Morley College

Morley College is no stranger to excellent teachers in its 125 year history. Born out of the Old Vic theatre there has always been a strong relationship with the arts at Morley which has been cemented over the years with teachers including Gustav Holst, Michael Tippett, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Bertrand Russell and Virginia Woolf (nee Stephen) all teaching at the College.

Virginia Woolf first came to Morley in 1905 until 1907, lecturing in literature, composition and history. Here she found herself teaching a whole new audience comprised of working-class women, imbuing Morley’s founding commitment of gender and class equality to provide education for the working man and woman.  Virginia discovered that she needed to adapt her teaching approach for this new audience, to create more of a conversation with students rather than dictating information, an alternative approach which she found desirable.

At Morley Virginia led the English Literature Circle and even took on the role of Morley librarian, writing to her friend Violet Dickinson in 1905, “I am going to be Librarian at Morley. Miss Sheep[shanks] says that she thinks my gift is rather influence than direct intellectual teaching.”

Virginia left Morley in 1907 to focus more on her writing, going on to write many celebrated works such as Mrs Dalloway (1925), A Room of One’s Own (1929) andThree Guineas (1938). It is even rumoured that Septimus Smith in Mrs Dalloway was modelled on a Morley student.

Looking back through the College archives we found that Virginia was contacted again in 1941 by the Principal Mrs Hubback asking if she would like to lecture at the College again. Unfortunately by this time Virginia Woolf’s health was in decline and she refused the offer, writing the letter some two weeks before her death.

Information about Virginia Woolf and the host of influential teachers that have passed through Morley’s doors, along with the College’s rich history can be found in the book Morley College 125th Anniversary Portrait, published this month in celebration of the College’s anniversary. The book retails for £25 and can be bought in the Morley College library.

We are less than a week away from the Morley Opera School's end of year performance! 

Performing with the Brandenburg Sinfonia this will be a fully staged performance you don't want to miss! 

Join us for our annual end of year celebration of all the dance styles and genres at Morley with performances by our students, tutors and guest participants.  This year is particularly special as we celebrate our 125th anniversary and over hundred years of dance at Morley.

The theme of the celebration is 'This is why we dance' and acknowledges the extraordinary value dance has in the community and the contribution of our students, tutors, artists and choreographers.  

Date: Friday 3 July 2015 Time: 19:30 - 21:30 Location: Emma Cons Hall, Morley College, 61 Westminster Bridge Road SE1 7HT Price: £10/£8 concessions

Do you have your ticket for the Morley Opera School performance? 

Conducted by  Alice Farnham with the Brandenburg Sinfonia! Join us for this special performance marking our 125th anniversary.

The Opera School will perform The Wandering Scholar by Holst and Riders to the Sea and excerpts from Sir John in Love by Vaughan Williams in this fully staged performance, with the Brandenburg Sinfonia in the Emma Cons Hall.

Join our Facebook event > > > http://ow.ly/OJCXN

Join us for an evening of music celebrating Morley's astonishing musical legacy across 125 years.

Featured will be work by two of Britain’s most distinguished living composers, Harrison Birtwistle and Hugh Wood both of whom taught at Morley.

Repertoire:

Hugh Wood  Comus Quadrilles Cecil Coles Cortege and Sorrowful Dance Dora Bright Piano Concerto in A minor Harrison Birtwistle Virelai Gustav Holst A Song of the night op. 19 no. 1 & 2 Songs without words op. 22

The programme is devised and conducted by Charles Peebles.

Last night saw the opening of The Engine Room International Sound Art exhibition at Morley Gallery and the announcement of the winners of the first international sound art competition.

The winners were announced by the judges, Professor Simon Emerson, an electroacoustic music composer; Ray Lee, artist composer and performer; Mira Calix, an award winning composer, artist and performer; and Janek Shaefer, artist.

