” This definitive account of his life and work helps ensure that he will indeed be remembered.

Notable writers—including UK poet laureate Simon Armitage, Julian Barnes, Margaret MacMillan, and Jenny Uglow—celebrate our fascination with the houses of famous literary figures, artists, composers, and politicians of the pastWhat can a house tell us about the person who lives there? Do we shape the buildings we live in, or are we formed by the places we call home? And why are we especially fascinated by the houses of the famous and often long-dead? In Lives of Houses, notable biographers, historians, critics, and poets explores these questions and more through fascinating essays on the houses of great writers, artists, composers, and politicians of the past.Editors Kate Kennedy and Hermione Lee are joined by wide-ranging contributors, including Simon Armitage, Julian Barnes, David Cannadine, Roy Foster, Alexandra Harris, Daisy Hay, Margaret MacMillan, Alexander Masters, and Jenny Uglow. We encounter W. H. Auden, living in joyful squalor in New York's St. Mark's Place, and W. B. Yeats in his flood-prone tower in the windswept West of Ireland. We meet Benjamin Disraeli, struggling to keep up appearances, and track the lost houses of Virginia Woolf and Elizabeth Bowen. We visit Benjamin Britten in Aldeburgh, England, and Jean Sibelius at Ainola, Finland. But Lives of Houses also considers those who are unhoused, unwilling or unable to establish a home—from the bewildered poet John Clare wandering the byways of England to the exiled Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera living on the streets of London.With more than forty illustrations, Lives of Houses illuminates what houses mean to us and how we use them to connect to and think about the past. The result is a fresh and engaging look at house and home.Featuring Alexandra Harris on moving house ● Susan Walker on Morocco's ancient Roman House of Venus ● Hermione Lee on biographical quests for writers’ houses ● Margaret MacMillan on her mother's Toronto house ● a poem by Maura Dooley, "Visiting Orchard House, Concord, Massachusetts"—the house in which Louisa May Alcott wrote and set her novel Little Women ● Felicity James on William and Dorothy Wordsworth's Dove Cottage ● Robert Douglas-Fairhurst at home with Tennyson ● David Cannadine on Winston Churchill's dream house, Chartwell ● Jenny Uglow on Edward Lear at San Remo's Villa Emily ● Lucy Walker on Benjamin Britten at Aldeburgh, England ● Seamus Perry on W. H. Auden at 77 St. Mark's Place, New York City ● Rebecca Bullard on Samuel Johnson's houses ● a poem by Simon Armitage, "The Manor" ● Daisy Hay at home with the Disraelis ● Laura Marcus on H. G. Wells at Uppark ● Alexander Masters on the fear of houses ● Elleke Boehmer on sites associated with Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera ● Kate Kennedy on the mental asylums where World War I poet Ivor Gurney spent the last years of his life ● a poem by Bernard O'Donoghue, "Safe Houses" ● Roy Foster on W. B. Yeats and Thoor Ballylee ● Sandra Mayer on W. H. Auden's Austrian home ● Gillian Darley on John Soane and the autobiography of houses ● Julian Barnes on Jean Sibelius and Ainola

The first comprehensive biography of an extraordinary English poet and composer whose life was haunted by fighting in the First World War and, later, confinement in a mental asylumIvor Gurney (1890–1937) wrote some of the most anthologized poems of the First World War and composed some of the greatest works in the English song repertoire, such as “Sleep.” Yet his life was shadowed by the trauma of the war and mental illness, and he spent his last fifteen years confined to a mental asylum. In Dweller in Shadows, Kate Kennedy presents the first comprehensive biography of this extraordinary and misunderstood artist.A promising student at the Royal College of Music, Gurney enlisted as a private with the Gloucestershire regiment in 1915 and spent two years in the trenches of the Western Front. Wounded in the arm and subsequently gassed during the Battle of Passchendaele, Gurney was recovering in hospital when his first collection of poems, Severn and Somme, was published. Despite episodes of depression, he resumed his music studies after the war until he was committed to an asylum in 1922. At times believing he was Shakespeare and that the “machines under the floor” were torturing him, he nevertheless continued to write and compose, leaving behind a vast body of unpublished work when he died of tuberculosis. Drawing on extensive archival research and spanning literary criticism, history, psychiatry and musicology, this compelling narrative sets Gurney’s life and work against the backdrop of the war and his institutionalisation, probing the links between madness, suffering and creativity.Facing death in the trenches, Gurney hoped that history might not “forget me quite.” This definitive account of his life and work helps ensure that he will indeed be remembered.

