Its good to be part of this network. I hope some of you managed to catch Music Matters on BBC Radio Three last Saturday which had a 10 minute feature on the Women's Revolutions Per Minute (WRPM) Collection and Archive currently held at Goldsmiths College, London University. Hilary Friend presented a paper on the history and future of WRPM at the Women’s Work in Music conference. Consequently Edwina Wolstencroft from BBC Radio 3, who was present at the conference, expressed an interest in WRPM to Hilary at the conference, and contacted Goldsmiths to plan a visit to the Collection and the subsequent programme. Hilary gave Radio 3 the history of WRPM and the contacts for the programme. A great outcome from the conference.
It was great to hear WRPM featured on Radio Three, giving acknowledgment to this very important project in the history of women and music. However the programme makers unfortunately failed to acknowledge Hilary's role as the key architect of WRPM's on-going survival. They mentioned Hilary's role in extending the collection to include women composers and women in world music, however they did not mention that she was the Director of WRPM from 1999 and subsequently she was responsible for depositing the Collections and Archive with Goldsmiths Special Collections in 2012. They recorded an interview with the Special Collections Manager and Archivist at Goldsmiths, but failed to mention Hilary in her role as a Visiting Research Fellow at Goldsmiths since 2016.
I myself became involved with WRPM during its transfer to Goldsmiths, and I feel it is very important to make it clear to all those who may have listened to this programme that the archive has only survived through Hilary's hard work and dedication, and without her input would not have eventually been housed in Goldsmiths Special Collections with a very active future.
Hilary's paper at the conference was Session7B. Vinyl and Radio.
link to Music Matters programme below:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tnvx/episodes/player
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