Dame Myra Hess Day

Let music and paintings surround and inspire you in the original setting.

The National Gallery’s Dame Myra Hess Day celebrates and remembers the wartime concerts that Myra Hess and Howard Ferguson programmed, against insurmountable odds, five days a week from 10 October 1939 to 10 April 1946.

Myra Hess believed the arts played a powerful spiritual role in the health of the nation at the best of times, and would play a greater role during wartime. Her concerts offered comfort, solace and reprieve to a devastated London.

The Myra Hess concerts

This day only comes once a year – book now to be part of history.

Full programme

Friday 5 October 2012
Lunchtime concert
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Friday 5 October 2012
Evening concert
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About Dame Myra Hess Day

This is the seventh annual Dame Myra Hess Day. The concerts have been devised and directed by Piers Lane, international concert pianist. Lane is Artistic Director of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Professor at the Royal Academy of Music and well known as a broadcaster for BBC Radio 3.

Tell us your stories

This year the National Gallery is interested to hear from anyone who attended the wartime concerts and would like to share their experiences, as part of a project to create a public, digital  ‘living memory’ archive for its website that tells the story of the concerts through stories and reminiscences.

Concert-goers who are interested in taking part are welcome to contact Lee Riley at the National Gallery on 020 7747 2891, via email lee.riley@ng-london.org.uk or by post to Lee Riley, The National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London, WC2N 5DN.

This event is supported by The Ernest Hecht Charitable Foundation.
The Foundation was set up some 60 years ago by Ernest Hecht, who is one of England’s major independent book publishers, with the aim of helping the disadvantaged and promoting the advancement of the arts and education.