The Field Recording Project: Capturing the Sound of the UK
Date: Monday 23 November 2026
Time: 1:00–2:00pm (GMT)
Speaker: Ella Roberts
About the webinar
This talk introduces The Field Recording Project, Ella’s interactive, open-access sound archive documenting environments across the UK. Ella explores how the archive functions as both a creative resource and an educational tool, with applications across music, science and wellbeing.
The session will introduce the principles of field recording and acoustic ecology, examine the wellbeing benefits of active listening to natural soundscapes, and demonstrate how libraries and institutions can engage with the project.
Attendees will gain practical insight into how environmental sound can support interdisciplinary learning and foster deeper connections to place.
The Story of the Carol with John Potter
Date: Tuesday 24 November 2026
Time: 1:00–2:00pm (GMT)
Speaker: John Potter
About the webinar
Join author John Potter as he explores the fascinating development of one of our most cherished musical traditions.
Originally enjoyed as secular entertainments in medieval and Tudor courts and chapels, carols were revived and introduced to a wider urban audience by the Victorians. Since then, priests, poets and composers have continually reimagined ancient songs while creating new works of their own, weaving European influences into the evolving English carol tradition.
Taking us from the earliest origins of the carol through to its flourishing during the early music revival, John offers an enlightening and engaging account of this much-loved cultural phenomenon.
CMMA (Connecting Manchester’s Music Archives) and the Henry Watson local music archive: Managing archival material in a music library
Date: Wednesday 25th November 2026
Time: 1:00–2:00pm (GMT)
Speaker: Ros Edwards and Erinna Cave
About the webinar
This talk introduces the CMMA (Connecting Manchester’s Music Archives) Project and the latest National Archive grant to help catalogue (or re-catalogue) the Henry Watson Music Library’s wealth of local archive material on the history of music in Manchester
Ros Edwards is the Henry Watson Music Librarian and Erinna Cave is an archivist who has been employed under the terms of the grant to catalogue the local music collection
The Henry Watson Music Library has a vast collection of information about the local music history of Manchester including thousands of programmes, photographs, newspaper cuttings, information about local music groups and societies and the people who have helped shape music in Manchester over a 250+ year period of time
Ros will introduce the CMMA project and Erinna will explain the archivists’ approach to cataloguing and organising such a collection and some of the information she has discovered so far in this project