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THIS
WEEK
The Tragic Story of Jacqueline du Pré
Alan Silman
What makes a great cellist?
How and why does multiple sclerosis (MS) develop?
What is the
essence of musical genius?
Alan is currently Professor of Musculoskeletal Health at Oxford University and Senior Fellow of Green College Oxford. He was previously Director of the Arthritis Research Unit at Manchester University and more recently the Medical Director of the research charity Arthritis Research UK.
He has written a number of books and over 500 research articles. During the Covid-19 outbreak he focused on communicating the complex medical and scientific issues arising from that virus to a wider audience via his weekly blog. Outside work, Alan recently enjoyed a very successful debut as a drama director, and over the
past 20 years he has designed and lead tours to several countries in Europe and Asia to explore Jewish heritage and culture.
In this talk, Alan Silman will present a biography of one of the world’s greatest cellists, Jacqueline du Pré. Her meteoric rise onto the global musical circuit and her
marriage to Daniel Barenboim and conversion to Judaism became the pillars of her musical life. Then, very sadly, her sources of strength failed as multiple sclerosis ravaged her health and her ability. The talk, illustrated with extracts of her playing, will illustrate the reasons for her amazing rise as a prodigy and her sad and not always well-understood decline to her early death.
