Working creatively in organisations

An extraordinary cultural, historical and artistic project.

I’m honoured to be associated with the Lyre of Ur project, in which Andy Lowings has reconstructed an ancient instrument which was buried in the ancient city of Ur, in Mesopotamia, 4500 years ago. The Lyre of Ur was part of a large collection of goods found in a mass grave alongside other instruments which also included musical pipes. It’s these pipes, made of metal, which have allowed the Lyre of Ur team to reconstruct the tuning of the harp, most of which didn’t survive the burial over the thousands of intervening years. Sadly, those few parts of the original Lyre which were recovered intact were then looted from the Baghdad museum and the remains were abandoned in the museum car park.

Andy and his team have patiently recreated this instrument with the help of suppliers of Cedar wood from Iraq, gold from Africa and carvings and metalworks from around the world; the recreation of this instrument has somehow struck a chord with people who recognise such an ancient, shared musical ancestry. The Lyre of Ur is now complete and has toured Kenya as well as appearing on Live8.

What particularly fascinates me is how this Lyre continues to lead us all. Far from being a dead artefact, it seems to have taken on a life of its own. It’s an impressive, large and extraordinary object, but it’s one that’s also added a richness to existing historical and musical research, provoked controversy which has at times echoed the present east-west conflicts, and continues to generate a huge amount of artistic creativity. I’m thrilled to be able to help out with conversation, new ideas, recording, editing and generally helping to make available the musical experiments as they unfold around this wonderful instrument.

The latest of these explorations took place in the Stahl Theatre, Oundle. Thanks to a very enthusiastic theatre team and the dancer Diana Conti, we are presented with the story of the last moments of the royal lyre-player, interpreting a piece of harp music (itself made available to the project) in classical ballet. I videoed and edited this in High-Definition, which means it will continue to look good in years to come as it becomes part of a much larger artistic recorded work in the future. In my video extract, the dancer takes us through her interpretation of the last moments of the royal Lyre-player and then performs the dance for us. It’s one of many fascinating artistic explorations we are undertaking as we attempt to reconnect with this ancient culture and make sense of its meaning for us today.

Click here to read more about the dance and see an extract of the video