During the whole weekend of 10 and 11 September  river operators including Thames Clippers, City Cruises, Crown River Cruises, Turk Launches, Tate to Tate and Parr’s Circular Services are offering 2-for-1 tickets^* to help visitors make the most of this year’s festival.

The festival is a stunning, free celebration of London and its world-famous waterway and is a key highlight in the city’s cultural calendar.  Activities take place all over the weekend on the River Thames, the riverside, walkways, roads, bridges, docks and open spaces from Westminster Bridge to Tower Bridge and beyond.

London River Services’ piers will be operating throughout the weekend, helping to provide fast and picturesque journeys along the river, passing the London Eye, The Royal Festival Hall and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre along the way.

London’s river services will operate normally throughout the weekend.

Andy Griffiths, Head of London River Services, said: “With a whole host of activities around the river this weekend for both Londoners and visitors alike, there is never a better time to enjoy the Thames Festival than from a scheduled River Bus or River Tour service. Our special 2-for-1 ticket* offer and clearer passenger information should make it a great time for all.”

Together the young people have created a song album as a gift for travellers on the Central line.  Their experimental songs and drawings tell of who they are and how they think others see them and share their hopes and dreams for a better world in which to grow up.  The album will also be available as a free download from Art on the Underground’s website art.tfl.gov.uk from 24 August

Next, the group is creating two artworks for Bethnal Green Tube station to be launched this autumn. Two drawings, which map the sound and flow of songs from the album, will run above the length of the escalators.

Ruth Ewan was commissioned to devise and lead the project by Art on the Underground. Inspired by the youth club’s inclusive atmosphere and lively adventurous spirit, Ruth invited composer Kerry Andrew to collaborate with her on leading the project through a series of workshops open to all members of the Club who are aged between 9 and 19.  The young people were also given support in developing their words and lyrics by poet Evlynn Sharp. All the songs, words and drawings were created by Laburnum Club members, and shaped into complete artworks by Ruth and Kerry.

The group developed the theme A LOCK IS A GATE, a phrase that has both philosophical and practical meaning for the Club: a canal lock is a water gate that requires special knowledge to unlock. Once opened, it lets a boat pass between different water levels. In the same way, obstacles in life that might at first seem impassable can be overcome. The core of the songs and drawings in the project respond to this idea.

The album recounts the story of a journey, part imaginary, part real, that leads from the Tube to and along the Regent’s Canal. To develop their ideas, the Club members went on a tour behind the scenes at Bethnal Green Tube station and took a trip on a narrow boat through a lock and Islington canal tunnel. During their travels they recorded sounds on the water and out in the wider city, weaving them into songs. They also invented ways to express these sounds through mapping the flow of a song along a line.

Ruth Ewan, said: “I hugely enjoyed working with Kerry, Evlynn and the staff and young people from Laburnum Boat Club. The Boat Club is an inspiring organisation: energetic, welcoming and creative. It is a fantastic place, there should be more organisations like this across the country.”

Cathy Haynes, Curator for Art on the Underground, London Underground, said: “I hope Tube travellers will enjoy the songs and artworks that the young members of Laburnum Boat Club have created for them with Ruth, Kerry and Evlynn’. It has been a great experience to work with this group of young people from Hackney who have volunteered their time and creative energies to help make something for us all to enjoy. The artists have been exceptional in their commitment to the young people and their ideas. This has been a highly rewarding project.”

The album tracks and artwork will be downloadable for free at art.tfl.gov.uk for an unlimited period of time. A special edition of the album as a CD with sleeve artwork is also available for free for a limited period at the V&A Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green and other venues. For information on stockists, visit art.tfl.gov.uk

Grammy and Oscar Award winning singer/songwriter, Christopher Cross, will perform his first and only UK concert in two years at London’s prestigious Bloomsbury Theatre on Monday 7th November 2011. Tickets go on sale Wednesday August 3rd at 10.00am. The special one-off UK show follows the recent release of Christopher’s new solo album, Doctor Faith.

Known to millions of music fans around the world, his classic hits include Sailing, Ride Like The Wind (covered by Saxon and East Side Beat) and the Oscar winning Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do) from the hit movie ‘Arthur’ starring Dudley Moore.

Christopher Cross was by far the biggest new star of 1980, virtually defining adult contemporary radio with a series of smoothly sophisticated ballads including the #1 hit, “Sailing.”

Christopher Cross’ 1980 self-titled debut album with the lead single Ride Like the Wind rocketed to the #2 spot; the massive success of the second single Sailing made Cross a superstar, and in the wake of two more Top 20 hits, Never Be the Same and Say You’ll Be Mine, he walked off with an unprecedented and record-setting five Grammys in 1981, including Best New Artist and Song of the Year for Sailing.

He soon scored a second #1, as well as an Academy Award, with Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do), which he co-wrote with Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer Sager, and Peter Allen for the smash Dudley Moore film comedy Arthur.

Christopher’s much-anticipated second album Another Page (1983), produced the hits All Right, No Time for Talk, and a Top Ten entry for Think of Laura, a song that featured prominently in the daytime drama, General Hospital. Amazingly, he charted 8 singles into the Billboard Top-40 charts between 1980 and 1983.

Four years, two albums, eight hit singles, several world tours, five Grammy’s, and one Oscar marked Christopher’s meteoric rise to the top.

