Recording of the week: Mrs Meurig Morris in a trance address

This week’s selection comes from Steve Cleary, Lead Curator of Literary and Creative Recordings. In this week’s ‘Recording of the Week’ we feature the stentorian tones of Louisa Ann Meurig Morris (1899-1991), who was well-known as a spiritualist and medium in the 1930s. In January 1931, she featured in the…

Discovery of a rare Bettini cylinder recording

Richard Copeman with his Bettini cylinder (photo © Jonathan Summers) By Jonathan Summers, Curator of Classical Music In February 2020, just before lockdown, collector Richard Copeman contacted me about a concert cylinder he had just purchased in Paris. He wondered if we would like to make a digital transfer of…

Recording of the week: Memories of a theatregoer

This week’s selection comes from Giulia Baldorilli, Reference Specialist. In the last year of closed performance venues, we have almost forgotten what it means to go to the theatre. Photo by Alessia Chinazzo on Unsplash In this interview from 2008, recorded as part of the Theatre Archive Project, Barbara Silcock…

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)….