This is the first book to study the cultural impact of the Armistice of 11 November 1918. It contains 14 new essays from scholars working in literature, music, art history and military history. The Armistice brought hopes for a better future, as well as sadness, disappointment and rage. Many people in all the combatant nations asked hard questions about the purpose of the war. These questions are explored in complex and nuanced ways in the literature, music and art of the period. This book revisits the silence of the Armistice and asks how its effect was to echo into the following decades. The essays are genuinely interdisciplinary and are written in a clear, accessible style.

A step-by-step guide to transforming student learning with value-added analysis Value-added analysis is the most robust, statistically significant method available for helping educators quantify student progress over time. This powerful tool also reveals tangible strategies for improving instruction. Built around the work of Battelle for Kids, this book provides a field-tested continuous improvement model for using value-added information to increase student learning. The five-step process shows how to:Create the conditions for successExamine district, school, and classroom reports to assess strengths and challengesUse these reports to create an improvement planImplement instructional changesEvaluate and adjust the changes as the new school year startsEach chapter includes case studies, real-life examples, action steps, and reflective questions in addition to numerous tools, samples, and protocols for implementing the model. By focusing on specific professional practices associated with gains in student performance, conversations shift from blame to analysis, from defensiveness to professional learning, and from micromanagement to inquiry—a fresh perspective that results in student success!

Maine's Remarkable Women tells the stories of fifteen strong and determined women who broke through social, cultural, or political barriers. Through their passions for art, exploration, literature, politics, music, and nature, these women made contributions to society that still resonate today.Meet Marguerite "Tante Blanche" Thibodeau Cyr, "The Mother of Madawaska," whose bravery and kindness during one brutal winter saved her frontier settlement; botanist-artist Kate Furbish, who explored Maine's wilderness, collecting, classifying, and painting all of its flowering plants; and Florence Nicolar Shay, a Native-American basketmaker who demanded and succeeded in gaining rights for her tribe, the Penobscots.Each of these women demonstrated courage, compassion, and an independence of spirit that is as inspiring now as it was then. Read about their extraordinary lives in this collection of brief and absorbing biographies.

Britten is the most literary British composer of the twentieth century. His relationship to the many and varied texts that he set was deeply committed and sensitive. As a result, both his responses to poetry and his collaborationswith his librettists tell us a great deal about his music, and often, about the man himself.Britten is the most literary British composer of the twentieth century. His relationship to the many and varied texts that he set was deeply committed and sensitive. As a result, both his responses to poetry and his collaborationswith his librettists tell us a great deal about his music, and often, about the man himself. This book takes a unique approach to Britten, drawing together well-known Britten experts alongside English, music, modern language andhistory scholars who bring their own perspective to bear on Britten's work. Chapters examine all aspects of Britten's text setting, from his engagement with a wide variety of poetry to his relationship with his librettists. By approaching Britten's operas and songs through their literature, this book offers fresh insights into his vocal works.KATE KENNEDY is the Weinrebe Research Fellow in Life-writing at Wolfson College, Oxford, where she is an associate of both Music and English Faculties. She is a frequent broadcaster for the BBC and specialises in interdisciplinary biography and has published widely on twentieth century music and literature.Contributors:JOANNA BULLIVANT, PHILIP ROSS BULLOCK, NICHOLAS CLARK, MERVYN COOKE, DAVID FULLER, JOHN FULLER, PETER HAPPÉ, J. P. E. HARPER-SCOTT, JOHN HOPKINS, KATE KENNEDY, ADRIAN POOLE, HANNA ROCHLITZ, PHILIP RUPPRECHT, REBEKAH SCOTT, VICKISTROEHER, JUSTIN VICKERS, LUCY WALKER, BRIAN YOUNG

Now available in paperback, this study of the cultural impact of the Armistice of 11 November 1918 contains fourteen new essays from scholars working in literature, music, art history and military history. The Armistice brought hopes for a better future, as well as sadness, disappointment and rage. Many people in all the combatant nations asked hard questions about the purpose of the war. These questions are explored in complex and nuanced ways in the literature, music and art of the period. This book revisits the silence of the Armistice and asks how its effect was to echo into the following decades. The essays are genuinely interdisciplinary and are written in a clear, accessible style.

Meet Hunch. The Superhero. Coming to the rescue when you've splinters on your arse from sitting on the fence. Making decisions to save the lives of others, she must start calling the shots to save her own. Hunch is a new dark comedy about the power of gut decisions, written and performed by Kate Kennedy.

