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Music and the Idea of the North

5-7 September 2008              Venue: Leeds Town Hall

A conference to mark the 150th anniversary of the opening of Leeds Town Hall, hosted by:

The Institute of Northern Studies (opens in a new window), Leeds Metropolitan University
Leeds University Centre for English Music (LUCEM), University of Leeds
Leeds International Concert Season (opens in a new window)
Opera North (opens in a new window)

With generous support from Leeds University Centre for Canadian Studies (opens in a new window) (University of Leeds), Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society (opens in a new window), and the Royal Musical Association (opens in a new window)

On 6 September 1858, Queen Victoria travelled to Leeds by rail to open the new town hall, built to an ambitious prize-winning design by the young Hull architect Cuthbert Brodrick.  In the festivities which unfolded over her two-day visit, music played a prominent role, from the 32,000 Sunday-school children who sang hymns as the procession passed, to the massed choral forces which delivered the Hallelujah Chorus at the climax of the ceremony itself.  In the decades that followed, Leeds Town Hall became one of the most widely recognised emblems of civic pride in the north of England, and a prestigious venue for the festival premières of works such as Edward Elgar’s Caractacus, William Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast, and Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Sea Symphony. 

Leeds Town Hall celebrates its 150th birthday on September 7th, with the anniversary set to be marked with two weeks of special events. For more information about the full programme, please download a copy of the events leaflet. (opens in a new window)

To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the opening of the town hall, LUCEM and the Institute of Northern Studies present a weekend conference exploring connections between music and northern identities: how does music express ideas of ‘the north’ and ‘northerliness’, and how have musical cultures been shaped by the dynamics of north vs south? Over fifty international speakers, representing a mixture of disciplines (musicology, English literature, cultural history, architecture, geography, and social anthropology), critique constructions of musical north(s) from the perspectives of the UK, North America, Scandinavia, Russia, Europe, and India, tracing parallels and divergences, and focusing on a series of overarching themes:


Our keynote speakers will be:

Professor Sherrill E. Grace (opens in a new window) , University of British Columbia, author of Canada and the Idea of North (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001)
Professor Peter Davidson (opens in a new window) , University of Aberdeen, author of The Idea of North (Reaktion, 2005)  

The conference will open with a plenary by Leeds Civic Architect, John Thorp, and will conclude with a presentation by composer Gavin Bryars (opens in a new window) and performance of The North Shore for viola and piano, with Vivienne Campbell (Opera North).

In addition, a roundtable discussion, chaired by Professor Chris Bailey (Leeds Metropolitan University), will address ‘Cultural Regeneration and the Idea of a “New” North’, the panel drawn from leading arts organisation in the north of England. 

A Gala Concert will take place in the Town Hall on the evening of 6 September.  The programme will feature Leeds Festival Chorus and Philharmonic Society, and the orchestra of Opera North, in:

Walton Coronation March Orb and Sceptre
Grieg Piano Concerto in A minor (pf Sunwook Kim, winner of the 2006 Leeds International Piano Competition)
Barber Adagio for Strings
Walton Cantata Belshazzar's Feast, which received its premiere at Leeds Town Hall in 1931.

Conference booklet - includes the final programme (pp.5-11) and abstracts (18-42) [PDF - 4Mb]

Programme (please note: the timings and sessions are subject to change)

Abstracts

Booking information (please follow the link to the Conference Booking Form)

Links for bed and breakfast accommodation in Leeds City Centre (opens in a new window)

All conference events are being held at Leeds Town Hall (opens in a new window) , except for the welcome buffet reception on Friday evening (5 September), which will be held at Old Broadcasting House (opens in a new window) , 148 Woodhouse Lane (see maps for both venues).

Delegates are advised to come to the conference by train - the Town Hall and Old Broadcasting House are both within walking distance of the station - but free parking is available on the University of Leeds main campus car parks for the duration of the weekend (after 4pm on Fridays).

 

The conference will be open to the academic community and to members of the public.  Places are limited to 120 attendees. 

 

Please address any enquiries to the programme committee at leedsmusicnorth@gmail.com:

Professor Tony Collins, Leeds Metropolitan University
Dr Rachel Cowgill, University of Leeds
Professor Dave Russell, Leeds Metropolitan University
Professor Derek Scott, University of Leeds

–—

‘O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each,
That bright and fierce and fickle is the South,
And dark and true and tender is the North’
~ Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Princess

‘Every planet has a north’, Dr Who (BBCTV)

–—