The winners are as follows:

1st prize: Andrea Byrne (UK), Twinkle

2nd prize: Thilo Schoelpen & Robert Schleisieck (Germany),Feedback Plant

3rd prize: Oliver Carman (UK), Piano Fragments

Janek Schaefer prize: Andrea Byrne, Hush Hush Cecilia

First place prize was £500 and a DPA 4090 microphone; second place, £250 and a Tannoy Reveal 402 active studio monitors; third place, £100 and a TC Electronic BMC-2 monitor controller. The Guest Artists Prize awarded by Janek Schaefer wins £50, a Mogami Cable and a 12-month Sound on Sound subscription.

Due to the high standard of the work on display the judges decided during deliberation to also award honourable mentions to two artists, awarding them £50 each. Honourable mentions went to Archie Leigh-Jones (UK), Tan-annoy and Barbara Bartos (Italy), Soundscape instrument.

The competition attracted over 130 works from 33 countries a far afield as the United States, Singapore, Mexico, Germany, Nigeria, Canada, Finland, India and Brazil. From these twenty-two works were selected for the exhibition from emerging sound artists from Singapore, Russia, Germany, Colombia, Italy, Canada, France, the United States and the United Kingdom. Alongside these works will be Aerial Aria in the aviary, a newly commissioned installation by established sound artist Janek Schaefer.

The Engine Room is an initiative by Morley College, continuing Morley’s legacy as a leading centre for experimental music and sound art. The competition is supported by Sound on Sound, HHB, Academia, TC Electronic, Tannoy, Mogami, Bigger Boat and Genelec.

The Morley Opera School's summer performance of Holst and Vaughan Williams marks the culmination of a year long celebration to mark Morley College's 125th anniversary.

The Opera School will perform Wandering Scholar by Holst and Riders to the Sea and excerpts from Sir John in Love by Vaughan Williams accompanied with a full orchestra.

There will be two performances: Friday 10 July at 19:30 - 22:00 Saturday 11 July at 14:00 - 17:00

This performance is directed by Alice Farnham and stage directed Jonathan Cocker.

The performance is being supported by the Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust.

Sound artist Janek Schaefer will be presenting a newly commissioned installation, Aerial Aria in the aviary, for The Engine Room exhibition at Morley Gallery. In this Q&A we find out more about Janek's journey into sound art and his work.

How did you get into sound art? I was studying Architecture at the Royal College of Art, and was frustrated that you could only propose ‘designs’ for buildings, rather than making real life work. I realised that sound was an essential component of how we process space around us, and began exploring ideas and building installations. It turned out that I really graduated as an artist rather than an architect. I built my three arm record player to manipulate sound live, and began recording, touring, and making a living, and haven’t stopped twenty years later. What role does visual representation play in sound art? Sonic art is mainly produced with only audio, whereas Sound Art incorporates the physical dimension, so the look and feel of that is very important. It is visual and it is temporal. What role does technology play in your work? A big part. The variety of mechanisms required to make, and disseminate recorded sound since the invention of electricity is fascinating. An endless source of inspiration for working with found materials. I work with the physical and the cultural elements of the world around me, and re-arrange them to illustrate ideas, and emotions. I produce very little work that is without a power input at some stage. I am jealous of those who only need an acoustic guitar, as my shed studio is ram jammed with old equipment. But of course that is the joy. To collect classic record players, boomboxes, vintage radios, shellac sounds, transmitters, microphones, and to make work using it all in different ways. The technology both inspires, creates, and also exhibits the results in my mixed media installations and concerts. Tell us about the new commissioned work you are creating for the Engine Room exhibition Given the rich musical heritage of Morley College, I wanted to explore a music related theme, and was intrigued to discover an opera called The Perfect Fool,written by Gustav Holst while he was head of the music course, and premiered in 1923. This was a rather tongue in cheek, single act opera, that examined the divide between high and low culture, and was often a parody, sampling Wagner, Verdi, and Debussy etc. I did some vocal resampling myself from The Perfect Fool, along with a flock of other renowned diva warblers from the 20th century. I ‘helped’ them all to sing tiny phrases higher and faster, which in turn crafted a complex sonic aviary full of my own Aria Birds. I then underscored these new songs with many layers of subtle nature recordings, resulting in an eternal dawn chorus. Aerial Aria in the aviary is an FM transmitter installation using my collection of vintage and retro radios playing a 4 channel composition, exhibited in a room that resembles a kind of walkthrough bird house at the zoo.

