Bid to publicise Quaker composers
John Lampen seeks to support and publicise 'closet' Quaker composers
The Quaker author John Lampen has reached out to Friends asking for help in supporting and publicising Quaker music including what he calls ‘closet’ Quaker composers.
The author raised the subject in a chapter in his book Quaker Roots and Branches on Quakers and music-making, which was reported by the Quaker Arts Network.
He wrote: ‘British Quakers gave up their resistance to music long ago. We now have some recordings of Leaveners performances, two Quaker song-books, and the recent publication of material by Alec Davison and Tony Biggin by Friends in Tune. But are there also hidden treasures?
‘When I organised a concert of music by Quakers at the Bradford Summer Gathering many years ago, I was surprised at the number of Friends who wrote to me offering a piece of (usually unheard and unpublished) music.
‘So I wondered recently whether there was any British collection of unpublished music by Friends. During Christina Lawson’s time as librarian at Woodbrooke, she collected a number of pieces, but a recent search there produced no trace of them now.’
According to John Lampen, he received a letter from Friends House Library saying there are collections relating to the Leaveners, including the Leaveners archive and material on open access.
According to the Library, a search in the online catalogue will reveal ‘many original compositions, some by Quakers and some not. The material varies from musical scores and lyric sheets, to ephemera that relates to actual productions, such as programmes’.
