Persian choral album surfaces after four decades in limbo

CD cover courtesy of Persian Dutch Network Guest blog by Pejman Akbarzadeh In 1973, the Empress of Persia, Farah Pahlavi, commissioned the choral conductor Evlin Baghcheban to establish a conservatory of music for orphaned children. In this school, Baghcheban organised a choral group called the Farah Choir. The group gave…

Recording of the week: Louis Moholo-Moholo’s first encounters with jazz

This week’s selection comes from Charmaine Wong, Digital Learning Manager for Unlocking our Sound Heritage. This week we take a look at an interview with legendary jazz drummer, Louis Moholo-Moholo. South African drummer and free jazz musician Louis Moholo-Moholo during a concert at the House of World Cultures (Berlin, germany)….

‘Violence, shock, life’: the sounds of Pierre Boulez’s formative years

Pierre Boulez (1968) Guest blog by Edison Fellow Dr Caroline Potter Pierre Boulez was one of the most important musicians of the 20th and early 21st centuries. His own music is often considered forbiddingly cerebral, not least because musicologists have tended to focus on its construction, but I contend that…

Recording of the week: A hibernating dormouse

This week’s selection comes from Cheryl Tipp, Curator of Wildlife & Environmental Sounds You’d be hard pressed to find anything cuter than a sleeping dormouse. This tiny little rodent can spend up to seven months of the year asleep, moving between a state of hibernation and torpor (deep sleep) before…

The NHS at 73

73 years of the NHS as told through oral history interviews