Author Archives: mj263

About mj263

Music Collections Supervisor at Cambridge University Library. Wide musical interests. Often to be found stuck in a composer's archive, or enthusing about antiquarian music.

Shining a light

Posted on 17 May 2019

Saturday sees the return of an annual music festival, which seems to be in equal measure loved or hated, the Eurovision song contest. Eurovision fans have already been watching the semi-finals on BBC Four, and although I’m not quite as … Continue reading →

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Yes, she can…

Posted on 10 May 2019

Browsing through the Doreen Carwithen Archive the other day, I came across a selection of popular magazines from the mid-’40s-’50s, all of which featured Doreen. As a young woman composing in what was then very largely a man’s world, she … Continue reading →

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Missing in action

Posted on 26 April 2019

It’s not unusual in a library to get questions about “missing” books. Some, sadly, are genuinely missing – in the time I’ve been working here, I have come across such tragedies as books left on trains, stolen book bags (the … Continue reading →

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And don’t forget to breathe…

Posted on 12 April 2019

Lent term this year has felt like an especially long one, with Easter the latest it’s been since 2014. The fact that it feels even later than usual is probably also because it was relatively early last year, on April … Continue reading →

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Sepolcro

Posted on 15 March 2019

Last week my colleague, Justin, happened across a musical genre, sepolcro, that no-one in the Music Department here at the UL, had seen before. The timing of this find couldn’t have been more appropriate as it happened to be Shrove … Continue reading →

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Dydd Gwyl Dewi Sant Hapus!

Posted on 1 March 2019

Or as they say, east of the border – a happy Saint David’s Day to you. Spring has sprung early, the daffodils are already out, and we (or at least the sole Welsh person working in the Music Department here … Continue reading →

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A Valentine for the Navy

Posted on 22 February 2019

Readers of MusiCB3 may remember that a few weeks ago in Sarah’s Valentine’s Day post, she mentioned an unusual “Naval Valentine” – proof, yet again, that you can find the most extraordinary items in the UL’s music collections, whilst in … Continue reading →

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