“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.” ― Plato.
For the seventh week of TORCH Goes Digital, we focused on the theme of “Music”. Together with leading researchers from the University of Oxford and beyond, the TORCH team curated a wonderful programme of blog posts, podcasts, news articles, poems, performances and more centred around all things musical.
Popular content included Shakespeare in Scandinavia, in which Dr Leah Broad looks at the influence of Shakespeare on Nordic composers, and a fascinating discussion in which Chineke! Founder Chi Chi Nwanoku OBE talks about her orchestra of majority BME musicians. In another well-received podcast, Louisa Layne investigates the reggae music archive, exploring music and poetry through Linton Kwesi Johnson’s dub club.
We also highlighted a Book at Lunchtime discussion, Delius and the Sound of Place, in which Professor Daniel Grimley and an expert panel discussed the life of composer Frederick Delius (1862–1934) and cultural geography.
On the evening of Thursday 7th May 2020, from 5.00pm-6.00pm, we had our fifth Big Tent, Live Events! live-streamed discussion. Professor Philip Bullock and Dr Leah Broad spoke on "Celebrating Tchaikovsky". The discussion was an enormous success, with more questions and comments than the speakers had time to address. Philip and Leah's conversation took place on Tchaikovsky's 180th birthday. We have no doubt he would have loved it.
