Last night's Musicon concert of music from the South Korean shaman tradition was remarkable: warm, serious, and joyous—and with a dose of audience participation! Thank you so much to Hong Hyojin and Jung Younrak for the mesmerising performance.

A remarkable evening last night as Hong Hyojin and Jung Younrak brought the songs, dances and rhythms of Korea's East Coast shaman tradition to Palace Green with extraordinary energy. Thank you to all who came — and don't miss their free paper flower workshop at the Oriental Museum today, 1–3pm.

Tomorrow evening: Songs beneath the Sacred Tree. A wife-and-husband pair of senior Korean ritualists — Hong Hyojin singing, dancing and playing hand-gong, Jung Younrak on drum — bring the thrilling music of the East Coast shaman tradition to Palace Green. With Prof. Simon Mills. 7.30pm.

On 21st June, join SongPath for a unique afternoon of music, nature, and wellbeing in Durham University Botanic Garden. Singers Jess Dandy and @joannaharries.bsky.social lead an uplifting, interactive musical trail from the woodland garden to the wildflower meadow.

Next Wednesday: Songs beneath the Sacred Tree. Hong Hyojin and Jung Younrak — both officially recognised as Cultural Assets 82-1 — perform the extraordinary songs, dances and drumming of South Korea's East Coast shaman tradition, with Prof. Simon Mills. Palace Green, 7.30pm.

Durham Music shone at the RMA Southeast Asia Chapter conference 🎉 Current students Ardi Echevarria and Yan Xin Ng presented — and won the Springer Researcher Student Prize! Indonesia-based alumnus Matthew Hansel also presented. Full programme: https://www.nafa.edu.sg/ebook/RMA_SEA_Conference_2026/

Tomorrow evening: Royal Northern Sinfonia at Elvet Methodist Church. Haydn's Seven Last Words — music of extraordinary reflective grace — followed by Schubert's great String Quintet in C major, lyrical, serene, and profoundly moving.

On Friday, the Royal Northern Sinfonia close their MUSICON season in style. Haydn's magnificent Seven Last Words — slow, searching, sublime — and Schubert's String Quintet in C, written just weeks before his death. Two masterworks at Elvet Methodist Church, 7.30pm.

We are thrilled to announce 'Songs beneath the Sacred Tree' on 27 May. Two senior ritualists from South Korea's East Coast hereditary shaman tradition bring their extraordinary songs, dances and rhythms to Durham in a lecture-concert with Prof. Simon Mills. Department of Music, Palace Green, 7.30pm.

Three extraordinary events close our MUSICON season this term. RNS return on 8 May with Haydn and late Schubert. On 27 May, two Korean ritualists bring thrilling songs and dances of the East Coast shaman tradition to Durham. In June, SongPath — song, nature and wellbeing at the Botanic Garden.

Tomorrow at 7pm at the Lafcadio Hearn Centre, four new works for piano and recitation bring Hearn's literary universe to life. Japanese and Irish composers respond to a writer whose complex identity gave him a unique perspective on other cultures.

Join us next Wednesday at Teikyo University's Lafcadio Hearn Centre for music inspired by early translations of Japanese literature. Four composers respond to Hearn's ghost stories and dialogues, performed by pianist Satoko Inoue and reader John McLachlan.

Do you know which band has changed their music the most over the years - Coldplay, Radiohead, or R.E.M.? Using computer analysis of music recordings 🎶, Professor Nick Collins from our Music Department has shed some light on this. tinyurl.com/ytdwtvze @durhammusicdept.bsky.social

Next week, Thursday 19th March at 4.30pm, join Prof John Snijders and artist Graham Dolphin for a free conversation on art, performance & contemporary music at the Dead Dog Gallery, Durham Sixth Form Centre. Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/graham-dolphin-in-conversation-tickets-1983541237236

Thank you to @joebates.bsky.social for last night's MUSICONversation on Wendy Carlos –an ear-opening evening!

Join Durham composer Richard Rijnvos tomorrow for a special viewing of Mike Collier's exhibition at  @vanegallery.bsky.social! Collier's exquisite art, drawing on stars, birdsong, and Persian poetry, has been developed into an animation that accompanies Richard's Aphrodite for shō & string sextet.

