December 2006
The Gold Lyre of Ur Project went to Jordan to take part in the 1st Lyre Forum at Aqaba. Sponsored by UNESCO and the Jordanian Ministry of Culture our newly completed Lyre was transported over to Amman and then on to Aqaba where the four-day event took place.

                  

January 8th 2007
A general meeting of the Lyre Project was held at Brownes Hospital Stamford, an ancient almshouse. Cuneiform expert Dr Dahlia Shehata of Vienna University attended for the event and recommended some texts which may be suitable for performance.

February 2007
The Gold Lyre of Ur Project was part the 3rd Great African Rift Valley "Earth Festival" held by the Gallmann Foundation in Laikipia Kenya. Played by Ayub Ogada, a local musician who also plays a similar instrument, the lyre attracted much attention.

March 2007
Project member Mr Jon Letcher, the craftsman-instrument maker of the recreated lyre was given assistance by the UK Arts Council to attend the 1st Pharaonic Conference on Egyptian music in Cairo. As part of his professional development, he remained after the end of the conference to assist Professor Ricardo Eichmann of Berlin University with a practical instrument making course held there at the Helwan University Campus.

       

April 2007
Andy Lowings, Jon Letcher and Jennifer Sturdy presented a "Lyre of Ur Cultural Session" at New Link in Peterborough for the new arrival community members.
To be introduced to the Lyre of Ur was a wonderful experience and its story was truly inspirational to those that attended the event. Community members from Somali, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Zimbabwe, Poland, Iraq, Kurdistan, Guinea-Bissau, Australia and the Caribbean were all amazed by the impact that the Lyre has had around the world and the peace that it has brought to many communities.

Community members enjoyed sharing their stories on the familiarity of the Lyre within their own cultures and were thrilled to be able to given the opportunity to play both the Lyre and the English Dulcimer, providing one of many highlights of the evening.

May 2007
The Gold Lyre of Ur Project was at the British Museum as part of "INANNA DAY".
Dr. Dominique Collon, a curator in the British Museum's Department of the Ancient Near East, spoke on the geography, history, art, religion, and culture of Sumer, with glimpses of Inanna's later development as Ishtar.
Dr. Irving Finkel (the Assistant Keeper in the Museum's Department of the Ancient Near East) spoke on the adventure and mystery of the discovering of the cuneiform texts and the importance of the Goddess Inanna in the texts.
Archaeomusicologist Richard Dumbrill gave a short demonstration on replicas of the Lyre of Ur and a lute from Uruk and spoke informally about the music's relationship to godship in Sumer and to Inanna.

                  

June 2007
Interview by Sue Dougan of Radio Cambridgeshire during a week of features on on the Middle East.

Listen to Andy Lowings telling Sue Dougan about the Gold Lyre of Ur and hear some of the music.

January 2008
Keith Jobling gave a presentation on the history of theLyre Project at a two-day international conference at the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem in collaboration with The Department of Musicology and the Jewish Music Research Centre, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, entitled
"Sounds from the Past: Music in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean Worlds". Organised by Carolyn Budow Ben-David - Conference Administrator

The conference was held in conjunction with the exhibition Sounds of Ancient Music organised by Dr. Joan Goodnick Westenholz, Chief Curator, BLMJ

Eminent speakers included many of the Lyre Project supporters, in particular:
Prof. Anne Kilmer, Emeritus Professor of Assyriology,University of California, Berkeley,USA
Dr. Dahlia Shehata, Institute für Orientalistik, University of Wien, Austria
Prof. John C. Franklin, Dept. of Classics, University of Vermont, USA

                

 
Dr Joan Westenholz, & Prof Anne Kilmer 
 

March 2008
Andy Lowings gave a talk on the story of the Lyre of Ur at the Royal Museum Brussels where their exhibition of Sumerian artifacts has just been extended.
Accompanied by contemporary extracts of world lyre music, the idea that even modern playing might be related to the far distant past, was suggested as worthy of investigation.