A sensory experience awaits visitors to Morley Gallery, London between 12 May - 12 June at The Engine Room, its second international sound art exhibition.

Twenty-two works from emerging sound artists from Singapore, Russia, Germany, Colombia, Italy, Canada, France, the United States and the United Kingdom have been selected for the exhibition following The Engine Room’s first international sound art competition. Alongside these works will be Aerial Aria in the aviary, a newly commissioned installation by established sound artist Janek Schaefer.

The Engine Room gives visitors the chance to immerse themselves in soundscapes, watch audio-visual works, experience the stimulating interaction of sound and video, and observe and interact with sound sculptures and sound installations.

Visitors to the free exhibition will be able to find themselves in a forest of radios surrounded by bird cantatas, witness the subtle cries of a wounded violin or experience a flirtatious dance between speakers, turntables and microphones. The Engine Room sets out to leave visitors with a fresh perception of the sounds that surround them.

Camilo Salazar, Morley College’s Programme Manager for Music Technology and The Engine Room curator says: “I am excited to bring these outstanding works from our international sound art competition to Morley Gallery. These pieces make for a unique gallery experience with sound as the main focal point.”

The winners of the competition, selected by The Engine Room’s panel of experts, including electroacoustic composer Professor Simon Emmerson and established sound artists Ray Lee and Mira Calix, will be announced on the opening night of the exhibition on 11 May.

The Engine Room is an initiative by Morley College, London, continuing Morley’s legacy as a leading centre for experimental music and sound art. The competition is supported by Sound on Sound, HHB, Academia, TC Electronic, Tannoy, Mogami, Bigger Boat and Genelec.

The summer series kicks off with the Guerrilla Gardener, Richard Reynolds, delivering his Penny Lecture on Wednesday 27 May. The author of On Guerrilla Gardening will delve into the secret world of guerrilla gardening against the odds, transforming forgotten patches of land into beautiful gardens.

The series continues in July with BBC Radio 3 presenter Rob Cowan, discussing the destructive spectre of war and the musicians caught in the midst of conflict. The lecture will take place on Friday 24 July.

This summer series of lectures is the culmination of a year long programme of lectures to mark the College’s 125thanniversary. During the past year the lectures have tackled a broad range of subjects, from London in the First World War and the world of astronomy to inside the surgical theatre and its parallels to performance. The College has welcomed speakers including the Director of Liberty Shami Chakrabarti, human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell and most recently feminist commentator Caroline Criado-Perez. All of our past lectures can be viewed on our You Tube Channel.

The Penny Lectures date back to the very start of Morley’s history, with our founder Emma Cons hosting weekly lectures at the Royal Victoria Coffee and Music Hall, now known as the Old Vic theatre. The aim was to offer morally-decent entertainment at affordable prices for the community. The lectures would play host to eminent scientists of the day and address the public on a wide range of topics.

The lectures were a huge success and led to the formal establishment of the Morley Memorial College for Working Men and Women in 1889, taking its name from Samuel Morley, an eminent textile manufacturer and MP without whose generous support the College would not have been formed. The name also recognised the College’s early commitment to gender and class equality.

Save the date for a very special concert on Friday 27 March at St. George's Cathedral. The Choirs of Morley and Morley Players present Bach's  St. John's Passion.

First performed in 1724, St John's Passion tells John's story of the crucifixion through poetry and biblical passages.

Performed by Choirs of Morley College, soloists and players.

Conducted by David Revels.

