Music in Art

Wednesday 2 March 2022 at 2.00 pm at the Lowther Pavilion. Members can also watch via Zoom. Guests may attend the lecture – £8 pp (pay on door)

The lecture notes leaflet can be downloaded/printed here

Sophie Matthews

This is Sophie Matthews’s first visit to The Arts Society Fylde. Sophie is a musician well-known for her prowess on the English border bagpipes and has become one of the foremost players of the instrument in the UK. She also plays a variety of early woodwind instruments such as shawm, rauschpfeife, crumhorm and recorder. She’s also one of a handful of British players of the baroque musette, an 18th century French bagpipe similar to the Northumbrian smallpipes.

When not touring with GreenMatthews, Sophie also makes instruments (she made her own baroque oboe) and works with respected luthier Tony Millyard on his flutes. Sophie is self-taught on all of her instruments.

More information is available on Sophie’s website here.

So many of our historical references for musical instruments can be found in works of art. Not only can these windows into the past show us what the instruments looked like but also the social context in which they would have been played. Music and different instruments also play a strong role within symbolism in art. Sophie explores the instruments in selected works and then gives live demonstrations on replicas of the instruments depicted.

Caption: Lady Seated at a Virginal, Johannes Vermeer 1670-72, The National Gallery, London. Public domain