The music arrangements for voice and guitar and lyrics contained in this virtual exhibit were created or compiled by Peter Higham based on a series of lullabies whose words were holographically transcribed by his aunt, Edna Wright, and sung unaccompanied by his mother, Peggy Higham. The contents of the fonds are believed to come from the English lullaby song tradition. Two of the lullabies were subsequently found to have been published elsewhere but as of 2005 no known publications or recordings were found of the balance of the collection.
The holographic transcriptions that are dated were prepared in 1917. Peter Higham assumes that all the transcriptions were created around that time so they bear that date in the individual descriptions which follow in the inventory. The donor received the transcriptions from his mother around 2002 and sometime after that he recorded his mother singing the lullabies so that he could notate them. The guitar accompaniments were principally created in 2003 and 2004 but slight edits have been made to them since that time.
Peter Higham would also like to express special thanks to University Archivist David Mawhinney for his help.
Peter Higham is a native of Edmonton, Alberta. He spent most of his career in Sackville, New Brunswick, where he was Music Librarian at Mount Allison University for 25 years, now Librarian Emeritus, as well as the guitar instructor for the Department of Music there. As a performer, Peter Higham often collaborated with other instrumentalists and vocalists and has premiered works with guitar by several Canadian composers, including Violet Archer and John Beckwith. His recording of Beckwith’s Ut re mi fa sol la was released in 2018 on the Centrediscs label. Besides a Master of Library and Information Science degree from the University of British Columbia, he holds Bachelor of Arts and Master of Music degrees from the University of Alberta, and is a Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music (London).
Peter Higham holds the copyright / performance rights to the contents of the fonds. He can be contacted via the Archives for permissions.
In keeping with the mission of the Mount Allison University Archives to acquire, preserve and make available the records in its holdings, the purpose of this virtual exhibition is to provide increased access to original documents. However, viewers are reminded that the images of documents used in this exhibition are provided for the purposes of research, private study, general interest and reference only.
Access to the photographs and images of these documents and the technical capacity to download them does not imply permission for re-use. Any use other than those cited above, including publication or re-distribution in any form, electronic and publishing/broadcasting on the Web, or use in an exhibition or display, requires written permission from Peter Higham via the Mount Allison University Archives.
Mount Allison University Archives
Third floor, Ralph Pickard Bell Library
49 York Street Sackville, New Brunswick E4L 1C6
Telephone: 506-364-2563
Fax: 506-364-2617
E-mail: archives@mta.ca
Hours: The Mount Allison University Archives are open BY APPOINTMENT ONLY. To make an appointment, either e-mail archives@mta.ca or telephone the Archives (506-364-2563) and leave a voice message. Staff will then contact you to arrange for an appointment.
Processing of archival records (Peter Higham fonds, accession no. 2020.22) was completed by University Archivist David Mawhinney.
The majority of the images on this virtual exhibit were digitized using an Epson Perfection 3200 Photo scanner at 300 DPI, 24-bit colour resolution, uncompressed TIFF file format. Some alterations may have been done using the open-source image editing software, IrfanView, version 3.95.
This virtual exhibition is hosted on the Mount Allison University Library's Springshare platform (LibGuides). Design and creation of the exhibition was carried out by archives assistant Renée Belliveau. The banner was created from archival images included in this exhibition using the graphic design platform Canva.
A Posy of Lullabies will be supported online through the Mount Allison Libraries and Archives Springshare platform from January 2021 onward.