St Cecilia'S Hall: Concert Room & Music Museum

In partnership with Japanese Arts and Culture International, this event, led by Mio Shapley, Director of JACI and Japanese Tea Ceremony Master, includes a performance of Shamisen guitar music.
All guests will have the opportunity to enjoy a cup of green matcha tea with sweets.
Spaces are limited so please book in advance to avoid disappointment.

We look forward to welcoming 'Hats off Gentlemen It's Adequate' to Edinburgh this March for a unique rock concert/science lecture! Tickets available: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-brain- in-concert-tickets…

Rock band Hats Off Gentlemen It’s Adequate have won many awards for their albums fusing progressive rock and electronic music. Many of their songs are inspired by the brain and evolution.
Lead singer/songwriter Malcolm Galloway is also a consultant neuropathologist (UCLH) / honorary senior lecturer in pathology (UCL) and lectures on the evolution of the brain.
This show takes us on a unique journey of the evolution of ourselves and our brains, covering almost 14 billion years... in 90 minutes, combining an accessible engaging talk with music inspired by the science.
We start at the beginning of time and follow the journey of our atoms, through exploding stars to reach our bodies. We follow the development of life on Earth, and the times it has come close to extinction. We explore how our mind creates a unique world for each of us, fed by our senses, and the role of symbiosis and emotion in our survival. We then look to the future of the brain. Is the brain still evolving? Will we become hybridised with machines?
Join us for this exciting performance.
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We are very happy to announce we are offering a Scientific Material Analysis of Musical Instruments internship.
This conservation internship is a great opportunity to undertake a research project with instruments from the University of Edinburgh’s collection.
https://www.ed.ac.uk/…/volunteers-inter n…/volunteers-interns

Part of the Mad Hatter, Grey Matter Festival 2019
Dr John Tully is a Forensic Psychiatrist and Wellcome Clinical Research Training Fellow at Kings College London. His research focuses on the neurobiology of mental disorders.
He is also a musician and has an interest in the role of the arts in Mental Health. From 2013-2018, he wrote a blog on the Royal College of Psychiatrists website, profiling musicians, and researchers and mental health professionals and their work in this ...area, and covering a variety of material, from the neuroscience of music, to mental health issues in musicians, to music therapy and other interventions.
This Mad Hatter, Grey Matter Festival interactive session will draw on this and other material and explore some key themes that will be of interest to wide audience, including systematisers versus empathisers and the connection between mental distress and inspiration, and draw on a soundtrack based on 5 years of exploration associated with Minds in Music project.
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Part of the Mad Hatter, Grey Matter Festival 2019
A mixture of exhibition and interactive workshops with Whiffle Pig CIC. Using the old art of the zoetrope, Whiffle Pig artists show the subtle changes in a person’s face which show with the decline of neurological damage and disease. You will then have the opportunity to create your own ‘moving picture’ to show in the zoetropes available to try out.
The Whiffle Pig team will be available to speak to throughout the day. Whiffle Pig is Makaton friendly so all projects are open to those with communication difficulties.

Part of the Mad Hatter, Grey Matter Festival 2019
A mixture of exhibition and interactive workshops with Whiffle Pig CIC. Using the old art of the zoetrope, Whiffle Pig artists show the subtle changes in a person’s face which show with the decline of neurological damage and disease. You will then have the opportunity to create your own ‘moving picture’ to show in the zoetropes available to try out.
The Whiffle Pig team will be available to speak to throughout the day. Whiffle Pig is Makaton friendly so all projects are open to those with communication difficulties.

Part of the Mad Hatter, Grey Matter Festival 2019
Is creativity the special ability of a talented few or a capacity that everyone possesses? Is the right brain the creative brain? Can I train my brain to become more creative? Do drugs and alcohol enhance creativity? Join Anna Abraham, at the Mad Hatter, Grey Matter Festival 2019, to find out the answers to these questions and more in this talk.
Anna Abraham is a Professor of Psychology at the School of Social Sciences in Leeds Beckett University. She investigates creativity and other aspects of the human imagination including the reality-fiction distinction, mental time travel and mental state reasoning. Her book - The Neuroscience of Creativity - was published in 2018.

Music workshop for people living with dementia - SCO ReConnect - Mad Hatter, Grey Matter Festival
Do you care for someone living with dementia? Join Dr Jane Bentley and musicians from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra for a music workshop designed for people living with dementia, family members and carers. Everyone is welcome and will be invited and supported to sing, play instruments, improvise and listen. No musical expertise required!
“I know my partner enjoyed it very much a...nd made him smile and that makes me smile” Relative of participant, 2017
For more information about SCO ReConnect, and to see a short video about the workshops, visit www.sco.org.uk
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lovemusic is coming to Edinburgh! Here is a little preview of Saturday's concert. Tickets are still available so don't miss out. https://youtu.be/uQnuBh749RM

Today our Conservator, Jonathan Santa Maria B, is at the Horniman Museum, attending a study day dedicated to a virginal by Guarracino. It is a lovely instrument and very similar to the one in our collection. https://collections.ed.ac.uk/mimed/record /16132…

Love music? Love new music? Love amazing musicians premiering new music? Then come to lovemusic on 9 February.
Everything Starts Elsewhere is was inspired by Jesse Broekman's piece "Elsewhere" that the collective lovemusic commissioned last year. This was the starting point for a programme based around the idea of transmission in music. We are also thrilled to be premiering a new commission from Jerome Combier, as well as music by Martin Iddon, John Croft, Gilbert Amy, Betsy ...Jolas, Naomi Pinnock, Samuel Andreyev, Sohrab Uduman
Flute - Emiliano Gavito Clarinette - Adam Starkie Voice - Léa Trommenschlager
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The opening concert of the Dialogues 2019 Festival features performances of winning pieces from Prague’s prestigious Musica Nova prize performed on a multi-channel sound rig by Pete Stollery. The concert will also reveal the fruits of a collaboration between Leo Butt and Gavin McCabe with St Cecilia's Hall instrument collection called archive*archive.
Over the part three months sample libraries have been made of a number of the University's rare brass instruments. These libraries are being reformed into new sound structures and distributed around the space. The concert will also feature performances on the historic instruments sampled in the project including the world famous Anaconda serpent.

The anaconda has escaped! It is the latest instrument to be sampled in our sound library project. The instrument was played by the wonderfully talented Tony George and recorded by students from the Reid School of Music, University of Edinburgh.

Join the University’s Museums Services Manager and a member of our Museums in Mandarin Team for a spotlight tour of the oldest Concert Hall in Scotland and enjoy highlights from the world-class, music instrument collection located in the same historic building.

Strip the Willow bilingual style! Our Museums in Mandarin team have paired up with a ceilidh caller to make the joy and breathless wonder of the traditional Scottish ceilidh accessible to our visitors and residents from China.
We will provide the live music, historic dancing space and interpreted dance directions – you just bring your energy and prepare for the potential of feeling dizzy!

To celebrate the Chinese New Year in Scotland a number of Edinburgh’s Chinese musicians have been invited to perform in St Cecilia’s Hall so they can delight audiences with the beauty and heritage of music from China.