Next Thursday Caroline Criado-Perez will be coming to Morley to give our next #PennyLecture. Here we find out more about her and the campaigns she led. 

Caroline Criado-Perez is a freelance journalist and feminist campaigner. She is co-founder of The Women's Room, an organisation and database that campaigns for more women experts in the media, and she led the campaign to keep women on banknotes.

She has a degree in English from the University of Oxford, and is completing an MSc in Gender at the London School of Economics. Her book, Do It Like A Woman…and change the world, will be published by Granta in May 2015.

Caroline has demonstrated the successful use of social media to generate grassroots support for campaigns. The campaign to Keep a Woman on English Banknotes was supported by a crowd funding page that resulted in sustained media coverage and a meeting with the Bank of England, which saw the Bank announce that Jane Austen will feature on the £10 note from 2017. Caroline was also able to offer advice to the Bank of England regarding their selection process for banknotes and compliance to the 2010 Equality Act.

An unwanted side effect of the campaign was the unprecedented level of abuse and harassment that Caroline was subjected to on social media, and which ultimately saw some of her abusers in court.

Caroline regularly appears as a commentator across all the major national broadcast TV channels and radio stations, and writes for the national media, most regularly for the New Statesman and the Guardian. Caroline was the recipient of the Liberty Human Rights Campaigner of the Year Award 2013.

There are just 5 days left to order your copy of the Morley 125th Anniversary book! 

We are now half way through the academic year and our 125th anniversary celebrations. To culminate the year’s celebration we will be the launching the Morley College 125th Anniversary Portrait. This specially commissioned book will mark the College’s long history and celebrate its landmark moments.

Ela Piotrowska, Morley College Principal, commented, “In September 1889 Morley College opened its doors for the first time, offering just eight subjects taught by five teachers and with just a few hundred students on its books. Today we see some 14,000 people pass through those doors to be inspired, educated and entertained by 400 teachers in an array of subjects the College’s founders could not possibly have imagined.

What better way to celebrate those intervening 125 years than this portrait of Morley which, with its wide range of contributors, tells the story in words and pictures of a pioneer of adult and community education. It will be an intriguing compendium – be inspired, educated and entertained!”

Last night Morley College was pleased to welcome human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell for our second Penny Lecture of the year. His lively lecture, The Unfinished Battle for LGBTI Rights in the UK, drew many new guests to the College.

In his lecture Peter outlined the landmark moments over more than forty years for the fight for LGBTI rights, including the final repeal of Section 28 in 2003, as well as the struggle for the human rights of countries around the world.

Peter highlighted the double standards that still exist for LGBTI people, for example the prosecution of those who incite violence towards religious and ethnic communities yet when the same expression is towards LGBTI people no action is made to prosecute them.

During an extended Q&A after his lecture Peter was asked what kept him campaigning for so many years. He recalled realising he was gay in 1969 and reading about a gay march in New York and the fight for black civil rights in the US, which inspired him to fight for inequality. He thought at the time it would take 50 years to gain LGBTI rights and is pleased that it took less time, although noting there is still some way still to go in the world where homosexuality is still prohibited in 80 countries.

The Peter Tatchell Foundation works to promote and protect the human rights of people in the UK and internationally. His foundation supports homosexual asylum seekers and to date has helped 84 refugees from countries including Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.  

This lecture was the second in our winter series of Penny Lectures which were re-launched last September to mark Morley’s 125th anniversary. Previous speakers have included Professor Jerry White who discussed the history of London during the First World War, Professor Roger Kneebone who outlined the similarities between surgery and craft and the shared learning opportunities of both, and Director of Liberty Shami Chakrabarti who discussed issues from her book On Liberty. Last month broadcast astronomers Heather Couper and Nigel Henbest took guests on a cosmic quest of the universe.

The Penny Lectures date back to the earliest history of Morley College with founder Emma Cons hosting weekly lectures at the Royal Victoria Coffee and Music Hall, which is now the Old Vic theatre. The aim was to offer morally-decent entertainment at affordable prices for the community. The lectures would play host to eminent scientists of the day and address the public on a wide range of topics, all for just one penny.

