Written in Water: A Celebration of John Keats in 1819

A bold poetic exploration of Keats's most creative year in poetry written and performed by poet Andrew Mitchell, with musical accompaniment by the Pixel Trio: flautist Katie MacDonald, violinist Beatriz Rola, and cellist Anna Litvinenko. 

Thursday 3rd October at 5 p.m.  

The year 1819 was the one in which John Keats wrote many of his best loved poems, beginning with ‘The Eve of St Agnes’ and ending with the ‘Ode to Autumn’. From his long narrative poem sequence, ‘Written in Water’, acclaimed British poet Andrew Mitchell will read the section which covers this highly creative time in Keats’s life. It is the only part of the poem which assumes Keats’s own voice and attempts to consider his thinking on life, love and poetry at that time. 

The event will consist of three parts: an introduction to Keats in 1819; selected readings from the poems; a performance from ‘Written in Water’ with illustrations and music.   

Participation is included in the standard museum entrance ticket. Booking is mandatory ([email protected]/ 06 678 42 35)

Andrew Mitchell is a narrative poet with experience of incorporating music, dance and song into poetry performance. His current project, A Paradise of Exiles, is a sequence of poems based round the lives and work of the younger British Romantic Poets. He visits Rome this October to read from his long narrative, ‘Written in Water’, on the life, work and ideas of John Keats. This visit is to celebrate the bicentenary of John Keats’s great poems written in 1819. He returns to Rome to mark the bicentenary of Keats’s death in 2021. This performance comes directly from The British Library in London. He is an Honorary Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester.

“Who wrote the music?” is the typical question put to Pixel Trio. Flautist Katie MacDonald, violinist Beatriz Rola, and cellist Anna Litvinenko have built an intense musical relationship together: performing, composing, and improvising in varied forms and settings. All three are classical musicians, conservatoire trained, who have collectively attended: Royal Academy of Music, London; Royal College of Music, London; Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London; The Juilliard School, New York; Royal Conservatoire of The Hague, Holland. Since their training, all have followed distinctive paths both individually and as an ensemble. Collaborations with other artists which have inspired them include one with poet Andrew Mitchell and artist Mary Kuper. Here they contributed to a multi-media performance based on Mitchell’s long narrative poem ‘Villa Diodati’ on the story of Frankenstein at The British Library and Keats House, Hampstead, to mark the bicentenary of the novel’s publication in 2018. Though their music has its roots in the classical tradition, each project takes its own unique direction.