SPRING 2010 EVENTS PROGRAMME

Wednesday 20/ Thursday 21 January: Meet the director in Edinburgh! A meeting for students newly arrived in Scotland to answer any questions you may have and talk about the next semester. Meet at 55 George Square at 4pm on Wednesday. RSVP BY 18/1 SO WE KNOW WHO I S COMING.

Thursday 21 January: The first event in our ‘cultural programme’. English National Ballet brings their Christmas season to a close with the classic ‘Giselle’ at the Coliseum, St Martins Lane, WC2 off Trafalgar Square. The performance starts at 7.30pm and we have pre-booked tickets at the group rate of only £15. SOLD OUT!

Saturday 23 January: ‘Welcome Meeting’ for all other newly arrived students to meet the Centre staff and other guests and talk about academic matters, finances, travelling and working, safety and security. The meeting will begin at 1.30pm at Birkbeck College, London WC1 and finish about 3.30pm. RSVP BY 18/1 SO WE KNOW WHO I S COMING.

Tuesday 2 February: The Royal Shakespeare Company performs Shakespeare’s comedy, ‘Twelfth Night’ at the Duke of York’s Theatre on St Martin’s Lane. The RSC offer education group rates so our tickets cost only £12. The play starts at 7.30pm. SOLD OUT!

Thursday 11 February: Alan Bennett’s new play about Benjamin Britten and W h Auden premiered in the autumn … we have education group rate tickets again at £15 each. The play starts at 7.30pm and will be in the Lyttleton theatre at the National Theatre on the South Bank. SOLD OUT!

Wednesday 3 March: We have selected Donizetti’s “rom-com” ‘The Elixir of Love’ for our opera visit this semester in director Jonathan Miller’s new staging, which relocates the action from 19th century rural Italy to small-town America in the 50s. The performance starts at 7.30pm and finishes about 10pm. Generous discounts from English National Opera mean the tickets cost only 10 pounds 40p each.

Friday 12 March: To finish the term, come to the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank to hear the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Gunther Herbig. The concert programme is Ravel’s ‘Mother Goose’ Suite, Schumann’s Piano Concerto with soloist Helene Grimaud and finally, Brahms’ Symphony No 2. The concert starts at 7.30pm and with our group reduction, the side stalls seats cost only £9.60p

Saturday 8 May: We’ll end as we began the year, with Shakespeare at the Globe Theatre. The 2010 season has just opened and we have tickets for Shakespeare’s ‘Scottish play’ … that’s ‘Macbeth’ if you’re not superstitious! The performance starts at 2pm to give out-of-London students plenty of time to come into London for the day. And the tickets cost only £5 as these are standing places in the Yard – a true 16th century experience as a ‘groundling’!

This is the last group event for the 2009/2010 year – we hope you’ve enjoyed them …

We book 20-25 tickets for each event and offer them to the first students to reply to email notifications that the tickets are available to book. If you receive the cultural bonus, the cost is deducted from your bonus. If not, we just need cash payment in advance.

AUTUMN 2009 EVENTS PROGRAMME

Wednesday 16 September/ Thursday 17 September: Opportunities for students newly arrived in Scotland to meet the director in Edinburgh at the beginning of the semester.

Saturday 3 October: ‘Welcome Meeting’ for all new students in London. A chance to meet the Centre staff and colleagues and talk about living and studying in the UK, travel and work, safety and security. To be held at Birkbeck College, Bloomsbury starting at 1:30pm...ESSENTIAL! RSVP by 28 September.

Sunday 4 October: The last Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre open-air performance of the season is our first event for the semester - Shakespeare’s comedy ‘Loves Labours Lost’ starting at 1pm ... tickets are only £5 each! (standing places) SOLD OUT!

Saturday 17 October: The meeting for newly arrived Oxford-based students (and Cambridge students too if they can manage it!) at St Peter's College, Oxford, starting at 2:30pm. RSVP by 9 October.

Tuesday 20 October: Our opera visit for this year is Verdi's 'Rigoletto' directed by Jonathan Miller and set in 50s New York (spot the visual references!). Our group booking tickets at the Coliseum, St Martin's Lane, are only £10.40p each - the opera starts at 7:30pm. SOLD OUT!

Tuesday 27 October: We have tickets at the special students' price of £12 for 'Inherit the Wind' at the Old Vic Theatre on Waterloo Road SE1, when Kevin Spacey returns to the Old Vic to play the lawyer Drummond, in a fictionalised account of the 1925 Scopes 'monkey trial'. You'll have to book quickly to grab one of our seats for this one! SOLD OUT!

Tuesday 17 November: Our concert choice for the autumn is the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra playing in the intimate atmosphere of Cadogan Hall, off Sloane Street. You'll hear one of the UK's finest orchestras play a concert of music by Tchaikovsky, Paginini, Rossini and Mendelssohn...all for £5 a ticket! SOLD OUT!

Saturday 28 November: The Cornell Club of London hosts its 25th annual Thanksgiving Dinner for alumni, students and their friends from all three universities on Saturday, 28 November 7pm for 7.30pm. Held in the elegant surroundings of the East India Club on St James’s Square, in Mayfair, t. The menu is traditional, with pumpkin soup, roast turkey with all the trimmings and pecan pie (a vegetarian option is available). Wine or soft drinks are served with the meal and included in the price. Cornell, Brown and UPenn subsidise the dinner costs so that you pay only 15 pounds for your dinner, while you can bring a student guest, if you wish, at 20 pounds. This rate is heavily subsidized so you are paying much less than the alumni! The evening starts at 7pm with a cash bar, and you’ll sit down to dinner at 7.30pm. There is a dress code for this event as we’re in a private ‘gentlemens’ club’ – no jeans please and men must wear a jacket and tie. SOLD OUT!

Wednesday 2 December: A new production of Tennessee Williams' 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' directed by US director and choreographer Debbie Allen comes to the Novello Theatre on the Aldwych, London WC2, starring James Earl Jones, Sanaa Lathan, Adrian Lester and Phylicia Rashas. We got the education group booking rate tickets at £17.50 for what should be a bold new staging, translated by this director to an all-black family. SOLD OUT!

We usually buy 20/25 tickets in advance for each event and open booking about two weeks before each show. Tickets are allocated to the first students who apply for them and the cost is deducted from the cultural bonus. If you're not eligible for the bonus then we ask for cash payment in advance instead.