Author: Dave Smith

Contemporary Repertoire Project

Posted on by Dave Smith

Heritage Quay looking for singing groups – do you want to learn something new?

Information about the project

Here at Heritage Quay we are always excited when we get the chance to delve into the British Music Collection and the same applies for the researchers who use it too (check out https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/beta/u/0/partner/sound-and-music”>googleculturalinstitute/soundandmusic to see what we mean)

There are around 8,000 choral pieces in the BMC and we decided we wanted to hear some. So we are on the hunt for singing groups from Kirklees and Calderdale (or who are happy to travel) who want to expand their repetoire (with our help)

If you or your singing group is interested email us at hqbookings@hud.ac.uk or call on 01484 473168 by the end of August to find out more

Celebrating the Indomitables

Posted on by Dave Smith

Indomitables-long-shotweb

Sometimes working in Archives can feel a bit like being a detective and the research and investigations don’t end in the strongroom. We’re in the midst of developing content for our summer and autumn events and I’m working on one event in particular at the moment: Celebrating the Indomitables.

The rightly celebrated Great Britain touring side of 1946 remains the most successful to ever go down under and to celebrate the 70th anniversary of their achievements we have an event on the 2nd July where we are going to tell the story of the trip from beginning to end.

The first place to start was our own archives which are particularly rich in this area – the RFL kept some fascinating documents and there are photographs and programmes to do alongside. We also have a couple of player collections from Byrn Knowelden and Dai Jenkins which have a more personal dimension. The Dai Jenkins archive is particularly rich as he donated his trunk and all its contents to the RFL. Our volunteers have been going through all these great collections to see what stories we can tell but it’s not enough! We are also working with Simon Foster, son of tour star Trevor who organised a reunion event a few years ago at the George – he has already been in touch with some of his many contacts.

We have two special aims that are above our usual rugby league events here – we are attempting to invite the families of all the players on the tour, and to track down the shirts that were worn by the players – there are 26 in total.

RFL.AV.1.5.SHIRT4
This is the one that belonged to Dai Jenkins – you can see the mud is still on it!

We’re going through local and national press, and contacts at clubs across the North and we are interested in speaking to anyone with a connection to the tour, particularly if they have stories of a family member, if they own any memorabilia or even if they served on the HMS Indomitable.

The archive would be really pleased to hear from anyone holding any items relating to the tour or with a connection to: Martin Ryan, Joe Jones, Eric Batten, Jimmy Lewthwaite, Ted Ward, Jack Kitching, Arthur Bassett, Willie Horne, Willie Davies, Tommy McCue, Fred Hughes, Ken Gee or George Curran.

To get in touch please contact me at d.smith@hud.ac.uk

Dave

What’s On launched!

Posted on by Dave Smith

Today sees the launch of Heritage Quay’s first brochure of events and activities, to cover the period September 2015 – March 2016.

Heritage Quay Brochure September 2015 – March 2016 FINAL

The programme responds to different areas of our collections and there is something for (almost) everyone in there although there is a particular focus on rugby league, music and local history.

To pick out a few highlights, the Rugby League History Day in October will be brilliant – the line up of ex-players, fans and historians is looking stellar (more information to come closer to the time) and it’ll all be for free. For those wanting more detail on the history of the game, renowned historian Tony Collins will be here to run a Roots of Rugby League course over four nights, with a special focus on the Kirklees and Calderdale areas. This is apt because of rugby league’s big 120th birthday this year.

Also make sure to book for our showing of Dangerous Moonlight. Although not a wartime ‘classic’ the lush and emotional music of the Warsaw Concerto, composed specially for the film, made it incredibly popular and should get you in mood for dancing afterwards. They’ll be a bar on hand and live music to make the evening go with a swing. Those proto-band leaders amongst you can get more involved with our Conducting for Beginners workshop.

Finally, we’re kicking the season off with a special event in association with the Huddersfield and District Archaelogy Society who’ll be letting people get hands on what they’ve dug up near the buried Roman Fort at Slack. And we finish the brochure period with more history with our Hopkinsons Day, where we’ll be getting out a selection of things from the collection to jog some memories and get people interested in what we’re doing with them over the following months (you’ll have to wait until the next What’s on for the details)

The last thing I’ll mention is The Listening Room, our special group (it’s like a reading club) for music fans. We’ll be serving up a mix of tunes from our collections every month and then dicussing them to pieces over tea and cake. If you fancy joining the conversation visit our web page or join the Facebook group or of course just come along.

For more information about all the events and activities and links for booking tickets head to our website here or our Facebook page

Huddersfield Gems

Posted on by Dave Smith

Huddersfield Gems is a unique collaboration between Heritage Quay and groups from across the district. The curators are all members of the Local History Programming Group who meet here three times a year to work on creating events and activities using the University archive collections.

 

The exhibition aims to hint at the hidden or interesting stories of buildings (or car parks!) which are part of the everyday fabric of the town. There are plans, postcards and physical objects which all help us to delve a little deeper into this world. If you want to know even more about what you see here, the exhibition is continued online at www.heritagequay.org/huddersfieldgems

Maybe the place you live in or work at also has a hidden past? There are many other structures in Huddersfield which are amazing too. Why not tell us your favourite on Twitter or Instagram using #huddersfieldgems?