Don't miss our annual International Women's Day Concert tomorrow night! New music, great student ensembles, free entry. Concert Room, Palace Green, 7.30pm.

Tomorrow at 7pm at the Music Department on Palace Green, @joebates.bsky.social introduces Wendy Carlos's Beauty In The Beast. Carlos has resisted digitisation, and her CDs are out of production – a rare chance to hear her novel tuning systems. Free admission, booking advised.

Thank you to @musicaantica.bsky.social, Camilla Seale, and Tristram Cooke for last night's gorgeous concert! Hearing this seventeenth-century music brought back to life with such verve was a rare treat.

On 4 March, we celebrate International Women's Day with a concert featuring outstanding women musical directors and conductors, plus new works by Durham student composers. Featuring Footnotes a cappella, Fullscore Durham, Bailey Chamber Orchestra and more. Free entry, Concert Room, Palace Green.

Indian Spring Colours returns this Friday and Saturday. Santoor, bansuri and tabla honouring the legendary Call of the Valley, and the haunting taus, a rare bowed string instrument played by its only female UK exponent. Two concerts celebrating the season through Hindustani classical music.

Tomorrow at 7.30pm, @musicaantica.bsky.social bring music from Venice's mid-seventeenth-century theatres to Elvet Methodist Church. Cavalli, Barbara Strozzi, and contemporaries – much of it unheard for 350 years – with a recreated Venetian band.

Join us next Tuesday when @musicaantica.bsky.social perform Cavalli, Strozzi, and their contemporaries. Camilla Seale and Tristram Cooke sing, accompanied by violins, bass viol, theorbos, harpsichord, and pentagonal virginal – Venice, 1650, in Durham.

Tomorrow at 7pm in the Birley Room, for John Snijders’s (free!) introduction to Matthijs Vermeulen – a composer whose innovative handling of melody, harmony, and instrumentation makes him a true original. Two symphonies brimming with sheer musical power.

Our apologies for incorrect post published earlier today: the Verdi come-and-sing event is cancelled, but a pre-scheduled post slipped through the net! Sorry for any confusion caused.

What’s in your head while you listen to music? Share your thoughts as you listen to music during a 40-minute survey we are running @durhammusicdept.bsky.social from the 18-20th February. Sign up at www.signupgenius.com/go/10C044EA5... to book your preferred time slot. #MusicScience

On 2nd March, @joebates.bsky.social introduces Wendy Carlos – a legendary synthesiser composer who has resisted all efforts to digitise her music. With her CDs out of production, this is a rare chance to hear her ground-breaking album Beauty In The Beast.

Join us next Monday when John Snijders, pictured here at his Muiscon concert last term, presents two symphonies by Matthijs Vermeulen. The Second (1920) is a non-conformist's response to the avant-garde; the Fourth (1941), written under occupation, is full of hope that victory will come.

On 17th February, @musicaantica.bsky.social bring the Golden Age of Venetian opera to Durham – cantatas and opera extracts from the mid-seventeenth century, much of it unperformed for over 350 years, with an ensemble recreating a Venetian theatre band.

Tomorrow at 7.30pm, harpsichordist Jane Chapman gives the UK premiere of Richard Rijnvos's lettura del labirinto. Fifty-five miniatures trace a path through Venice where no location is visited twice – a parallel universe to Calvino's Invisible Cities.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the first MUSICONversation last night! Julian Horton's time-travelling symphony prompted a wonderful discussion. The series continues on 9th February when John Snijders introduces the music of Matthijs Vermeulen.

On 9th February, John Snijders introduces Matthijs Vermeulen – one of the most neglected but original voices in twentieth-century music. His astoundingly energetic symphonies point forward to sounds and textures we don't hear until decades later.

Congratulations to Dr James Weeks for last night’s delicate, ear-opening concert with the Royal Northern Sinfonia and Ben Smith, including a stunning new work by former Durham student Elisabet Dijkstra.

Tomorrow at 7pm in the Birley Room is the first of our free MUSICONversations. Julian Horton presents a symphony he composed in an authentic 1850s idiom. How would you write a symphony if you could time-travel to 1856? Come and find out.