Strikingly original' The Times'Absorbing' Wall Street JournalShortlisted for the Royal Philharmonic Society Prize 2024NPR Radio’s Book of the Day‘Just as a cello’s voice is divided across four strings, each with its own colour and character, this is a journey in four parts, in search of four players and their instruments...’In Cello, Kate Kennedy weaves together the lives of four remarkable cellists who suffered various forms of persecution, injury and misfortune. The Hungarian Jewish cellist and composer Pál Hermann managed to keep one step ahead of the Gestapo for much of the Second World War but was eventually captured and murdered. Lise Cristiani, the first female professional cello soloist, undertook an epic – and ultimately fatal – concert tour of Siberia in the 1850s, taking with her one of the world’s greatest Stradivari cellos. Anita Lasker-Wallfisch was incarcerated in both Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen camps, only surviving because she was the cellist in the Auschwitz-Birkenau women’s orchestra. Amedeo Baldovino of the Trieste Piano Trio was forced to jump from a burning ship with his ‘Mara’ Stradivari, losing the cello, and nearly losing his own life when the boat was shipwrecked near Buenos Aires.Counterpointing the themes raised by these extraordinary stories are a sequence of interludes that draw together the author’s reflections on the nature and history of the cello, and her many interviews and encounters with contemporary cellists. Kate Kennedy’s own relationship with the cello is a complicated one. As a teenager, she suffered an injury to her arm that imposed severe limitations on her career as a performer on the instrument that was her first love. She realised that, in order to start to understand what the cello meant to her, she needed to find out what the cello – and, crucially, the absence of the cello – had meant to some other cellists, past and present. Kate Kennedy has written an eloquent and multitextured homage to this warmest of stringed instruments – part quest narrative, part detective story, part philosophical meditation.

Strikingly original' The Times'Absorbing' Wall Street Journal‘Just as a cello’s voice is divided across four strings, each with its own colour and character, this is a journey in four parts, in search of four players and their instruments...’In Cello, Kate Kennedy weaves together the lives of four remarkable cellists who suffered various forms of persecution, injury and misfortune. The Hungarian Jewish cellist and composer Pál Hermann managed to keep one step ahead of the Gestapo for much of the Second World War but was eventually captured and murdered. Lise Cristiani, the first female professional cello soloist, undertook an epic – and ultimately fatal – concert tour of Siberia in the 1850s, taking with her one of the world’s greatest Stradivari cellos. Anita Lasker-Wallfisch was incarcerated in both Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen camps, only surviving because she was the cellist in the Auschwitz-Birkenau women’s orchestra. Amedeo Baldovino of the Trieste Piano Trio was forced to jump from a burning ship with his ‘Mara’ Stradivari, losing the cello, and nearly losing his own life when the boat was shipwrecked near Buenos Aires.Counterpointing the themes raised by these extraordinary stories are a sequence of interludes that draw together the author’s reflections on the nature and history of the cello, and her many interviews and encounters with contemporary cellists. Kate Kennedy’s own relationship with the cello is a complicated one. As a teenager, she suffered an injury to her arm that imposed severe limitations on her career as a performer on the instrument that was her first love. She realised that, in order to start to understand what the cello meant to her, she needed to find out what the cello – and, crucially, the absence of the cello – had meant to some other cellists, past and present. Kate Kennedy has written an eloquent and multitextured homage to this warmest of stringed instruments – part quest narrative, part detective story, part philosophical meditation.

This, the fifth and final volume in the Trinity Tales series, completes a cycle that began with tales from the 1960s. It invites readers to step into the world of Trinity College as it was in the first decade of this century through the reflections of students who attended the university during those years.Within its pages lie the stories of twenty-eight graduates from a mix of diverse backgrounds whose experiences may dispel the myths of what it means to be a ‘Trinity student’. The collection reveals the rapidly changing world of the early 2000s. This was a time of the internet revolution, when social media first affected student life, when mobile phones and laptops became ubiquitous, when handwritten work was passing into history, when The Buttery closed its doors – and all this coming against the backdrop of an overheating then imploding Irish economy.This kaleidoscope of recollections captures a student body in transformation and features stories of personal discovery and achievement against the odds. For some it proved a life-changing era when sexual, racial or class barriers were confronted.This volume concludes a remarkable half-century journey, portraying the lives of others, and of ourselves.