By Jonathan Summers, Curator of Classical Music For Black History month in previous years I have highlighted the career and work of classical musicians such as Dean Dixon and Cullen Maiden. While considering people for this year’s blog, I received a donation which included a fascinating disc. The performers are…

Cheryl Tipp, Curator of Wildlife and Environmental Sounds, writes: In Disney’s The Lion King, the young cub Simba finds himself in the midst of a terrifying wildebeest stampede. Though our little hero survives the ordeal, a stampeding herd of wildebeest is certainly a force to reckon with. Every year during…

Have you ever noticed how some animals are named after people? Hume’s Partridge. Lady Amherst’s Pheasant. Waller’s Starling. I come across this quite a lot when cataloguing new collections and have often wondered who these people were. You’d be forgiven for thinking that these species were named after the naturalists…

This week’s selection comes from Stephen Cleary, Lead Curator of Literary & Creative Recordings. In this archive recording from the African Writers Club collection, South African poet and anti-apartheid activist Dennis Brutus reads the introductory poem from his debut volume Sirens Knuckles Boots. At the time of the book’s publication…

This week’s selection comes from Dr Janet Topp Fargion, Lead Curator of World and Traditional Music. I was studying Zulu street guitarists in Durban in 1984 when I met Blanket Mkhize, a guitarist from Glebelands male hostel in Umlazi township on the outskirts of the city. Blanket had a fascinating…