Hearing Enchantment: Music Through Theosophy

This concert has been organised by the Enchanted Modernities Leverhulme International Network.  The performance by The Fry Street Quartet will explore the connections between music and Theosophy and will include rarely heard works from the twentieth-century British composers Cyril Scott and John Foulds.  Scott found inspiration in the writings of Theosophical Society founder Helena Blavatsky, and Foulds worked for a time on behalf of the Society as director of music at the London headquarters.

The concert will close with the music of Beethoven, a favourite musical topic in Theosophical journals and one of the composers often celebrated by Theosophists.

This performance marks the end of the 'Pioneering Spirit: Maud MacCarthy- Mysticism, Music and Modernity' exhibition, and will be followed by a reception in the exhibition space, Borthwick Institute for Archives, Raymond Burton Library, University of York at 5.30pm. 

This will be the final chance to see the exhibition that explores the extraordinary life and career of Maud MacCarthy (1882–1967) and her extensive cultural networks in Britain and India in the first part of the twentieth century.  MacCarthy's active life as a professional violinist, writer on music and the visual arts, social campaigner and committed mystic is highlighted through a selection of material from the MacCarthy/Foulds  Family Papers archive collection held at the University of York.

If you would like to come along to the concert or the reception, please email Katie Tyreman by Wednesday 7 May.  Tickets are free but we will need to know the numbers attending.