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Music, Monuments, and Memory Symposium (13th Nov 2021): Programme and Registration

1 November 2021
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A photograph of a single red poppy in a field in Bearpark, Durham (photograph by Matthew McCullough)

Join us for this free one-day exploratory symposium on the relationship between Music, Monuments, and Memory.

The Centre for Death and Life Studies, Durham University

Music, Monuments, and Memory

An online symposium on 13th Nov 2021

Programme and Registration

Some may describe memory as the ultimate creative process; we build and re-build fragments of our existence into narratives of embodied experience. The architecture of memory flows beyond abstraction, too: for centuries humans have used music, art, literature, and a whole host of material cultures to embody grief and mourning whilst also projecting, for posterity, an essence of our life- and death-styles. In the aftermath of conflict, often in the absence of bodies to bury, we create cenotaphs, monuments to the deceased, and music with personal dedications and embedded allusions to the past in an attempt to speak to public and private griefs. These exist as patchworks of memory which, when stitched together, create a vast memoryscape, allowing us to progress and evolve. But what is it that drives us to such creativity and what stories do these artworks tell? How do we view these materials as ritual culture of the present and of the past? Can we reconcile conflicts between agents of memory in political and cultural dissonance? Do our memoryscapes and memories age and change with our own cultural landscape? How do music and monuments help frame emotions of loss, embody memory, and build a potential renewal of life, life values, and hope?

Here at our Centre we invite you join us to explore these and other issues in an open forum of scholars and practitioners. Through a wide range of contexts, cases, methods, and approaches, we aim to foster a mutual flourishing of experience and understanding. Our programme includes a keynote address from Durham musicologist Prof Jeremy Dibble and a series of papers from various academics and service-practitioners.

The conference will be conducted online due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. There is no cost for attendance.

Zoom links for the event will also be emailed to those registered in the days before the symposium.

We very much hope you will join us and we look forward to welcoming you to our symposium. For any enquiries email matthew.mccullough@durham.ac.uk.