June 25th - 26th 2009
The Lyre at Peterborough Cathedral
The Gold Lyre of Ur was exhibited at Peterborough Cathedral on Thursday 25th and Friday 26th June 2009.
In the evening of Friday 26th after the presentation and display, Jennifer Sturdy and Andy Lowings gave a performance of music and poetry.
Before the exhibition, Andy was interviewed by BBC Look East
A clip may be seen at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgeshire/8114446.stm

March 2009
The Golden Lyre of Ur travels to the USA

On 11 March 2009 t Andy Lowings and Jennifer Sturdy set off from London Heathrow to Washington DC with the Gold Lyre of Ur with support and help from friends in Clifton, Virginia, and the sponsorship of Dr Hadi Al Khalili, the Iraqi Cultural Attaché.
There were two performances at the Rasmusson Theatre, in the American Indian Museum of the Smithsonian Institution on Saturday 14 March the audience was mainly delegates from an Iraqi-American conference, and on On Sunday 15 March with an invited audience from the Iraqi community in Washington DC and the immediate vicinity. Once again, there was an enthusiastic reception. Andy and Jennifer were also interviewed for Iraqi TV.

Talk at the Library of Congress Washington DC
Whilst in America we were contacted to tell the story of the Royal Lyres of Ur at the Library of Congress itself so on March 17th, St. Patrick's day, we climbed the steps opposite the US Congress building itself and it was fantastic to see our project up on the announcement board at the entrance.

Vermont University talk to the students
Following on from an invitation from Assistant. Professor of Classics John Franklin of Vermont University, Andy flew up to Burlington in Vermont and talked to a packed-out lecture theatre on the subject of the Lyre.

See the full report

February 2009
Friday 27th February,
Babylon Late
As part of the British Museum's exhibition "Babylon: Myth and Reality", we were invited to take part in an event entitled "Babylon Late" on Friday 27 February 2009. Bill Taylor playing the Gold Lyre of Ur, and Jennifer Sturdy reciting the translated Sumerian poetry soon drew an interested crowd in the Great Court. It was a very informal occasion, with various simultaneous events, all related to the theme of Babylon, with the result that people tended to stop for a while, listen, ask questions, and then move on. But in this way it meant that the lyre was exposed to a large number of visitors. There were predictably a large number of people of Iraqi origin, who immediately recognised the lyre from the iconic instrument they had once seen in the museum in Baghdad. It is always a pleasure to talk to an interested audience and it was exciting to play in the dramatic environment of the British Museum's Great Court, although it was far from being a conventional performance venue.

December 2008
Concert at the Old Synagogue, Canterbury 6 Dec 2008
In association with "Music for Change", the King's School, Canterbury, provided a venue for the Gold Lyre at their concert hall: the fascinating Old Synagogue.
Using our new lighting-system, with the backdrop of Egyptian-style architecture of the hall we tried out a "question and answer session" to help put into context the history and story of the early times of Mesopotamia, and the Royal Graves at Ur.
Thank you to Canterbury school and especially to Helen Natrass who organised the event for us. Helen is a geotechnical geologist who consulted on the Channel Tunnel project and other major civil engineering projects. She is a talented musician besides, playing a number of instruments.
The evening began with a question and answer session, Helen interviewing Andy Lowings, Bill Taylor and Jennifer Sturdy about the origins of the project, how the lyre was built, with what support, and what type of research had taken place.
The audience was also invited to put questions. This format seemed to work well, and stimulated a lively discussion.
After the interval Bill and Jennifer performed 5 Sumerian poems, and concluded with the death of the lyre player anecdote.
The reaction was that it was a most unusual and stimulating evening, and that the audience would be delighted to hear more

                           

December 2008
Concert at the Bolivar Hall, London 5 Dec 2008
In association with the conference "Music in Sumer and after" held at the British Museum, the Gold Lyre of Ur took part in a concert together with other replica ancient instruments. There was an eclectic mixture of music, from Greek music played on the aulos by Stefan Hagel, Roman music played on pipes and drum by Susanna Rühling and Jutta Knur, to music composed for the lyre by Bill Taylor.
The evening was introduced by Andy Lowings, chairman of the Gold Lyre of Ur Project, who encouraged the audience to sit back and enjoy the poetry and music from ancient times.
The performance began with a short extract from "Gilgamesh", spoken by Jennifer Sturdy and accompanied by Bill Taylor on the Gold Lyre. This was followed by other poems from Sumerian times. Susanna Rühling and Jutta Knur sang the Hurrian hymn to lyre music, and also danced. They wore traditional Roman robes:
Jennifer Sturdy and Bill Taylor wore Sumerian costume. During the interval the instruments and players were surrounded by an enthusiastic and curious audience, who wanted to know about the origins of these amazing artefacts.
The evening concluded with an imaginary account of the last lyre player going to her death in the royal grave at Ur.

