by Lisa Colton, Professor of Musicology and Head of Department: Music
The University of Liverpool has around 300 undergraduate Music students, whose courses (Music, Popular Music, Music and Technology) encourage them to range freely between genres, styles and historical topics. A previous Head of Department, Professor Michael Talbot, is world expert on the music of Antonio Vivaldi, and continues to undertake research as an editor of baroque repertoire. Nonetheless, when I arrived as incoming Head of Department in 2022, there was limited early music within the curriculum (Beethoven was the ‘earliest’ specialist module!), and I have been keen to develop our activities.
The infrastructure for such work is progressing well, with a chamber music room to be created in early 2026, offering an ideal location for consorts to meet. The Tung Auditorium (opened 2022) is perfect for concert performances, and will be the venue for a NWEMF workshop in February 2026. The auditorium has already hosted medieval and baroque performances (including a couple of visits from La Serenissima). Early Music As Education, who run Liverpool String Academy Orchestra, are Tung Affiliates at the University of Liverpool for 2025–2027, and provide specialist opportunities for young string players across Merseyside on baroque instruments.
The Department of Music have owned three (originally four… we continue to open old cupboards in the hope of locating another) Michael Plant viols, though they lack their bows! In 2024, NWEMF and Elizabeth Dodd very kindly loaned the Department a set of three additional instruments, as well as a couple of spare bows, so that students could learn how to play. A donor has recently offered the loan of a bass bow, which we hope to receive soon.
Matching these up in terms of necessary string replacements, bow sizes, and setting up the instruments for students to use has taken a while! We hope to host John Bryan for a ‘Try a Viol’ guest workshop once the chamber music room is available, and students will also be able to borrow these instruments independently for practice. The first students to explore these instruments and learn more about their repertoire have been those taking the module option Early Musical Cultures from the Islamicate Court to the English Reformation, for which students can present a performance as part of their coursework. Other students, such as Poppy Philligreen (pictured), have been interested to find out more from an extra-curricular perspective.
Lisa Colton
University of Liverpool
