Page 1053 - Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Coverage Book 2023-24

She will be preceded in May by vampire slayer Olivia Rodrigo, shaping up to be the gen
Z successor to Swift’s tell-all tune-maker crown. Rodrigo’s second album of raw, snarly
pop – the excellently named Guts – has ranked high in a number of end-of-year lists,
underlining the former Disney star’s staying power.

Around the same time, and about a decade after their acrimonious split, our own Girls
Aloud have announced a reunion jaunt in memory of singer Sarah Harding, who died
from breast cancer in 2021. And although no dates have been announced, it’s an open
secret that Dua Lipa is preparing an album, due out this year, her first since
2020’s Future Nostalgia. A tour is rumoured to follow, possibly in the summer. Kitty
Empire

Art
Soak up the wonder of Van Gogh at the National Gallery

The Bedroom, 1889 by Vincent van Gogh. Photograph: © The Art Institute of Chicago

The National Gallery in London is celebrating its bicentennial year in numerous ways,
including sending some of its masterpieces around the UK on tour, but nothing
compares to its massive, once-in-a-lifetime spectacular opening on 14 September. Van
Gogh: Poets and Lovers (until 19 January 2025) follows the painter’s life in Provence. It
will begin in Arles, with Van Gogh newly stunned by the southern sun, and continue to
the year spent in the asylum at Saint-Rémy. The title refers to the poet’s garden, as Van
Gogh described the local park in Arles, and to the lovers who appear in his art, if not his
own life. His way of making art, his inspirations, his euphoric response to everything
from the leaves on the ground to the clouds in the sky, will be explored in masterpieces
of painting and drawing, as well as Van Gogh’s incomparable letters. Major loans will
include his Starry Night, The Yellow House at Arles and more than one vase of
sunflowers. Book fast! Laura Cumming