The Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) and Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris (Paris Conservatoire) have collaborated on a dual-language online exhibition commemorating the end of the Great War.

Battlefield

Through research undertaken in both cities, 'Paris-Manchester 1918: Conservatoires in time of war' looks at the lives of the musicians who fought as well as performed in concerts, even on the battlefields, during the First World War.

The project is divided into four main themes: Conservatoires under Fire; Musicians at the Front; Musicians on the Home Front, Musical Life and From War to Peace) and documents stories about particular musicians from both Paris and Manchester who served their nations such as Maurice Ravel (above), the violinist, Frank Tipping, who died in action at the age of 21 and Roger Penau, who served as a stretcher-bearer.

Through research undertaken in both cities, 'Paris-Manchester 1918: Conservatoires in time of war' looks at the lives of the musicians who fought as well as performed in concerts, even on the battlefields, during the First World War4BR

Conscientious Objector

The exhibition also includes items relating to Adolph Brodsky, Principal of the Royal Manchester College of Music (RMCM), who was interned in Austria at the start of the war, as well as correspondence between Hope Squire and her husband, piano tutor Frank Merrick, who was imprisoned as a Conscientious Objector at Wormwood Scrubs.

Alongside this are concert programmes from the RMCM, the Hallé and from the edge of the battlefield, as well as the Parisian 'Gazette', which the famous Boulanger sisters established to correspond with musicians serving at the Front.

More information:

It is available in both English and French at: www.rncm.ac.uk/paris-manchester-1918