The Goodacres’ Wonderful World of Mechanical Music

John and Julian share a lifetime’s passion for mechanical music and between them they have gathered a host of amazing and vastly differing instruments.

Like Julian’s previous shows, this will be unique, quirky and hold many surprises. As well as listening to the foot-tappingly joyful music, you’ll hear about the intriguing history of the people who designed and made these instruments, along with anecdotes and stories from the brothers’ shared personal memories over 60 years of collecting them.

The development of mechanical music is a fascinating one, which surprisingly involved the musical instrument we now call the recorder; canaries, a crucial advance in the 19th century weaving industry, and the development of the binary system that forms the basis of our modern computer.

In their time Handel, Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven composed specifically for mechanical organs, but these instruments still move with the times so don’t be surprised to hear music from Oscar Peterson, The Beatles and Shakira!  These instruments have the almost magical ability to store music from the past and reactivate it later to bring it back to life in the present.