The hallowed halls of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London may not seem like a natural home for the anarchic sound of death metal group Napalm Death, but the band came tantalisingly close to playing a gig at the museum recently, before health and safety decided it posed a threat to the fabric of the building.
And when Kraftwerk, the German pioneers of electro-pop, announced eight dates at Tate Modern in February 2013, the London gallery’s website crashed under the strain of thousands of ticket buyers.
Minor setbacks aside, the trend of hosting live music in museums has been growing steadily. While music in museums is far from being a new phenomenon, venues are becoming more ambitious in the events they host, partly as a result of the increasing focus on income generation.
Museums may not have been designed specifically with music in mind, but their spaces often make a unique setting for performances. Old stone buildings can have beautiful acoustics, but even without that advantage, having artefacts and artwork on display can create a quirky, intimate atmosphere.
The National Museum of Scotland and London’s Wallace Collection are among the many institutions that regularly host live music – the Wallace even included live music acoustics in the architect’s spec for the redesign of its great hall.
Meanwhile, the National Trust has just appointed its first ever composer-in-residence, who will respond to the artwork at its London property, 575 Wandsworth Road.
Hosting live music can be a complicated business. Aside from ensuring decibel levels do not cause any damage, live music events often require:
Last November, National Museums Liverpool (NML) hosted its first concert by a major music act, the 1980s synth-pop band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD).
The gig was initially proposed as a fundraiser for NML by the band’s founding member Andy McCluskey, who sits on the committee of the museum’s in-house trading company.
Merseyside Maritime Museum had just handed over a pilot ship from its collection, the Edmund Gardner, to be repainted as a modern-day “dazzle ship” (inspired by the first world war ships painted in striped “dazzle” camouflage) and installed in the dry dock outside the museum for the city’s biennial art festival.
By coincidence, one of OMD’s best-loved albums is the 1983 opus Dazzle Ships, inspired by the 1919 Edward Wadsworth painting, Dazzle-ships in Drydock at Liverpool. It was a convergence of music, art and heritage that could not pass by unremarked.
“It was the perfect opportunity to do something really creative on the back of an installation that was already happening,” says Melanie Lewis, the organisation’s director of commercial operations.
For the concert, which took place at the Museum of Liverpool, OMD played a set from the album, as well as a number of specially composed pieces never heard before in public. “OMD fans were saying it was the best gig they’d ever been to,” says Lewis. As well as bringing in new audiences, all proceeds from the concert went back to NML, which faces deep funding cuts.
Elsewhere, curators have been exploring the impact that live music can have on interpretation inside an exhibition itself. The National Gallery’s 2013 exhibition, Vermeer and Music, hosted musicians on the gallery floor playing authentic 17th-century music on the same antique instruments depicted in the artist’s paintings.
This is one trend that has yet to reach a crescendo.
Staging a whole concert was something we had never done before. Luckily, we got invaluable advice from the band’s backstage crew and consulted industry experts to ensure the museum’s collections were safeguarded.
We spoke to the University of Liverpool about the impact of vibrations and the university produced a 160-page report in response. We discovered that the acoustics in the atrium of the Museum of Liverpool are fantastic; it’s a circular space where no two walls face each other, meaning the sound travels up in a spiral.
It was a great opportunity for our commercial and curatorial teams to work together, creating a multi-layered event that related back to the museum collections and the first world war centenary. It was a really groundbreaking event for us. Melanie Lewis is the director of commercial operations at NML
And when Kraftwerk, the German pioneers of electro-pop, announced eight dates at Tate Modern in February 2013, the London gallery’s website crashed under the strain of thousands of ticket buyers.
Minor setbacks aside, the trend of hosting live music in museums has been growing steadily. While music in museums is far from being a new phenomenon, venues are becoming more ambitious in the events they host, partly as a result of the increasing focus on income generation.
Museums may not have been designed specifically with music in mind, but their spaces often make a unique setting for performances. Old stone buildings can have beautiful acoustics, but even without that advantage, having artefacts and artwork on display can create a quirky, intimate atmosphere.
The National Museum of Scotland and London’s Wallace Collection are among the many institutions that regularly host live music – the Wallace even included live music acoustics in the architect’s spec for the redesign of its great hall.
Meanwhile, the National Trust has just appointed its first ever composer-in-residence, who will respond to the artwork at its London property, 575 Wandsworth Road.
Hosting live music can be a complicated business. Aside from ensuring decibel levels do not cause any damage, live music events often require:
- a temporary events licence.
- public liability insurance.
- sound engineers and a PA.
- noise reduction measures or time limits for evening gigs.
Last November, National Museums Liverpool (NML) hosted its first concert by a major music act, the 1980s synth-pop band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD).
The gig was initially proposed as a fundraiser for NML by the band’s founding member Andy McCluskey, who sits on the committee of the museum’s in-house trading company.
Merseyside Maritime Museum had just handed over a pilot ship from its collection, the Edmund Gardner, to be repainted as a modern-day “dazzle ship” (inspired by the first world war ships painted in striped “dazzle” camouflage) and installed in the dry dock outside the museum for the city’s biennial art festival.
By coincidence, one of OMD’s best-loved albums is the 1983 opus Dazzle Ships, inspired by the 1919 Edward Wadsworth painting, Dazzle-ships in Drydock at Liverpool. It was a convergence of music, art and heritage that could not pass by unremarked.
“It was the perfect opportunity to do something really creative on the back of an installation that was already happening,” says Melanie Lewis, the organisation’s director of commercial operations.
For the concert, which took place at the Museum of Liverpool, OMD played a set from the album, as well as a number of specially composed pieces never heard before in public. “OMD fans were saying it was the best gig they’d ever been to,” says Lewis. As well as bringing in new audiences, all proceeds from the concert went back to NML, which faces deep funding cuts.
Elsewhere, curators have been exploring the impact that live music can have on interpretation inside an exhibition itself. The National Gallery’s 2013 exhibition, Vermeer and Music, hosted musicians on the gallery floor playing authentic 17th-century music on the same antique instruments depicted in the artist’s paintings.
This is one trend that has yet to reach a crescendo.
Sound check
Staging a whole concert was something we had never done before. Luckily, we got invaluable advice from the band’s backstage crew and consulted industry experts to ensure the museum’s collections were safeguarded.
We spoke to the University of Liverpool about the impact of vibrations and the university produced a 160-page report in response. We discovered that the acoustics in the atrium of the Museum of Liverpool are fantastic; it’s a circular space where no two walls face each other, meaning the sound travels up in a spiral.
It was a great opportunity for our commercial and curatorial teams to work together, creating a multi-layered event that related back to the museum collections and the first world war centenary. It was a really groundbreaking event for us. Melanie Lewis is the director of commercial operations at NML
