Goldberg Ensemble collection archived in Huddersfield
Wed, 05 Dec 2012 11:00:00 GMT
“We believe that Huddersfield’s collections will become the biggest and most important source in the world for 20th and 21st century British Music”
Standing l-r - Janet Waterhouse (Subject Librarian for Music), Sue White (Director of Computing and Library Services), Chris Robins, (Goldberg Ensemble Contemporary Projects Manager), Sarah Wickham (University Archivist and Records Manager), Hilary Haigh (Former University Archivist)
Seated l-r - Professor Malcolm Layfield (Goldberg Ensemble Artistic Director and Head of the School of Strings, Royal Northern College of Music) and Professor Michael Clarke (Director of the Electroacoustic Music Studio, Huddersfield University)
SPECIAL collections at the University of Huddersfield have made its archives a major centre for the study of contemporary music. Now this reputation has been given a further boost by the addition of music scores and other material from one of the UK’s most innovative ensembles.
The Goldberg Ensemble was formed in Manchester in 1982. In 2000, its Artistic Director Malcolm Layfield and Contemporary Projects Manager Chris Robins set out to extend the English string music tradition by commissioning new works. To showcase these, they launched annual Celebration of New Music for Strings tours which ran from 2001 to 2008 and included children’s workshops and student composers’ workshops.
A total of 39 works were written for the tours and they included works by the University of Huddersfield’s Professor Michael Clarke and a former student of the University, Joe Cutler, who went on to become Head of Composition at Birmingham Conservatoire and a featured composer at the 2005 and 2010 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festivals.
Now the Archives and Special Collections at the University of Huddersfield have received programmes for each of the eight annual ‘Celebration’ tours, copies of two CDs of the works, plus original scores and instrumental parts of some of the commissioned works.
They take their place in an archive that already includes the British Music Collection – a large collection of scores and recordings by British composers deposited at the University of Huddersfield in 2011. Previously housed at Somerset House in London, it includes scores from composers such as Benjamin Britten, Harrison Birtwhistle, Mark-Anthony Turnage and Thomas Adès.
Pictured left: The Goldberg Ensemble founded by Professor Malcolm Layfield
Also kept at the University is the archive of the first 30 years of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the UK’s biggest and most prestigious international festival for new and experimental music.
Chris Robins – who first came to Huddersfield as Kirklees Council’s Senior Music Officer – said that he was delighted that the Goldberg Ensemble’s material has been accepted into the University’s contemporary music collections.
“It was our University of Huddersfield colleagues, particularly Pro Vice-Chancellor Professor Tim Thornton and Research Archivist Hilary Haigh, who taught us the importance of archives,” he said. “We believe that Huddersfield’s collections will become the biggest and most important source in the world for information about 20th and 21st century British Music, if they aren’t already.”
Standing left to right; Chris Robins, (Goldberg Ensemble Contemporary Projects Manager), Janet Waterhouse (Subject Librarian for Music), Sarah Wickham (University Archivist and Records Manager). Seated left to right: Professor Michael Clarke (Director of the Electroacoustic Music Studio, Huddersfield University) and Professor Malcolm Layfield (Goldberg Ensemble Artistic Director and Head of the School of Strings, Royal Northern College of Music)
Goldberg Ensemble founder Malcolm Layfield is a violinist and conductor and Head of the School of Strings at the Royal Northern College of Music. He is also an Honorary Professor at Beijing Conservatoire and an occasional University of Huddersfield guest tutor.
He said: “I am delighted that these wonderful string works written for the Ensemble are contributing to this important archive. We have performed nearly all of them here in Huddersfield, which feels like our contemporary music spiritual home. I’m sure that in years to come the archive will encourage emerging composers to continue writing – especially string music.”
University Archivist and Records Manager Sarah Wickham commented: “The contemporary music collections here at the University are fast becoming a vibrant and internationally-significant group of material. I’m thrilled we’re able both to share and to preserve them here.”
