The Aurora Orchestra, who are playing at Oxford’s Schwarzman Centre on the 19^th June, are best known for performing their orchestral repertoire from memory. For anyone who’s familiar with classical concerts, this is a huge departure from the norm – orchestral players usually sit demurely in their seats, eyes flitting between their scores and the conductor. It is especially remarkable considering the difficulty of their repertoire, which consists of pieces such as Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5. But, as Jane Mitchell, their principal flautist and artistic director, tells me, performing by heart actually affords a kind of security: “ninety people with that much knowledge in their heads is actually safer than ninety pieces of paper that might fall off the music stand.” 

Learning the pieces by heart allows for a more instinctual, bodily knowledge of the music, “an intensity and an energy and this kind of ownership that the players feel… we know where the piece is coming from and where it’s going.” As an audience member once remarked, it is as if “there are no bar lines.” Their immersive performance style, where players can move around the stage, allows for relationships between players to be forged that might not have formed in a traditional orchestra setting: “one of the only jobs where you literally sit in the same chair for twenty years next to one person.” 

Another way that Aurora departs from the norms of orchestral performance is in their collaborations with actors, using the medium of ‘Orchestral Theatre’ to tell stories about composers. Jane writes the scripts for these performances. She is conscious of the fact that Aurora are, in a way, “paying homage to the canon, and it’s all of those men who’ve been made statues of”. Music history is often constructed as a narrative following the lives and works of a series of ‘great men’. Nevertheless, Aurora has “a real desire to tell their stories in a new way which brings in other voices”, not being afraid to “look at sides of [the composers] that are a bit ridiculous.” Jane suggests that their presentation in fact brings the audience “closer to the composer” by emphasising the more human elements of them, like the grumpy and irrational side of Beethoven.

These ways in which the Aurora Orchestra tries to present classical music differently are part of their more general ethos: that classical music is for everyone. As Jane describes, the orchestra has come up against many practical barriers in doing this: most obviously, it can be really hard to draw in audiences when many people see classical music as being cordoned off for a cultural elite. Jane has also made huge efforts to introduce classical music into educational settings, which can also be made difficult by material barriers at every level – Jane tells me how even when Aurora has offered free tickets to a school, many can’t pay for the bus to get to the concert.

So why is it so important for music to have a role in education? As Jane says, music “can be everything” – it “can be about words, and writing, and counting,” and on a more fundamental level, it is about “understanding what being human is”. This is becoming increasingly more important amid “well-founded fears about effects of screen time” on young children. As such, Aurora play interactive concerts that are specifically aimed at introducing children to classical music, such as Mahler and the Mountain Adventure, and Beethoven and the Dinosaurs. Jane has also developed a free programme called Aurora Classroom, aiming to break down further barriers by adapting the ideas explored in their concerts to a classroom setting. 

The Aurora Orchestra have made waves within classical music by presenting a familiar repertoire in a completely new way – more human, more mobile, more dramatic. They will be performing Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony by heart at 7pm on Friday the 19^th June at the Sohmen Concert Hall at the Schwarzman Centre for Humanities. Last tickets can be found on the Schwarzman Centre website, with discounts for students. The orchestra will also be doing a free pop-up performance in the Atrium of the Schwarzman at 4:45 pm on the same day, which is worth coming along to if you don’t fancy paying for a ticket (and useful to be aware of if you’re going to be there revising). 

As billions around the world gear up for the beautiful game to touch down in not one, but three cultural superpowers, there has been an overriding sense of disgruntlement with North America’s vision of the world’s festival. Restlessness with the tournament, hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico, has grown steadily since the unveiling of its logo nearly three years ago; far from an empty icon, its design reveals an insight into the growing commercialisation tearing fans away from the game they love. 

Beset by organisational and political problems, the upcoming FIFA World Cup is not only the most ambitious in the institution’s history but also the most marketed. In fact, this World Cup goes where none other has before in the realm of marketing. From Clarkson’s Farm to Coca-Cola, Lego to Lays, there is seemingly no product to which the World Cup treatment has not been extended. Key to this effort is the marketing power invested in the World Cup logo. 

It is difficult to overstate the importance of the World Cup logo for setting the tone of the quadrennial tournament. From the very first World Cup logo at the 1954 Swiss tournament, a stylised ball-like icon incorporating a red Swiss flag turned football pitch in its centre, the World Cup logo has been utilised as a chance to paint a picture of national pride and culture. Through the years, each host has taken up this chance with fresh ideas and new perspectives.

There have been both remarkable successes and notable failures in the history of World Cup logo designs. Mexico’s 1970 World Cup saw what many regard as one of the finest sports logos ever created, its distinctive MEXICO 70 wordmark drawing inspiration from Lance Wyman’s typography for the 1968 Olympic Games. By contrast, England’s 1966 logo lacked both the inspiration and commendation expected for a tournament which brought such iconic moments. Yet, despite their varying levels of success, each of these attempts shared a common goal: they are designed not only to articulate a host nation’s identity but also to communicate its place within an international community brought together by football.

This is what the World Cup is about: drawing football into a global conversation of hope and joy. The World Cup logo is a visual cue for this, stating the organiser’s ambitions for the tournament. The logo for South Africa 2010, for example, was designed around the idea of unity, using sweeping colours that combine to form the African continent while converging on the football. These logos signify cultural moments, and being a part of a cultural moment is what fans seek. It is precisely this sense of shared significance that many fans seem to find absent from the approaching tournament.