Our next Penny Lecture on Thursday 19 March feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez will join us to discuss the question Does Female Representation Matter? There will also be a new series of Penny Lectures for our Summer term. Details to follow soon.

Peter Tatchell has been campaigning for human rights, democracy, LGBT freedom and global justice since 1967. He is a member of the queer human rights group OutRage!, and the left-wing of the Green Party. Peter’s key political inspirations are Mahatma Gandhi, Sylvia Pankurst, Martin Luther King and, to some extent, Malcolm X and Rosa Luxemberg. He has adapted many of their methods to his contemporary non-violent struggle for human rights – and invented a few of his own. Born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1952, Peter began campaigning for human rights in 1967, aged 15. His first campaign was against the death penalty. In 1969, on realising that he was gay, the struggle for queer freedom became an increasing focus of his activism. After moving to London in 1971, he became a leading activist in the Gay Liberation Front (GLF); organising sit-ins at pubs that refused to serve “poofs”, and protests against police harassment and the medical classification of homosexuality as an illness. He famously disrupted Professor Hans Eysenck’s 1972 lecture which advocated electric shock aversion therapy to “cure” homosexuality. The following year, in East Berlin, he was arrested and interrogated by the secret police - the Stasi - after staging the first ever gay rights protest in a communist country. In early 1987, Tatchell launched the world's first organisation dedicated to defending the human rights of people with HIV, the UK AIDS Vigil Organisation. After playing a prominent role in the London chapter of the AIDS activist group ACT UP, in 1990 he and 30 other people jointly founded the radical queer human rights direct action movement OutRage!. In 2002, Peter bought an unsuccessful legal action in the British courts for the arrest of the former US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, on charges of war crimes in Vietnam and Cambodia during the 1970s. The same year, he ambushed Mike Tyson outside his gym, just a few days before his world title fight against Lennox Lewis in Memphis, USA. Challenging Tyson over his homophobic slurs against Lewis, Tatchell persuaded Tyson to make a public statement insisting that he was not homophobic and to declare: “I oppose all discrimination against gay people.”   In early March 2003, Tatchell forced Prime Minister Tony Blair’s motorcade to halt in Piccadilly, in a protest against the impending war in Iraq.  He ran out into the road and held up a placard opposing invasion and urging instead aid to the Iraqi people to help them topple Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. Blair’s car screeched to a standstill just six inches from Tatchell’s legs. Although arrested and detained in Vine Street police station, no charges were pressed. Although great progress has been made in repealing anti-gay laws in the UK, he is still campaigning to complete the unfinished battle for queer equality: action against homophobic hate crimes and bullying in schools, and the enforcement of the laws against inciting homophobia violence. He is also supporting LGBT activists in many of the more than 70 countries that still totally outlaw lesbian and gay relationships, and which punish same-sexers with maximum penalties including flogging, life imprisonment and execution. This solidarity work has included support for queer activists in South Africa, Nepal, Iraq, Nigeria, Iran, Uganda, Malawi, Russia and Zimbabwe. More than 40 years after first beginning his human rights campaigns, Peter Tatchell continues to campaign for the independence of the Western Sahara, Palestine, Baluchistan,  and West Papua. He supports the struggles for democracy and human rights in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Burma, Columbia, Somaliland, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and elsewhere.

Through the Peter Tatchell Foundation, he continues to campaign for human rights in Britain and internationally.

Peter will be giving his Penny Lecture, The Unfinished Battle for LGBTI Rights in the UK on Thursday 26 February. Doors will open at 18:00 with the lecture starting promptly at 18:30.

Don't forget, tomorrow night is our Penny Lecture! We have human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell discussing LGBTI rights in the UK. Join us for what promising to be a lively discussion. Doors open at 6pm, have your pennies ready!

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