Huddersfield Gems to launch next week

Posted on by Dave Smith

Next week sees a changeover in our exhibition from Rugby League to local history with ‘Huddersfield Gems’.

Our Local History Programming Group have been working away for the past couple of months each focusing on a favourite building. We’ll going to be installing the objects, documents and text starting Monday so watch this space for an update and some sneeky peeks at the buildings we’ve chosen.

As the exhibition is in the main part of Heritage Quay it will be free to come and see whenever we’re open and there will also be events relating to the buildings taking place over the next few months, starting with our Brick-by-Brick lego-based family day on the 25th July

 

1st Rugby League Heritage Forum

Posted on by Dave Smith

Last Saturday saw the first rugby league Heritage Forum take place at Heritage Quay.

With such Entrance signextensive collections about the history of the game, the archive is of course the natural place for rugby league enthusiasts to get together, share what they’ve been up to and do some good networking. So we thought we’d organise something to do just that.

Representatives of clubs or heritage projects came from across the country to explore Heritage Quay, meet each other and enjoy a full day of talks, chat and biscuits. We welcomed people from Huddersfield, Warrington and even Featherstone.

The day kicked off with a lecture from noted historian Tony Collins. Using archive footage from the first half of the 20th century, Tony unpicked the evolution of the game from 1895 onwards, in particular focusing on the ways in which try scoring and fast play was encouraged through rule changes. A lot of the footage he used is available online including this footage shot by Mitchell and Kenyon

The morning was rounded off with a talk from Stephen from the Swinton Lions Tales group. This excellent project seemed to interest and inspire everyone and is well worth checking out. The final talk of the day was from the Leeds Rugby Foundation,  who described the work they’ve been doing connecting the club and community with their rugby league heritage before sharing some great old photos which had everyone in the room taking a trip down memory lane.

RL Heritage Forum 25-04-15-17 compressed

One of the most popular parts of the day took place in our searchroom and was great for the archive! Our Collections Access Officer Rob had prepared a table of photos from the collection that we needed help identifying. Throughout the day the attendees came along to pick out players, teams, grounds and even officials – information that we will be able to add to our archive to help researchers of the future. From what we could see doing it was addictive so expect us to run something else like this in the future! We reckon we got through over 200 pictures which was a-mazing

There were also some gems from the collection on display to highlight how Heritage Quay can help researchers with useful and diverse sources.

 

Overall it was a great day and I’m already looking forward to next year!

Dave

New music at Heritage Quay!

Posted on by Dave Smith

Composition for non-Composers workshop

Last Saturday was a momentous day for us here in Heritage Quay – we welcomed our first participants to a workshop: Composing for non-Composers

composing workshop-9

The session was programmed as part of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. As regular readers may know, Heritage Quay is the home of the hcmf// and British Music Collection archives, two very significant repositories of contemporary classical music. The theme of the workshop, inspired by these collections, was graphical notation. With the help of Duncan Chapman, a professional musician and composer, the group and I explored some scores from the archives and got some practical tips on how to compose (and play) music written in this way. This is how we got on:

 

Algebra
Algebra
https://soundcloud.com/heritage-quay/algebra?in=heritage-quay/sets/composing-for-non-composing

In Search of an Ending

In Search of an ending

https://soundcloud.com/heritage-quay/in-search-of-an-ending?in=heritage-quay/sets/composing-for-non-composing

 

composing workshop-26

Any 1 of 3
composing workshop-36
https://soundcloud.com/heritage-quay/any-one-of-three?in=heritage-quay/sets/composing-for-non-composing

Look out for more workshops at Heritage Quay in the new year. If you don’t want to miss out follow us on Twitter @Heritage_Quay or email archives@hud.ac.uk with the subject line “Newsletter”

Dave

HCMF comes to Heritage Quay

Posted on by Dave Smith

We are pleased to announce that bookings are now open for two FREE events which are taking place at Heritage Quay as part of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2014. This is the Archives’ first time contributing to the programme and we’re really excited about being involved!

Through the Quay-hole (HCMF edition) Monday 24th November 2014 10-10.45am
The first event is a special behind-the-scenes tour of Heritage Quay. As well as the chance to see the shiny new repository spaces and learn about the archive collections we hold, we’ll also be getting out some interesting gems from the HCMF archive and British Music Collection for you to get your hands on. We can’t think of a better way to kick off HCMF Shorts day than with us.
To book your free place on the tour please click here

Composing for non-composers Saturday 29th November 2014 10am-12pm
Our other event is a little different. On the second Saturday of the festival we’re running a one-off workshop for adults exploring Graphical Notation and composition. Led by professional composer and musician Duncan Chapman, we’ll be turning Heritage Quay into a sound lab for you to come and play in. Everyone who attends will learn some of the principles and practices of non-standard musical notation and contribute towards the composition and performance of a new piece of music.
To book your free place please click here

The contemporary classical music goodness doesn’t end there. If you can’t make it to one of these sessions then make sure you visit Heritage Quay 24th – 27th November and have a go on the Big Curvy Screen. In honour of the festival all the content on the screen will be taken from the British Music Collection – see if you can find a favourite or discover a new earworm to take you through the rest of the festival.

Find out more about the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival
Find out more about the British Music Collection