Aural Histories

The aim of this research is to explore the changing experience of music in late-medieval and early-modern Coventry, through a series of performances and recordings within VR reconstructions of its lost performing spaces – most notably including St Michael’s Cathedral, destroyed during the blitz of 1940.

Funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council between 2022 and 2025, the project brings together an interdisciplinary team of researchers with expertise in musicology and historically-informed performance, acoustics and music technology, architectural history and computer games design.

The participating institutions are Birmingham City University (project lead), University of Birmingham, Newcastle University and London Metropolitan University. Collaborating ensembles include the Binchois Consort and His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts.

About the project

This project combines expertise in musicology, architecture, acoustics, historical performance, and practice-led research to fill these gaps in knowledge. By addressing the relationship between Coventry’s historic buildings, the spaces between them, and the music with which they were filled, we are situating the multi-sensory experience of the listener at the centre of our research. 

We have constructed case studies around key points of change through the project’s timeline, asking what music might have been heard, how it might have been performed, and how it might have sounded in its material and spatial context, advancing our understanding of the cultural experiences that defined lives across the social spectrum during this period. Some of Coventry’s historic buildings – most notably St Michael’s Parish Church, which was destroyed by bombs in 1940 – are fragmentary or have been altered considerably over time. We are using established VR architectural and acoustic modelling techniques to rebuild these spaces as virtual research environments. 

We will be adding specially recorded audio of relevant historical repertoires to our VR models and using emergent 3D audio technology to model changing listener and performer perspectives within VR historical spaces for the first time. We are using archival evidence of architectural changes, such as the addition of rood screens in churches and the use of wall hangings and tapestries in civic spaces, which often reflect the prevailing religious-political sentiment of the day, to manipulate our VR space and will be assessing the effect on the listener of these material changes as they occurred over time.