Join us on Friday when Royal Northern Sinfonia return, directed by violinist Maria Włoszczowska. Haydn's 'Joke' Quartet, Hasenöhrl's brilliant reduction of Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel, and Beethoven's Septet – an instant hit at its 1800 premiere. Last term’s concert was packed out, so book ahead!

On 7th February we host a Come and Sing workshop marking 125 years since Verdi's death. Led by Katherine Hambridge, singers of all ages are welcome to come and tackle thrilling music, including the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, the Triumphal Scene from Aida, the Brindisi, and more.

On Friday 23rd, Royal Northern Sinfonia return for an evening packed with wit, sparkle, and passion. Haydn's genial 'Joke' Quartet, a trickster from German folklore in Hasenöhrl's chamber Till Eulenspiegel, and Beethoven's ever-delightful Septet.

Join us next Wednesday for the UK premiere of Richard Rijnvos's lettura del labirinto. Harpsichordist Jane Chapman performs 55 miniatures, each set against contemplative footage of Venice – a meditation on getting lost in a labyrinth of alleys, bridges, and little squares.

Join us next Monday for the first MUSICONversation. Julian Horton introduces a symphony of his own, composed in an authentic mid-nineteenth-century style – the fruit of a decade researching thousands of symphonies for Cambridge University Press.

This term we launch MUSICONversations, a new series of music appreciation evenings. Members of Durham's Music Department introduce music they love, with a short introduction, a recording, and time for reflection and conversation. We begin next Monday with a presentation by Prof. Julian Horton!

Join us this term for a plethora of Musicon events: concerts from the Royal Northern Sinfonia and Musica Antica Rotherhithe, Richard Rijnvos’s new work for harpsichord and film, Come And Sing Workshops, work inspired by early translations of Japanese literature, and our new ‘MUSICONversations’!

Our department's Dr Amanda Hsieh has published an edited volume with Dr Vera Wolkowicz (of @uofglasgowmusic.bsky.social ). This book, Global Musicology: Music Histories from 'Elsewhere'​ is a brave attempt at doing musicology as musicologists across the world. Congratulations, Amanda and Vera!

We are delighted to share news of Prof Julian Horton's new article with Peter H. Smith in Music Theory Spectrum, examining first-movement practices across 138 violin concertos from Viotti to Elgar. A book from this Durham-Notre Dame collaboration is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press.

On Tuesday at Musicon, the legendary @quatuorbozzini.bsky.social premiered James Weeks's weatherworld cycle to a full house. Within this subtle, textured landscape of slowly evolving weather sounds, this coup-de-theatre: the quartet performing with specially prepared leaves.

Last week, Musicon saw a stunning performance of @hauntedplanet.com's reality art. @svetlanarudenko.bsky.social performed her music alongside Prokofiev and Butterworth's, with @kellyjakubowski.bsky.social playing violin and @madshaahr.bsky.social demonstrating dreamlike graphics from an MR headset.

Dr James Weeks rehearsing with the @quatuorbozzini.bsky.social in advance of today's exciting Musicon concert! Tickets are available on the door, at 7.30 in the music department.

Don’t miss tomorrow’s Musicon: the @quatuorbozzini.bsky.social performing a new cycle of string quartets by James Weeks. In two quartets the bow is replaced by plant materials – fern fronds and cypress sprigs – heightening the exploration of an intimate, immersed way of being in the natural world.

Tomorrow, DreaMR bring their mixed-reality concert to Durham’s Musicon series. Through a high-tech headset, projected visuals, and music by Prokofiev, Butterworth and Rudenko, this concert imagines dreams as surrealist paintings: experiences that reside halfway between the visible and the invisible.

Next week, 19th November, we host a fascinating concert, from DreaMR, who bring together piano, violin, and a ‘Mixed Reality’ headset. It features two sets, ‘The Persistence of Memory & Alice Dali 2 MR’ and ‘Psychogeography with E. Ravilious AR’, which engage with the human experience of dreaming.

Ian Dickson has released a superb video—the first in a series—on Bach chorales. Ian is our pastiche composition czar; there’s no one better to turn to for help in your exams or simply to better understand "old school counterpoint," as he puts it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTB14pE1NJ4