Our new exhibition here in the Colyer-Fergusson Gallery focuses on the different uses of music during World War One.
Curated by Dr Emma Hanna in the School of History, the exhibition examines music away from the solemnity of memorial services, and looks instead at its use as entertainment in an era before the widespread ownership of gramophones, as a means of boosting morale during the conflict, as a recruitment tool, and as a means of keeping the men at the Front in touch with feelings of home.
As Dr Hanna writes in her introduction accompanying the exhibition, music ‘was unmatched in its power to cajole, console, cheer and inspire during the conflict and its aftermath.’
On display until Friday 25 November during normal opening hours, the exhibition is free to attend, and is part of the Gateways to the First World War project. You can talk a short video walk-through of the exhibition on Periscope here.
On Thursday 10 November, a special performance by the Cecilian Choir, conducted by Your Loyal Correspondent, commemorates the anniversary of the Battle of the Somme with a new choral piece written by American composer David Lang in Studio 3 Gallery. Memorial Ground is an evocative, haunting meditation on the Battle of the Somme, but also reaches beyond it to commemorate all those who have lost their lives in conflict ever since. The piece was commissioned as part of the nationwide 14-18NOW project.
On Friday 11 November at 11am, third-year Music Scholar and trumpeter Alex Reid will play the Last Post in the Registry Garden; this is followed at 1.10pm by a lunchtime concert focusing on poet and composer Ivor Gurney. Arranged by Dr Kate Kennedy, the event dramatizes Gurney’s life as musician, soldier and eventually asylum patient, following his progress in his own words and music, with humour and poignancy.