Music Planet - exploring research through music

Music Planet explores the broadest concepts of Environment and Music. The series will draw on academic research across all disciplines from arts to social science and science to present new concepts that have an impact on all society. The series will present the research messages with reflections made through the performing arts from classical through to new contemporary music. From the comfort of the well-known to explorations in improvisation with both traditional and new composition Music Planet will challenge you to think deeper about life and your planet.

Throughout the centuries, artists have used their chosen media to reflect on nature and human reaction to it. From personal experiences to depictions of catastrophic events works have been created to try and bring sense to natural environments and our place within them. Music Planet takes its theme from these reflections. It will present a series of performance events to reflect on environment in its broadest sense. Some events will focus on Environment in terms of natural elements such as climate and societies response to changes in climate others will explore societal attempts to control environments.


Each event is co-presented by artists together with groups of academics from the arts, social sciences and sciences in order to allow relevant aspects of academic research to be explored. The events are designed to be co-participatory with public audience becoming engaged with the delivery of the event. Before, during and after each event there will be on-line information for exploring further the academic research story behind the events.

Music Planet grew out of an idea that Dr Richard Bates had to perform some of the late Sir Peter Maxwell Davis’ works and link into climate research being conducted by the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences. Sir Peter was an active campaigner on climate issues and cared passionately about the environment of his adopted homeland, Orkney. His music often explores sounds from natural environments and provides an inspiration to us all. From early discussions with the Music Centre at St Andrews and, in particular with the enthusiasm of Michael Downes, Jill Craig and Bede Williams, Music Planet was born.

The ever growing list of individuals involved in Music Planet include staff at the Music Centre, several Schools at the University of St Andrews, as well as some external organisations.

For a full listing of events, click here.

The continuing influence of a once-forgotten shipwreck

The important French text, the Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Eole by C.E. Boniface, originally published in Cape Town in 1829, lay forgotten in the National Library of South Africa (NLSA) until its discovery in 2010 by Dr David Culpin of the School of Modern Languages. The narrative is concerned with the equally forgotten shipwreck of a French vessel in the Eastern Cape earlier that year, and tells the story of the survivors’ walk, barefoot and without food, through 200 miles of unknown territory until they reached Cape Colony, and it is completed by a description of their reactions to life in Cape Town. The book gives a rare account of encounters between Europeans and the indigenous Xhosa population as well as offering an eye-witness description of several towns in South Africa just a few years after their establishment. In addition, this account, which was the first French book and the first travel narrative ever published in South Africa, is the first travel narrative ever to have been published in Cape Colony and provides a unique commentary on important political changes introduced by the English government in the 1820s into the administration of the Colony. It includes biographical information Boniface, a leading figure in the literary and musical life of Cape Town in the 1820s, and gives an insight into the literary and intellectual culture that underpins this text and his other writings.
Dr Culpin, who learned Afrikaans in order to read other scholarly works dedicated to Boniface which had been written in that language also corrected an error in existing biographies of Boniface, which suggest that one of the survivors of the Eole had a child by Boniface’s slave, whereas this child was Boniface’s own. Since then, Dr Culpin has been involved with several exhibitions, numerous public discussions, media coverage, over 20 school visits and online resources for schools. As a result, the cultural heritage of South Africa, through this insight into the French vision of the country’s pre-colonial period, has been enriched particularly on issues of cultural memory, reconciliation and social justice. 
Forgotten musical items written by Boniface, notably his collection of Ariettes, expand upon the musical references included in the shipwreck narrative.

Rewriting history: Santa Anna of Mexico

Alamo villain and 19th-century
Mexican president is commemorated as
Liberator of Veracruz as Mexicans
start to rethink his role in history

Professor Will Fowler of the School of Modern Languages has challenged the cultural values and social assumptions in Mexico regarding the “official history” of their six-time president, Antonio López de Santa Anna. Santa Anna, 1794-1876, had been consistently depicted as a traitor, a turncoat and a tyrant in the U.S. to justify the Texan 1835-1836 War of Independence and the U.S. military intervention of 1846-1848 and in Mexico to explain and account for the country’s traumatic defeat in the Mexican-American War. Since the late nineteenth century, he was therefore presented as the traitor who allegedly recognized the independence of Texas in captivity (1836), lost the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) for a fistful of dollars, and shamelessly sold parts of Mexico to the United States in the Gadsden Purchase (1853). He was also consistently depicted as an opportunistic turncoat who changed sides whenever it suited him, without upholding any distinguishable political ideals. Last but not least, he was repeatedly portrayed as the despotic dictator who terrorized the country following independence: “a curse upon Mexico”.

In his book, "Santa Anna of Mexico" University of Nebraska Press (2007), Prof. Fowler showed that this portrayal was grossly misrepresented. Until recently, Mexican historiography had chosen not to think about the early republican period (because it was too painful), and, when it had, blamed Santa Anna for everything that went wrong after independence. This included Mexico’s defeat in 1848 – mistakenly claiming Santa Anna lost the conflict on purpose, and the traumatic loss of half of the country’s territory to the United States, which Santa Anna was erroneously [and deliberately] purported to have sold.

"Santanistas" placing a wreath by Santa Anna's
birthplace in Xalapa on 21 February 2014

Prof. Fowler’s book has resulted in a public questioning of Mexico’s “official history”, helping to understand the country’s present and to clarify its past, the details of which were extensively publicised as part of the Bicentenary of the War of Independence in 2010. The descendants of Santa Anna, who no longer feel ashamed of their ancestor, have become actively engaged in public engagements. Recent extraordinary developments have meant that Santa Anna is being honoured in santanista events.