Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Artists in conversation with the Pitt Rivers Museum curatorial team at the Century of Sounds launch event in Oxford on 27 February 2026. 
Featuring:

Ilaria Boffa

Salma Ahmed Caller

Neil Spencer Bruce

Panel presented by Philip Grover, Pitt Rivers Museum

A Century of Sounds is a partnership between Cities and Memory and the Pitt Rivers Museum, inviting listeners to explore compositions created by 100 artists from a century of incredible recordings from the museum’s sound collections.
Explore the full Century of Sounds project at https://www.citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

Artists in conversation with the Pitt Rivers Museum curatorial team at the Century of Sounds launch event in Oxford on 27 February 2026. 
Featuring:

Laura Irving

laura dymphna

Nick Drake

Panel presented by Christopher Morton, Pitt Rivers Museum

A Century of Sounds is a partnership between Cities and Memory and the Pitt Rivers Museum, inviting listeners to explore compositions created by 100 artists from a century of incredible recordings from the museum’s sound collections.
Explore the full Century of Sounds project at https://www.citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

A Century of Sounds feature on the Battiti show on Rai Radio 3 in Italy, broadcast on 26 February 2026. 
Featuring:
- Drawn to the circle by Ana Habesh
- Mwana wevhu by Ndinibeatz
- Kinnaur calling by Sonic Soma
Plus discussion of the project and our partnership with the Pitt Rivers Museum.

When I first heard this recording of men gathered around a guitar, singing fragments of traditional songs and inventing lyrics on the spot, with women and children laughing in the background - it hit me: music isn’t just sound, it’s connection. It's a reminder of the timeless beauty in coming together, sharing stories, passing down traditions, and creating something meaningful in the moment.
Curious about what the singers were saying, I reached out to people from Central Africa, and the response was surprising - those improvised lyrics were built from single words in regional slang. In this kind of music-making, it often starts with one word, then another, and before you know it, a whole verse is born. It’s spontaneous, alive, and beautifully organic.
For my remix, I used the main melody of the original field recording as the foundation, blending in those improvised words as fillers. I also incorporated the traditional rhythm of Soukous - a guitar-driven genre from Congo, often referred to as Congolese rumba, which mixes Afro-Cuban folkloric influences.
Just like our ancestors sang around the fire, united by song, we too continue this tradition today - whether around a campfire or through modern technology, remixing old recordings into something new. Music is more than entertainment; it’s a bond, a message, a celebration of community, and a bridge to the past. From kings sending musicians ahead of their armies to show unity, to modern-day communities of music lovers sharing sounds across the globe - we keep passing the sound from generation to generation. And that’s what keeps us together.
Afternoon beneath a palm shelter reimagined by micca.
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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

This piece is built around a field recording from the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum of Berber beggars singing for charity.
Listening to this recording, across time, what struck me was not difference but familiarity. Themes of begging, homelessness and poverty recur in traditional songs from all cultures, spanning the centuries. Despite differences in place, language and technology, poverty, hunger, social injustice, and the vulnerability that comes with these things, remains constant.
Through my organisation in Whitby, Flash Company Arts, I frequently work with people experiencing homelessness and fragile economic circumstances. Hearing this recording, made more than 60 years ago, felt uncomfortably relevant to my daily work. These voices could belong to anyone, anywhere, right now.
The lyric “A Begging I Will Go” is borrowed from an ancient English folk song, first printed on a black-letter broadside in 1684. And still today, all over the world, people wake each morning to the same words: A begging I will go.
Nothing changes.
Beggars singing for charity reimagined by Rebecca Denniff (Subphotic).
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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds