ARTifex Young Jewellery Designer Awards is run by the directors of ARTifex Gallery in Sutton Coldfield; Ross Fenn and Nigel Bates. The competition is open to young jewellery designers from, or studying, in the Midlands aged 18 – 25 and to enter you must design and produce a unique piece/pieces of jewellery!

Click here to download an application form.

To find out more please visit the site or follow ARTifex on twitter. As with all competitions, please make sure you read the terms and conditions.

an epic new choral work from composer Jonathan Harvey to be performed by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

Which was a coincidence because, only a few days before, the person behind the @thinkwalsall Twitter account mentioned to me that Jonathan Harvey is from Sutton Coldfield.

I’d not heard of Jonathan Harvey before but I did some quick digging around and here’s his website and his Wikipedia page. Very recently the BBC put on a weekend of music, film and discussion celebrating his music at the Barbican.

If you’d like a listen to some of his work, here’s ‘Madonna of Winter and Spring” for orchestra, synthesizers and live electronics, from 1986.

Made in Sutton is an arts forum created in Sutton Coldfield. Others have been created across Birmingham (see info on the Birmingham City Council arts pages for the others).

Their first meeting is on Saturday (26 November) and they say:

All local arts organisations are welcome to participate, so whether you run an amateur dramatics society or provide dance classes we’d love to hear from you.

I am currently running an event at the Station Pub in Sutton Coldfield trying to promote and encourage new writing within Birmingham and the surrounding area.  The event stages its second night on the 24th November and I would appreciate it if you could promote it in some way on your blog.  We are especially looking for actors and actresses who would be prepared to donate their time to reading some of the scripts, although I we also need some more scripts for the upcoming event.

The night is called Semper Station and the next one is billed as celebrating the anticipation of Christmas (rather than the event itself).

If you want more info then hie thee hence to the Semper Writer’s Group website. Submissions are required by 15 November.