...has some exciting events coming up:

British Youth Opera: Le Nozze di Figaro

Sat 3 - Fri 9 September |Sadler's Wells Peacock Theatre

British Youth Opera: The Rape of Lucretia

Wed 7 - Sat 10 September | Sadler's Wells Peacock Theatre

St Matthew Passion

Sat 17 September - Sunday 2 October | National Theatre

Southbank Sinfonia 2011 Showcase with Matthew Barley

Sunday 9 October | Wigmore Hall | 7.00pm  

Visit www.southbanksinfonia.co.uk for more information

And after the November auditons, we'll be off with a new sinfonia. Looking out for the clarinet!! Remember the rush hour concerts are free at St. Johns Waterloo on Thursday evenings. Splendid music, and a great way to end the day or begin the musical evening if you're across to the Southbank.

From talks by Zaha Hadid to Jocelyn Bell Burnell, whose interview will follow that of Maggie Aderin. Two top British scientists. Only the best here!

Another woman whose heritage had a powerful effect on her.  Francesca inevitably had justice served with dinner; a common heritage to families who became refugees to avoid being wiped out in the Jewish Holocaust of the last World War.

"The concept of justice was quite strong in my family, I can't claim any special insight on my part.  I was brought up in a family where justice served up with the dinner."

Heritage

"All 4 of my grandparents were refugee migrants, and we were brought up very consciously to know that if they hadn't left the various Eastern European and Russian homelands when they did, they almost certainly would not have survived. Their extended families did not survive, except one cousin.

My father thought Britain was the Promised Land; he felt so lucky to be here.

There was no sense of entitlement.  He felt lucky to be alive, and to live in this country.

Our family story, and that of many others around us who, unlike us, had survived the Holocaust, impressed on me growing up that things can change; that nothing is certain and definite, and that you have to inculcate a sense of justice and a sense of fairness to stop the world turning against you and others. Both my parents impressed that on me in different ways."

What is meant by Feminism?

"For me it means recognizing the imbalance of power based on gender and being keen to address that through the rights of women."

Most surprising event?

"I suppose when I was called into Jack Straw's office in 1997, I'd been working closely with Jack Straw and his advisers. There were several of us. When I was called in I recognized almost all of what I'd proposed should be in the Human Rights Bill regarding the model for incorporating human rights standards into our law.   The rights were from the ECHR, as expected, but I was stunned that so much of the model I had proposed had been used. I didn't expect that.  

An instance when you felt treated differently as a woman?

I have become aware that there are men who will take credit for aspects of your work or overlook your contribution in full knowledge of what you've put in. All important developments are collaborative and no one person should take credit. We weren't so keen to claim authorship for new policies anyway. Things are changing again now. These days most people seem to want to distance themselves from the Human Rights Act rather than lay claim to it!"

  
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