March 2008
After the performance in Liverpool Cathedral, the following day,we gave a talk to 150 of the general public at the invitation of the Cathedral authorities
The Liverpool Echo described it as "A piece of musical history".
It was terrific to bring the idea of the project to ordinary people who were very interested.
They had run the story a week earlier.

                             

One lady said " I wouldn't have missed this for anything….I took two buses to get here".
We hope to visit other cathedrals around the country in the future.

April 2008
The Lyre Project was included in a BBC4 broadcast of the History of the Harp .

April 2008
There will be a radio documentary broadcast on Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) about the Lyre of Ur.

Performances

November 2006
In November 2006 Barnaby Brown, Bill Taylor, Jon Letcher, Jennifer Sturdy and Mark Harmer gathered in Cambridgeshire UK to record ideas for presenting the Gold Lyre of Ur.
Without any fixed ideas, it was a tribute to the artists that several first class performance pieces were developed throughout the day. They were filmed by Mark Harmer and edited into samples which are shown here. Our thanks to Northborough Church for allowing us its use.

A detailed in-depth discussion about musical techniques and the latest position of ethno-musicological research into this field click here.

    
Barnaby Brown playing the
Silver Pipes of Ur    

July 2007
In July 2007 there was a new development in the Gold Lyre of Ur Project.
For the first time the story of the lyre was used as the basis of a New Ballet devised for the Lyre of Ur Project by Italian dancer Diana Conti.

Ballerina Diana Conti danced her own poignant interpretation of the death scene in the grave at Ur.
Diana is a free-lance dancer who has performed in the opera ballet at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and with the Kirov and Bolshoi ballet companies.

Danced on the stage of the STAHL THEATRE, Oundle, to "Prelude 4 from Birds In Winter", music contributed to the project by the composer Michael Mauldin from Alberquerque New Mexico, the whole performance was filmed by Mark Harmer.

We wish to thank Alison Dean and Alastair Boag of the Stahl Theatre for their wonderful support in this event.

Please contact us for more details.

August 2007
On Monday August 13 2007, Alan Sener, Professor DEO, Department of Dance The University of Iowa, presented a ballet Dance for a Golden Lyre based on the story of the Last Lyre Player.

In the first, we see the dancer as the embodiment of the golden lyre itself, brought back to life, revived, living again through the words and rhythmic expression of the poem "A Lyre in the Eye of the Sun" by Leila Giorgius. In the second, we see an attendant of the queen, one of the court, the lyre player perhaps, facing eternity, her final moments.

The Dancers, Claire Livingstone and Leigha Mena performed the ballet. A video of the performance was made which be seen on:
http://www.danceofdelight.com/Gallery/Lyre_of_Ur_videos

Click here to see stills from the ballet

The ballet is danced to "Prelude 4 from Birds In Winter", music contributed to the project by the composer Michael Mauldin from Alberquerque New Mexico.

The Arabic poetry by Leila Giorgius a poet / writer in Montreal.
The poem, "A Lyre in the Eye of the Sun", is the old Lyre of Ur speaking about itself and of the gardens, history and life in the land of the two rivers, Mesopotamia, and that it remains still to be played.

March 2008
Jennifer Sturdy and Bill Taylor presented a concert at the Instrument Museum of Brussels, Belgium.
With excerpts from Gilgamesh, ancient texts and modern works it was a great moment to play a full concert in a spectacular venue.
The concert was performed in full costume with jewellery and make up.

                         
Thanks to Geraldine for creating Bill Taylor's costume.

March 2008
The Lyre Project performed at the Classical Association's annual conference in Liverpool Cathedral. There in the one of the largest Cathedral in Britain, a new short dialogue was recited, one made out of Sumerian proverbs, for the first time.
Pieces of lyre repertoire were included and set in the amazingly grand venue to an audience of 350. It was a great moment to play for experts in Greek and Latin but probably who were not aware of the wealth of Mesopotamian literature.