The World Cup is not only about culture, it is also a political beast of sizable proportions. In its worst forms, football has proved an effective way of bolstering support for authoritarian regimes and blinding the world to corruption and coercion. The World Cup itself is no stranger to political interference. Whether used to strengthen and unite Fascist Italy in 1934 or ran by a brutish authoritarian regime, the tournament has long struggled to keep a clean face to cover its dark underbelly. 

As the symbolic face of the tournament, the World Cup logo has often served as a façade to cover up cultural and political tensions. Decided upon by design committees, consultancy firms, and so-called ‘brand teams’, the World Cup logo is a powerful marketing device aimed at suspending the material, political, and social reality of the tournament, promoting the image of a world unified by the spirit of the game. However, at this year’s 23rd edition of the FIFA World Cup the curtains have been well-and-truly drawn back. 

Rather than projecting an image of a tournament defined by sporting merit and excitement, this World Cup’s logo serves as perhaps the most striking testament to its underlying commercial character. Since Sepp Blatter’s 17-year stint as FIFA president, beset with allegations of corruption, fans have felt a growing rot within the game as commercial interests begin to outweigh sporting spirit. The selection of the USA as primary hosts, the foils of dynamic ticket pricing, and the expansion of the tournament to 48 teams, have all contributed to the sense that this World Cup is a pinnacle of the game’s demise. This year’s logo does little to hide this. Its sterile numerical design and photo-realistic representation of the FIFA World Cup trophy bear greater resemblance to Apple campaigns than to tournament logos of old. 

While FIFA has adapted this design for the individual host cities, it seems more like a brand template than a thoughtful representation of sport or culture. The brainchild of a Toronto-based creative agency, the logo does little to acknowledge football fan culture, instead becoming just another feature of America’s corporate “logorama”. If the World Cup logo aims to summarise the tone of the games, symbolising the tournament’s message to the world, then this is a message of meaningless corporate greed and soulless commodities. The World Cup logo has been rendered plain and marketable, suiting a tournament that now holds those values at its core. 

And yet, this format is here to stay. ‘Johnny’ Infantino, as he is warmly referred to by President Trump, promises that all future tournaments will continue to use this numerical design to provide brand consistency, no matter the extent of fan outcries. Whatever excuse or justification one makes for such a decision, it always comes back to the same logic: business. For fans around the world, World Cups are not remembered for their revenue or marketability, but because of the cultural moment they created. It seems that for Mr. Infantino and motley mob, this is of little importance. FIFA is very much at risk of tearing out the game’s soul in order to grow its brand; once that soul is gone, one must ask what there remains to sell. 

Background

Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, otherwise known as Tommy Robinson, is due to speak at the Oxford Union at 8.30 pm this evening at a debate on the motion “This House Believes the West is Right to be Suspicious of Islam”. The event has drawn condemnation from University societies, local politicians, and local faith leaders.

The debate comes days after Yaxley-Lennon was detained at Heathrow Airport on Saturday evening under the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019, following his return to the UK from Russia. His phones were seized, but no further action has been announced by the Metropolitan Police.

Thames Valley Police (TVP) has confirmed a significant policing operation across Oxford city centre from 3.30 pm today. St Michael’s Street, where the Oxford Union is located, has been closed to vehicles and pedestrians since 4 pm, and will remain shut until 1 pm. Despite earlier statements, it has been confirmed that no other roads will be closed.

Businesses in the city centre have also been closing early: The White Rabbit pub announced in advance it would shut from 3.30 pm, citing safety concerns and solidarity with other independent businesses. The Handlebar Kitchen on St Michael’s Street closed at 3.00 pm – their pavement licence was revoked for the day. Activate Learning, which runs further education colleges in the area, has also written to parents and carers advising students to avoid large gatherings and allow extra time for journeys through the city centre.

In a statement, Oxford City Council Leader Susan Brown has raised the question of the cost of the large-scale security operation. She wrote that the Oxford Union “must meet the full costs of staging their event, rather than leaving Oxford’s taxpayers to pick up the bill”. The Oxford Green Party has also issued a statement, demanding that the Oxford Union “cover the entire cost of the security operation it is requiring” and that “compensation be paid by the society to local businesses forced to board up their windows and close”. Cherwell has previously reported that the Oxford Union is just years away from insolvency.

The Oxford University Islamic Society issued a formal statement warning that the invitation posed a direct threat to Muslim students’ safety, arguing that “extending a platform to individuals whose reputations are built upon targeting minority communities is not without consequence”. A group of Oxfordshire Liberal Democrat politicians, including MP for Oxford West and Abingdon Layla Moran, have also called on the Union to reflect on whether proceeding “was consistent with “the values of respect, inclusion, and community cohesion that Oxfordshire strives to uphold”.

Individual colleges at the University of Oxford have announced that they will remain closed to the public this afternoon, and have reached out to remind their students to take the requisite precautions. Wadham College, for example, urged students to “please act responsibly, stay safe and vigilant and take the disruption into account when planning your afternoon and evening”. 

The debate is due to feature Laurence Fox and Jonathon Sacerdoti (alongside Yaxley-Lennon) on the proposition, and Jacob Rees-Mogg, Abdullah Al-Andalusi, and Michael Doward on the opposition. 

Defending her decision to invite Yaxley-Lennon in an article in The Telegraph, Elrayess wrote: “For more than 200 years, the Oxford Union has existed to host debates – not to platform views uncritically, but to subject them to the most rigorous scrutiny. You do not invite a speaker to endorse them: you invite them so that their ideas can be examined, and their claims tested.” 

A spokesperson for the Oxford Union previously told Cherwell that the Union gives “members the opportunity to challenge…a broad range of speakers” and “only host[s] speakers who agree to be challenged”. 

The University of Oxford has shared a reminder that “welfare services are available to support all students”.