Attend a free conference? Research Conference: Collecting Performance by Julie Duffy

We heard about this fascinating conference via email today.  It's free, and it's in Edinburgh's Scottish National Gallery this Saturday.  

How do you archive contemporary performances? If you sign up to this conference, there's every chance you'll get plenty of inspiration, and quite a few answers!

 Eventbrite booking form

Historic Dance: Quadrilles in Edinburgh

Nathaniel Gow’s Dance Band

RCS tutor promotes concert and workshop

 Talitha Mackenzie is promoting a concert and dance workshop as part of a Bicentennial Celebration to honour Nathaniel Gow’s introduction of Quadrilles to Edinburgh.  The events are on 20th and 21st January 2017:-

• Concert: Friday 7.30 pm
• Quadrille Dance Workshop: Saturday 2.00-5.00pm

Edinburgh Assembly Rooms

Assembly Rooms Ballroom, 54 George Street, Edinburgh EH2 2LR

• Concert Ticket now New Year Sale price £10!
• Workshop Ticket £15/£12 
• Combination Ticket now £20!

 “This is a brilliant and worthy project that is of great importance to our nation’s history of dance.”- Stuart Marsden.

Nathaniel Gow Dance Band - a stellar line-up of performers

Aaron McGregor Violin ~ Alison McGillivray Cello
Callum Armstrong Scottish Smallpipes, Recorder ~ Marie Fielding Violin
Featuring Simon Chadwick 18th century Clàrsach and Les Danses Antiques
led by Alena Shmakova, performing French Quadrilles and Scottish Country Dances

For more information: https://www.sonasmultimedia.co.uk or phone 0131 447 0091 

Web Resource Trials for Musicians in Edinburgh

If you’re an Edinburgh based musician, you might like to know that the National Library of Scotland is trialling some online database subscriptions at the moment.  For example, you can go to the NLS and get access to back copies of music journals.  The back copies are historical, to say the least – not recent back copies!  But there are also newer materials ... you'll need to check these out for yourself!  (NLS also has a Kelvinhall site in Glasgow, now, too.)

Trials are on-site (using NLS computers), so you do have to go to the National Library of Scotland to try out these offerings, but if you use the NLS service, the music librarian is asking for feedback!  See below. 

The National Library of Scotland is currently trialling electronic reference services providing retrospective access to music periodicals:-

RIPM Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals (1800-1950)

RIPM Online Archive of Music Periodicals (Full-Text)

RIPM e-Library of Music Periodicals

Trial access is for onsite users only but feedback can be given via an online survey:

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/57H9CQC

The trial ends on 6 Nov 2016.

For enquiries email music@nls.uk.

How Many Fiddlers Make a Scots Fiddle Fest?

Queen's Hall and Summerhall, Edinburgh 

20-22 November 2015

This weekend sees the Scots Fiddle Festival take place in Edinburgh.  How many fiddlers?  We can't begin to guess! Full details and programme on the Fiddle 2105 website, here:-

http://www.scotsfiddlefestival.com/fiddle2015/
Twitter: @Scotsfiddlefest

Are you going?

Last Night of the First Edinburgh Musical Festival 1815 and a new edition in 2015 ...

We mentioned last week that Karen will be giving a talk at Edinburgh Central Library on Friday afternoon - the Bicentenary of the First Edinburgh Musical Festival (Friday, 30th October 2015).

By sheer coincidence, she has just catalogued a new authoritative edition of the final piece that was performed in 1815: one of Handel's famous Coronation Anthems!

Find it in the Whittaker Library Catalogue, here.

Bicentenary of Edinburgh's First Musical Festival

Special bicentennial event 2.30pm, Friday 30th October, Edinburgh Central Library

Edinburgh’s First Musical Festival took place in 1815.  The Edinburgh Festival has certainly not run continuously since then! Indeed, there was a whole century in which there was no festival. 

Karen has been asked to give a talk at Edinburgh Central Library on Friday 30th October, to commemorate the bicentenary.  It’s a fascinating story, that she's looking forward to sharing.

• First Edinburgh Musical Festival, Contemporary report
• Advertised Talk

Do You Come from Edinburgh? New website

 Memories of Auld Reekie

We heard about the Edinburgh Collected website though the Scottish branch our professional association, CILIPS.

If you're interested in digital heritage and have an Edinburgh connection, this may be of interest to you:-

Edinburgh Collected

"Edinburgh Collected is a new website featuring memories of Edinburgh and acts as a community archive for the city, past and present.  It allows individuals and groups to add content that builds on existing digital heritage collections www.capitalcollections.org.uk and www.ourtownstories.co.uk whilst complementing the collections Edinburgh Libraries currently hold."

Full story

Period Dancing: Edinburgh Quadrilles, Sunday 1 June 2014

Further information - click here.

