This week’s selection was prepared by Dr Graeme Counsel, the archivist for the Syliphone record label digitisation project funded by the Endangered Archives Programme. Kébendo Jazz were one of Guinea’s greatest orchestras, super-stars when many groups, such as Bembeya Jazz, were still in their infancy. Adapted from an ancient Mandé… read more
This week’s selection comes from Liz Wright, National Life Stories Project Interviewer. Rod Kelly is a silversmith who specialises in the technique of chasing to create low relief decoration on the surface of silver vessels, which he often raises (hammers from sheet metal) himself. Rod depicts images from nature with… read more
This week’s selection comes from Kevin Lemonnier, Preservation Audio Engineer. This is the only known recording in existence of Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957) conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra performing Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro Op. 47. The performance took place during the 1937 London Music Festival and was privately recorded off broadcast,… read more
This week’s selection comes from Cheryl Tipp, Curator of Wildlife and Environmental Sounds. Sparkie Williams was a prize-winning talking budgerigar, renowned for his impressive vocabulary of over 500 words, sayings and rhymes. In 1958 he was crowned top bird in the BBC’s International Cage Word Contest which turned him into… read more
This week’s selection comes from Dr Eva del Rey, Curator of Drama and Literature Recordings and Digital Performance. In this recording, made in 1991 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, British literary theorist Terry Eagleton discusses the intricacies of the concept of ideology with French sociologist, anthropologist and… read more