Recording of the week: Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro

This week’s selection comes from Lucy Armstrong, Audio Project Cataloguer for Unlocking our Sound Heritage. This is an extract of a recording of Introduction and Allegro by Edward Elgar from 1940. Like many recordings in the Stuart Pollard Collection, it is an off air recording of a performance by Arturo…

National Life Stories Goodison Fellowship 2020-2021: Suzanne Joinson

Suzanne Joinson introduces her work on Barbara Mullins, Juliet Pannett, and Ann Sutton.

Recording of the week: where there’s a whip there’s a will

This week’s selection comes from Cheryl Tipp, Curator of Wildlife & Environmental Sounds. Many birds are a dab hand when it comes to singing their name and the Whip-poor-will (Antrostomus vociferous) is no exception. This nocturnal bird inhabits woodlands stretching from Canada to the southern United States and, due to…

Recording of the week: Ntozake Shange

This week’s selection comes from Steve Cleary, Lead Curator of Literary and Creative Recordings. Ntozake Shange, November 1978, by Barnard College; digitally restored by Chris Woodrich. CC BY-SA 3.0 This week’s selection features the American playwright and poet Ntozake Shange (1948-2018), recorded at the ICA, London, 14 March 1984. The…

Recording of the week: "If Not, Not"

This week’s selection comes from Andrea Zarza Canova, Curator of World & Traditional Music. You may be familiar with the tapestry featured in this photograph if you visit the British Library every now and then. If its bright colours and mysterious symbolism haven’t lured you in before, it’s a tapestry…