Edinburgh Baroque Weekend 31 May - 1 June 2014

Conference: Celtic Revival in Scotland

Registration now open

'Whittaker' shares with you the online conference announcement, quoted from the  conference website:-   Programme online and registrations open The programme for The Celtic Revival in Scotland (1860 - 1930) is now available on the conference website, and registration is open. Click here to register for the conference Click here for an overview of the conference

250th Birthday of Scottish Song Collector Alexander Campbell

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALEXANDER CAMPBELL!

born 22.2.1764 

Karen has written and talked and blogged about Alexander Campbell so much over the past

eight or nine years that we hardly need to go over his biography again.  However, it would be shabby not to mention his 250th birthday on Saturday 22nd February.  His was a fascinating life. He dabbled in many things, and didn't achieve particular greatness, but he left a pile of published writings and Scottish music.  

You can read about Campbell at length in Our Ancient National Airs: Scottish Song Collecting from the Enlightenment to the Romantic Era.  (There's a copy in the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.)  You'll also find further writing on Karen's Academia.edu pages.

Some of his songs from Albyn's Anthology have been arranged for sax ensemble, and Karen has recordings by a Cambridge saxophone ensemble called Saxual Healing:-

• Alexander Campbell Saxophone Quartet and Hebridean Suite on SoundCloud 

Finally, Jo Currie's book, Mull: the Island and its People, contains a big chunk from Campbell's Hebridean song-collecting diary (the time he spent on Mull, specifically) - warmly recommended.  It's not in the Whittaker Library, but could be obtained for registered readers if anyone was interested.

Celtic Revival in Scotland - Call for Papers

Call for papers - The Celtic Revival in Scotland (1860-1930)

1-3 May 2014, Edinburgh

This interdisciplinary conference (1-3 May) will be organised by the University of Edinburgh’s department of Celtic and Scottish Studies and part-hosted by the National Galleries of Scotland.

The department of Celtic and Scottish Studies is now accepting paper proposals for their upcoming conference, The Celtic Revival in Scotland (1860-1930). Click here for details.

He Promised to Write a Scottish Musical History - but Callander didn't follow through

Music and Academic Services Librarian Karen McAulay has an article published in Scottish Music Review today:-

An Unwritten Enlightenment Scottish Musical History, and Two Reconstructed Edinburgh Bookshelves

Find out what this 18th century member of the Scottish 'literati' hoped to write about - and what went wrong.

Dance Base - Scottish Country Dancing Workshops this Weekend

Edinburgh Dance Base Workshops - find out more here.

"This event is part of Tradfest, a new festival inspired by the traditional arts of Scotland."

Whittaker has an indirect connection with the RSCDS, for "his" late mother-in-law had a scroll of honour from that esteemed body. Sadly, the left-handed "Whittaker" has two left feet  ...

Money for Music Research

AHRC Doctoral Studentship (PhD)

The Open University in Collaboration with the National Library of Scotland

Do you fancy doing doctoral research in Edinburgh?  As part of 'The Arts and their Audences', the Open University is able to offer this fully-funded studentship.

• Details of Arts and Humanities Studentships at the Open University
• Music Research at the Open University
• NLS Music Collections

Tradfest in Edinburgh this week



24 April - 6 May 2013

At the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh.

• Further info
• Programme

Musica Scotica Conference - Edinburgh Sat 27 April 2013

We've got a great line-up of speakers for the Musica Scotica Conference in Edinburgh (at the Open University in Scotland), on Saturday 27th April 2013. 

All we need now is hordes of eager delegates!  Registration is now open - you can download the form from the website, and there is a discount for students.  Click here ... 

It's not an expensive day out, and it's a great chance to network with likeminded researchers. 

Whimsical Whittaker

When I go to Edinburgh, I can't help reflecting on all the Scottish musical names that have walked the same streets in earlier centuries.  Yesterday was no exception.

Read True Imaginary Friends to find out more!

Musica Scotica Sat 27 April 2013 (Edinburgh)

Researching Scottish music - any aspect of it? The Musica Scotica annual conference is in Edinburgh this year, hosted by the Open University in Scotland.  We have a great bunch of speakers and a very varied programme covering many different angles.

Date: Saturday 27 April

Fee:  

Full Day to include lunch, morning and afternoon tea/coffee:  £40 

Full Day (as above) Student Rate: £30                        

Morning or afternoon session to include tea/coffee, but not lunch:  £15

The registration form is available, at:-   

http://www.musicascotica.org.uk/conferences.shtml

Edinburgh Doors

One of 'Whittaker's' eccentricities is a fascination with the places where 'his' early Scottish song collectors hung out. 

So, two weeks ago, he snapped this picture of Walter Scott's childhood doorway in George Square, just round from the University Library.  

And now - wonder of wonders, an Edinburgh church historian has facilitated the location of the first site of an Episcopalian church, St Peter's Edinburgh, at 3 Roxburgh Place.  Another door, oh yes indeed.  A listed building, no less.  This, ladies and gents, is the church where Alexander Campbell was organist.  We're told it was in Nicolson Street, but actually Roxburgh Place is in a parallel street.  Will Whittaker manage to gain access?  Who knows, but we'll try!

The clergyman paid, out of his own pocket, for two flats on the ground floor, which were used as the church until the congregation grew and moved to different premises in 1807.