Liverpool Hope University has announced a new Master of Arts degree program, “The Beatles, Popular Music and Society.”
“There have been over 8000 books about The Beatles but there has never been serious academic study and that is what we are going to address,” says Dr. Michael (Mike) Brocken, Senior Lecturer in Popular Music at the school. Dr. Brocken is a frequent contributor to BBC Radio Merseyside and has written about the British folk music revival and Burt Bacharach. Liverpool Hope University (formerly the Liverpool Institute of Higher Education) is the successor to earlier Catholic and Church of England colleges dating back to 1844.
Liverpudlian teen musicians John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison formed the group that became the Beatles in 1957-58 and appeared at the hometown Cavern club nearly 300 times from 1961 to 1963. Homeboy Richard Starkey (Ringo Starr) became the Beatles’ drummer in 1962.
The Beatles are big business in the city on the Mersey, and Fab Four tourism adds an annual £20 million to Liverpool’s economy. World Museum Liverpool features an exhibition called The Beat Goes On, National Museums Liverpool has extensive Fab Four collections, Mersey Beat newspaper has an admirable archive, and the 110-room Hard Days Night Hotel opened last year.
The performance and study of music are also important in today’s Liverpool. Hope University is constructing a £6.5 million Centre for Music, Performance and Innovation, and rival University of Liverpool hosts the well-regarded Institute of Popular Music (IPM).
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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Tags: Beatles, Britain, higher education, music, UK
March 4, 2009 at 11:44 am
You create some great graphics……
March 4, 2009 at 3:19 pm
David Gak:
Aw, shucks. Thanks. Just the usual Digital Primitive mashup.