Newport Bush Orchestra, Alain De Botton, and Art

The Newport Bush Orchestra meets each Monday - sometimes 6 players, sometimes 10, sometimes ........

The purpose of the group, established in 2005, is clearly defined on the folk club's web site . 

Under the leadership of Greg O'Leary the NBO has played at all sorts of places - but it is the practice sessions where the NBO develops and sustains itself. 

 At the same time Alain De Botton has been studying the value of art -  art historian John Armstrong to examine art’s most intimate purpose: its ability to mediate our psychological shortcomings and assuage our anxieties about imperfection. Their basic proposition is that, far more than mere aesthetic indulgence, art is a tool — a tool that serves a rather complex yet straightforwardly important purpose in our existence:

While they studied the visual arts - paintings - the findings can be generalised across all of the arts

 “Art holds out the promise of inner wholeness.”

That is what is going on here! The concentration - the sharing - the learning - the laughter - the connection to our culture and to each other - all of these are life at its purest - without pretence or facade.

' Like other tools, art has the power to extend our capacities beyond those that nature has originally endowed us with. 

Art compensates us for certain inborn weaknesses, in this case of the mind rather than the body, 

weaknesses that we can refer to as psychological frailties''

 De Botton and Armstrong go on to outline the seven core psychological functions of art:

 REMEMBERING

 2. HOPE

 3. SORROW

 4. REBALANCING

 5. SELF-UNDERSTANDING

 6. GROWTH

7. APPRECIATION

All of these core functions are amplified when a group gets together - the players hear and see and feel and know that there is something simple and profound in the playing of the tunes.  

Life is short - Art is long.