November 20th 2008
Jennifer Sturdy gave a talk about the Gold Lyre Project to the Sixth Form Archaeological Society at St Mary's School, Ascot.
Great interest was shown in Leonard Woolley's original excavations, and the research from 2003 onwards into the best way of re-creating the lyre using authentic materials and methods.
Many photos of the progress of making the replica were shown. The story of how we came by the wood and bitumen from Iraq, the generous donation of gold from South Africa and how volunteers had donated their time and effort to make the project possible was especially well received.
The talk concluded with an excerpt from the DVD to show what it is like in performance

November 14th - 16th 2008
Early Music Festival
The Gold Lyre of Ur was exhibited at the Early Music Festival for four days.
It had pride of place in the Painted Hall of the Old Royal Naval College Greenwich as shown and attracted huge interest from everyone who attended."

" Stunningly beautiful !"
" Quite astonishingly unusual !"

Interview on British Satellite News
During the Greenwich Early Music Festival, a team from British Satellite News, conducted interviews with some participants at this prestigious event. The eye-catching position of the Gold Lyre of Ur in the centre of the exhibition clearly attracted their attention. Jennifer Sturdy was interviewed at some length about the origins and the making of the Gold Lyre of Ur. The TV camera focused on each part of the lyre in turn as it was being described. There some excellent close-up shots of the bull's head and the elaborate stone ornamentation. This programme is available for a limited period of time on the internet, but is also syndicated to other broadcasting companies around the world. It is interesting to note that sometimes reaction to a broadcast feeds back much later, indicating that it has been re-broadcast elsewhere.
Watch the British Satellite TV interview at Greenwich
(http://www.bsn.org.uk/view_all.php?id=14619)

Catalan Radio
One of the visitors to the Greenwich Early Music Festival was Xavier Romero, a journalist working for Catalan Radio. He presents a weekly programme on musical events in London, and decided to focus on the Gold Lyre of Ur, as he had been so entranced by the story of its origins, the making of the replica, and the current performance schedule. The broadcast was in December 2008, and although we heard it, being in Catalan, the subtleties of it were somewhat lost on us! However, it is gratifying to note that there is international interest in the work which we do.

September 2008
In September the Lyre Project travelled to Berlin where we gave a performance, this time with Bill Taylor, Jennifer Sturdy and also including Diana Conti our dancer from Covent Garden. Despite some technical difficulties we played well and showed what inspiration could be found in old texts and modern classical dance interpretation.
We played at the Ethnological Museum and the next day visited the Berlin Museum to view the very same original texts, on show there, as part of their Babylon Exhibition.
This will come to UK in November

                           

September 2008
In September the Lyre Project travelled to Berlin where Andy Lowings gave a paper on the contemporary use of Lyres and their similarities to ancient Lyres from Mesopotamia asking the question "Are they connected at all"?

Our last year`s paper can be found in the newly published findings of the International Study Group for Musical Archaeology 2007 (Vol 6).

September 19th 2008
The Lyre Project is included in a BBC4 broadcast of the History of the Harp.

April 2008
A radio documentary, broadcast on Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) about the
Golden Lyre of Ur.

April 2008
Film: "The Harp"

In 2007 a film company decided to produce a TV film entitled "The Harp", to be introduced and narrated by the Royal Harpist, Catrin Finch.

As part of the hour-long film, Andy Lowings was interviewed and pictured with the Gold Lyre of Ur, being the earliest known form of a harp-type instrument. In 2008 the film finally got an airing on BBC4, and it is stunning to hear how many people saw it, noticed our presence on it, and subsequently contacted us.

The final accolade is that the film can now be watched on YouTube, and so must now be reaching an even wider audience!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPylNyV3-4E

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.

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.

                      

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
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.

January 2008
Keith Jobling gave a preentation 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

Presentation PowerPoint Show

                            
        Dr Joan Westenholz,
       & Prof Anne Kilmer 

November 2007
Jennifer Sturdy was invited to speak to the Sixth Form at the Brigidine School, Windsor, as part of their liberal studies programme. She gave an illustrated talk about the making of the lyre, including the amazing stories of acquiring the material from as far afield as South Africa and Iraq. The students were very interested to hear about the archaeological excavations by Sir Leonard Woolley, and found the description of the bodies found in Queen Pu-Abi's grave particularly moving.

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: www.danceofdelight.com

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.

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

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.

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.

                  

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.

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.

       

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.

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.

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.

                  

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.