Past Events 

Malcolm Miller, musicologist and pianist, is Hon. Associate and Associate Lecturer in Music at the Open University. He has published widely on Beethoven, Wagner and contemporary music and writes regularly for the musical press. His chapter on emigre musicians 'Music and Memory' appears in The Impact of Nazism on Twentieth Century music (Bohlau Verlag 2014) and he co-edited, with Jutta Raab Hansen, the volume Music and Exile: 1933 to the Present Day (Brill 2023), a collection of essays on refugee musicians who escaped to Britain, USA, Australia and Shanghai. He is author of a monograph on ‘Boundary, Space, and Register in Beethoven’s Piano Works’ (Boydell, 2025). 

Join interior designer Wren Loucks for an inspiring talk on how the spaces we live and work in shape our emotions, creativity, and wellbeing.

Drawing from her professional practice, Wren will share her design philosophy and showcase examples from her portfolio that reveal how interiors influence the people who inhabit them.

Through case studies of local artists, she will explore how studio and home environments impact creative expression, highlighting the powerful role of thoughtful design in supporting both artistry and everyday life.

Whether you’re a design professional, an artist, a homeowner, or simply curious about how surroundings affect the human experience, this talk will offer fresh insights into the connections between design, psychology, and creativity.

Wren Loucks is the Founder & Creative Director of Be-Kin. She is an award-winning interior designer, who has spent her life exploring how the spaces we occupy play a role in our physical, emotional and spiritual health.

You can learn more about her practice at www.wrenloucks.com 

“The trees wave, the clouds pass” — Virginia Woolf on Life and Art

In this illustrated lecture, Karin Fernald examines Virginia Woolf’s engagement with life and art through selections from her letters, diaries, and novels. The talk is complemented by visual material, including paintings by Vanessa Bell and works from the Camden Group of Artists, situating Woolf within her wider cultural and artistic milieu.

Pamela Holmes will talk about the research she did before writing the novel, The Huntingfield Paintress. Her illustrated talk will consider the life of Mildred Holland. Every day for six years, this Victorian vicar’s wife climbed up rickety ladders to lie on her back painting angels and saints in gold leaf and bright colours on the ceiling of her husband’s church. A Michelangelo in skirts. But what drove her up the ladder?

"Inside Psychosis" is a clinical and therapeutic exploration of working on male and female acute psychiatric wards.

The author, Helen Holmes, is the Clinical Director of The Blues Clinic based in South Hampstead, with over 35 years experience working in education and mental health with children, young people, adults, couples and families. Educated at Oxford University, UCL, King’s College London and Heythrop College London, Helen has trained under leading international experts.  Her books include a psychology textbook on pre- and perinatal mental health (2020), Inside Psychosis (2025), and a poetry anthology (2008).