Gothic Music and the Lucy Hale archive: An Exhibition and Live Performance

View instruments and manuscripts of Gothic-themed compositions from the RNCM archives, accompanied by music written by composer Lucy Hale

You are invited to the first of a series of collaborative events between the Royal Northern College of Music Archives and the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies (Manchester Metropolitan University). This is a free event open to all. You can drop in any time between 12.30 and 15.30 or stay for the duration to enjoy the music, talks and discussions.

Please join us in the Carole Nash Recital Room (First Floor to the right of the main entrance) to find out more about the Gothic history of musical instruments and opera and to celebrate a composer who made a significant contribution to inclusive music.

The exhibition

The exhibition is intended to publicise some of the materials hidden in the RNCM archives and museum of historial instruments, particularly those relating to disabled composer and former RNCM student, Lucy Hale (1994-2021). It explores the intersections between music, the Gothic and disability. See other gothic treasures from the RNCM’s archive and museum, including death masks and mourning jewellery, on display to further inspire your imagination. The exhibition has been co-curated by Heather Roberts, archive and museum manager at RNCM, Dr Emma Liggins and Dr Eleanor Beal, Co-Directors of Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies, and Rebecca Alaise (a postgraduate researcher in Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies working on a project on Gothic music in the long nineteenth century).

Lucy Hale was born with a life-limiting and terminal neuromuscular condition. With decreasing ability to play, she turned her musical talents to composition. She is remembered as a campaigner, composer, and lover of the fictional and music aesthetics of fantasy, the gothic and mystery.

Live performance, introductory talks and long-table discussions

Explore the Lucy Hale archive, listen to live performance of her work, and join in the long table discussions hosted throughout the event to be a part of the growing understanding of this incredible resource.

There will be short talks on:

• Disability and the Lucy Hale archive (1 pm)
• Gothic opera (1.30 pm)
• the history of musical instruments (2 pm)

to open up discussions about what is on display and the musical compositions.

The Gothic, Music and Disability narratives in culture, anthropology and the Arts have often been woven together to create conscious and unconscious narratives. The fascinating reframing of disability tropes in gothic forms is captured in the archives of its creators. From literature’s Victor Hugo’s Quasimodo to Charlotte Bronte’s Mrs Rochester, from music’s Beethoven to the legends of crossroads in Blues, it is lived experience, the “othering” of disability and the evocative yet liminal aesthetic of music that combine to create some of the most absorbing, Gothic and inspiring archives.

We are grateful to Elizabeth Gaskell's House for loaning an early edition of Elizabeth Gaskell's novel Mary Barton to accompany the manuscript of a rarely performed opera of Mary Barton, a tale of industrial Manchester in the Victorian era.