The team are currently working with local Chilean, Ukrainian and Yemeni communities, and with House of Memories at National Museums Liverpool, to explore music’s role in the transmission of stories and memories between generations, and its influence on people’s sense of place and identity.
The research has involved the use of ‘inheritance tracks’ as a basis for collective listening and the sharing of music-related reminiscences. Its three main aims are to:
- Generate wellbeing benefits for communities from music-related reminiscence activities that directly strengthen inter-generational ties.
- Enhance the visibility of the communities within the region.
- Deepen understanding of local cultural diversity and heritage.
The research builds on the team’s earlier work, including an ongoing project with the local Chilean Community and members of the international Chile Solidarity Campaign (‘Chile in/en Liverpool’). As well as ‘inheritance tracks’, this project has been using materials from the Robert Pring-Mill Collection in the IPM’s Popular Music Archive, including sound recordings, concert programmes, and posters, as a prompt for remembering and storytelling. Pring-Mill taught and studied Spanish and Latin American literature at the University of Oxford. Following a visit to Chile in 1948, he developed an interest in politically committed songs and poems and built a collection of political music and related ephemera from Latin America and the Caribbean. The ‘Chile in/en Liverpool’ project has led to a documentary, a podcast series, virtual and physical exhibitions of materials from the Pring-Mill collection, blog posts, and written publications.
Core team members: Sara Cohen, Lisa Shaw, Richard Smith, and Jacqueline Waldock
Learn more about our project here.
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