WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Top Scot
BEN LUNN celebrates the beautiful and subversive music of Eddie McGuire
ON SONG: (L to R) On the picket line with fellow composers 1980, a strike to save the Scottish Symphony Orchestra (SSO); Eddie McGuire addresses the STUC
[edwardmcguire.com] 
JAMES CROSSLEY applauds a lucid biography of the German radical preacher who reemerged as a hero in the GDR
Prizes all round: the Bard hands plaudits to the Miners Gala, OT&JC, Joe Solo, Black Sabbath’s frontman and the Lionesses
Star cartoonist JAMIE BRITTON is in awe of a graphic novel of epic proportions that explores class, religion and globalisation via the strange cultivation of Ginseng in the US Midwest
GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
YOU can learn a lot about a composer, and a person, simply from the place you first meet them. My first encounter with Eddie McGuire was at a meeting of Radical Options for Scotland and Europe in the Unite offices in Glasgow. Since then, to this day, most of my encounters with the composer have been at a protest or rally rather than in a concert hall.
Shortly after I moved to Scotland, after my years living in Vilnius, I attended a Morning Star event (although I can’t remember for the life of me which) where Keith Stoddart deployed his usual charm and curiosity and quickly discovered I was a composer. His instant response was: “In Scotland you only need to know two composers James MacMillan and Eddie McGuire.”
Two very telling signs about a composer who celebrates his 75th this year.
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BEN LUNN alerts us to the creeping return of philanthropy and private patronage, and suggests alternative paths to explore
BEN LUNN draws attention to the way cultural expressions of solidarity with Palestinians in the UK are being censored by Israeli-sponsored lawfare
BEN LUNN reports from a new music festival in New York, and singles out a breathtaking composition that protests directly against femicide in Mexico
The centenary of his birth is a chance to assess the remarkable combination of Marxism, activism and modernism in the works of Luigi Nono
