🎶 Sacred Sounds from the Past

with the Ashmolean Museum Hosting

 

One World Festival 2025

 

Bringing together communities and faiths of Oxfordshire

We are delighted to collaborate with the University of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum – the holder of one of the richest collections of art, archaeology, and ancient world artefacts. Set in the glorious Mallett Gallery, this multicultural event introduces a rich tapestry of sacred sounds and the linguistic diversity expressed through melodies, songs, and poetry readings.    

(Photo courtesy of Ashmolean Museum)

Indulge your aural senses in this multilingual performance featuring sacred songs, devotional melodies, and poetry readings of ancient civilisations united by the worship of the Divine, performed by members of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Classics, Medieval and Modern Languages, and various communities. Date: 22 February, 2025 Time: 2.15 pm – 4.15 pm GMT Venue: The Mallett Gallery (European Art Gallery), Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, (pictured below).

Programme

(An incomplete list) The World’s First Interfaith Anthem | Sami Yusuf | The Gift of Love The song lyrics are based on the Two Commandments of ‘Love of God, and Love of the Neighbour.’ ‘None of you truly believes until you love for your neighbour what you love for yourself.’ [A saying of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)]. Diliges proximum tuum tamquam te ipsum. [Trans: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’. (Mark 12:31)] Kirtan | Sikh Devotional Songs | Bhajans | Temple instruments: dhol ki, hand cymbals & tambourine | Oxford Hindu Temple Multilingual Reading: Psalms 23 and 121 Reading from Manuscripts: Dressed in a Tiger’s Skin* by Shota Rustaveli Aramaic Liturgical Song | Archimandrite Seraphim Bit-Kharibi | Assyrian Priest The Prayer | A sung performance of a poem by Ilia Chavchavadze written in 1858. Greek Orthodox Byzantine Chant | Professor Alexander Lingas with Cappella Romana. * The title translation by Thea Gomelauri. It differs from the published version ‘The Kight in the Panther’s Skin’.

ALL Welcome

 

Photo courtesy of Ashmolean Museum

 

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THE 2024 PERFORMANCE

10 February, 2024 Led by Professor Henrike Lähnemann with St Edmund Consort, and set in Cast Galley – one of the oldest and largest collections of casts of Greek and Roman sculpture in the UK, this event presents music from medieval religious illuminated manuscripts from the Bodleian Library. The performance will also feature songs in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, German, and English for all to join, and will be interspersed with the sound of shofar, shell horn, seaweed horn, etc. Venue: Gallery 14, Ashmolean Museum, Beaumont St, Oxford. OX1 2PH.

Interfaith Harmony: Singing Across Time, Cultures, and Space

Photo courtesy of Ashmolean Museum