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Sunday, March 19, 2017

Looking for Help: Malcom Davies Research Paper From 2007

I was contacted this weekend by a researcher in Amsterdam inquiring about the late Malcom Davies. I had the opportunity to meet him in 2007 at the International Conference on the History of Freemasonry in Edinburgh, and he delivered a paper at that event this researcher is trying to obtain a copy of: "The Mystical Muse: Early Masonic Operas, Cantatas and Dramas."  

Unfortunately, he passed away in 2010.

Is there any possible chance that anyone out there ever published Malcom's ICHF paper, or obtained a copy that I might forward to them? Their group, 401 Dutch Operas in the Netherlands, is hoping to perform some airs from a Dutch comic opera entitled, Les noces de Venus ou les filets de Vulcain in a concert at the Théâtre Français in the Hague. Because ICHF in 2007 did not publish the papers delivered at that event, I have been unable to find it, but perhaps someone else knows of a source.

Malcolm was named as the special chair of Freemasonry at the University of Leiden in the Hague in January of 2008. Although born in Crewe in the county of Cheshire, England, he had lived in the Netherlands for 20 years. He was trained as a musicologist, and he studied at Trinity College of Music in London and the University of Southampton, before moving to The Hague's Royal Conservatory of Frans Brüggen. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Utrecht on The Masonic Muse. Songs, Music and Musicians Associated with Dutch Freemasonry: 1730-1806.

In 2008, he organized a two day symposium in The Hague, where seventeen researchers from European and American universities lectured on the theme "The Expression of Freemasonry: Its ritual, oratory, poetry, music, literature, art and architecture." Brother Davies maintained the academic study of Freemasonry had to be very broad based so that we might understand the effects it had on society, as well as how it has adapted to suit the culture and time in which it resides. He argued for the study of a new "historiography" of Masonry: a greater understanding and examination of the political, philosophical, religious and sociological backgrounds of the 18th and 19th century Masons.

If you can help, please contact me at hodapp@aol.com and I will connect you and this researcher privately. many thanks.

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