To date, Christopher has released eight albums (not counting hits packages), a body of work revealing a steady, focused dedication to that oh-so-rare commodity of the latter-day popster – artistic growth. Those who have followed Cross have reaped the rewards of set after set of intelligently written and performed melodic pop.

Over the years, Cross has remained a unique artist, replete with that confounding blend of sensitivity, determination and conviction of his own artistry.

Beyond the Cross-mania years, Christopher co-wrote and sang the song that helped define the 1984 Summer Olympics, A Chance for Heaven; he co-wrote and sang the delightful Loving Strangers for the hit 1986 Tom Hanks movie, Nothing in Common; and the following year he presented I Will (Take You Forever), a lovely duet with international Les Miserables star Frances Ruffelle, which tune has graced many a wedding (and is still on radio worldwide).

Singles from most all of his albums charted in Japan and elsewhere in East; and the rollicking In the Blink of an Eye enjoyed a smashing top-ten success in Germany and surrounding territories in 1992.

Christopher Cross’ string of post-megahit albums from the mid-1980s to the present represents, in a consistent manner, a hard-travelled road of integrity, a refusal to compromise: Every Turn of the World, Christopher’s foray into a harder rocking style which delighted fans; Back of My Mind, a collection of breezy pop perfection with a foreshadowing of the deeper range to come; Rendezvous, the insightful, landmark Cross set that found him tackling thoughtful subjects; Window, a heartfelt, acoustic-pop of the era; and Walking In Avalon / Red Room, arguably the very pinnacle of sophisticated, mature, and, lest we forget, fun.

Christopher continues to record and perform, averaging about 100 live shows per year. Every few years, the world has been gifted with a new set of songs, each of the albums growing innately from the last while resolutely advancing the state of his art. And he has continued to seek out his fans worldwide by regularly hitting the concert road, never depriving those fans of the early hits (played note-perfect), as well as a broad range of his latest work – the songs where his heart (and his art) truly lies. The audience response is never less than rapturous.

That later work, much of it in collaboration with longtime cohort Rob Meurer, stands up to the best of better-known contemporary pop; some would say it stands a bit taller. It also stands as a testament to an artist who strives to deepen. Christopher Cross has many a laurel, none of which has ever been rested on.

Just a few months later, but this time at the Louvre in the exhibition, ‘Leonardo da Vinci’s St Anne’, Leonardo’s newly cleaned and restored ‘The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne’ will be joined with the National Gallery’s version, The Burlington House Cartoon – Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and John the Baptist, from 29 March – 25 June 2012.

These two exhibitions will illuminate the painting career of Leonardo da Vinci as never before, providing an unprecedented and unique chance to examine and study these related works in their artistic contexts. This collaboration between the two institutions has taken into consideration the serious scholarly ambitions of each exhibition and the research opportunities they provide. The Louvre and the National Gallery also believe that these comparisons will be of exceptional interest to a wide public. All these factors have persuaded both galleries to lend their precious masterpieces for the first time, in the expectation that no such exhibitions will be held again.

Director of the National Gallery, Dr Nicholas Penny, “We are delighted and very grateful to our colleagues at the Louvre for the loan of this celebrated painting. It is part of an extraordinary collaboration between the National Gallery and the Department of Paintings at the Louvre. I am quite sure that the experience of seeing these masterpieces juxtaposed will be one that none of us will ever forget or that will ever be repeated. I am delighted that such a rich context for these comparisons will be provided at each venue.”

Director of Louvre Henri Loyrette, “This exceptional collaboration between the National Gallery, London and the Louvre achieves two historical juxtapositions long desired by generations of art historians and which are certain to offer a source of considerable fascination for today’s museum visitors as well: Leonardo da Vinci’s two well-known versions of the Virgin of the Rocks and of the Virgin and Child with Saint Anne. As complementary as our two collections are, a continuation of this exchange would be invaluable and beautifully fruitful.”

The Virgin of the Rocks. The Paris version on the left and the London version on the right. Click on image for larger pic.

Think Tracey Emin’s work begins and ends with that infamous bed? Think again.

At the Hayward Gallery’s major survey of works by the acclaimed British contemporary artist you’ll find paintings, drawings, photography, textiles, video and sculpture.

Love is What You Want features works from every stage of Tracey Emin’s whirlwind career, including rarely-seen early works and new outdoor sculptures created especially for the Hayward Gallery.

The exhibition takes over both floors of the Hayward Gallery as well as two outdoor sculpture terraces.

Highlights of Love is What You Want

Don’t miss these works by Tracey Emin on display at Love is What You Want:

• Famous appliqué blankets Hotel International (1993) and Psyco Slut (1999)
  
• Neon works and videos, displayed in a darkened room
  
• Menphis (2003), part of installation originally staged at the Carl Freedman Gallery, London
  
• Rarely seen sculptural works, including Emin’s Army (1999), Tacimin – Can You Hear Me? (1997) and Salem (2005)
  
• New photographic works
  
• New large-scale outdoor sculpture, based on hand-moulded clay maquette
  

Head along in the first month of the show and you can also send a message directly to Tracey Emin via an interactive message board.

About Tracey Emin: The Artist

Tracey Emin was born in London in 1963 and grew up in the coastal town of Margate.

She came to the public’s attention in the 1990s and soon became widely known for her confessional, witty and controversial work.

The many different themes explored in Tracey Emin’s art include spirituality, cultural identity, class and celebrity.