A project ‘Unlocking Hampshire’s Musical Heritage’ submitted by Royal Holloway University of London music department, with support from the Hampshire Record Office has been awarded £4399. This
exciting project will unlock the musical heritage held by Hampshire Record Office through digitisation of 8 music manuscripts (to ensure preservation of the fragile originals while boosting public access), detailed cataloguing, and outreach events in local schools.
This range of vernacular music in Hampshire c.1800, includes songs, dance tunes, and parish church music (also known as West Gallery music). The Royal Holloway provides the musical expertise to catalogue, including the ability to read historical music handwriting and to code the opening melodies in machine-readable form
Scanning is already underway and the whole project should be completed by 30 June 2024. A whole range of workshops and social media activity is planned to spread information about these manuscripts – via HAT, HRO and the folk music world. More about these plans as they develop