NYU London student Louisa Bahet, a freshman in the Liberal Studies program, made an exciting discovery about the musical history of NYU London’s Academic Centre and organized a concert to celebrate this history. She describes her work and the event below.
As a freshman in the Liberal Studies Program, why did you decide to spend your first year at NYU in London?
NYU London’s central Bloomsbury locale offers Liberal Studies freshmen an incomparable chance to pursue the great works in situ. Learning opportunities span the city and expand throughout Britain, illustrating how NYU has become “in and of the world.” From class excursions to the neighboring British Museum, where Karl Marx penned Das Kapital, to field trips to the likes of Hever Castle, childhood home of Anne Boleyn, I continuously observed that the celebrated movers and shakers of history lived and breathed in these sites before us. I enjoyed reminding classmates that whenever we sat down to write, no matter the subject, we’d be writing in Bloomsbury just as Dickens and Woolf did before us. The Liberal Studies curriculum truly comes to life in Britain, and although I had not visited previously, it was clear to me as I decided to attend that NYU London’s students are poised to take full advantage of all the city symbolizes, historically and in the modern day.
What drew you to the Liberal Studies Program and to London? How have you found the experience thus far?

People often remark how unusual it is to spend freshman year abroad, however the decision to pursue the Liberal Studies Program represented a clear step forward for me. I attended Stanford University Online High School, an independent school of highly motivated international peers and faculty. In London, I experienced the renewed benefits of learning in a global community, now in a leading world capital. I wanted to disrupt my social, cultural and personal convictions at the beginning of my undergraduate career, in order to enlarge my perspective on global civilizations from the onset. This experience motivates me to pursue further international study.
What have you found most challenging and most surprising?
The more one studies the great works, the more patterns of thought come into focus across civilizations. In the modern world as in the telling of history, we attach great significance to intellectual ownership. It’s one way of recognizing creativity. Take patents for example! But a fuller global perspective on space and time reveals that ideas exist outside particular modern or historic societies or cultures. This thought challenged me at first because it seemed to question individuality. Then I considered the possibility that it is the continual rediscovery of concepts over the generations and through study that refreshes basic ideas and truths. Our renewed fascination keeps them relevant—one reason why Liberal Studies is so vital!
I understand that you are a violinist, currently with the UCLU Music Society Symphony Orchestra. How did you find this affiliation and what did you do to prepare before your arrival in London?

Students at NYU London are eligible to join the University London Union (ULU) and University College London Union (UCLU), each home to countless clubs and societies. Through the latter affiliation I secured an audition for the UCLU Music Society Symphony Orchestra, which was happily successful. My participation in orchestra allowed me to cultivate close friendships with local British students, all the while making beautiful music. NYU London strongly supports students engaging the wider London community, and I had a bit of an advantage in that I researched musical activities in the Bloomsbury region beforehand and arrived with clear intentions in mind.
I also understand that in preparing for your time in London while conducting research on classical music you made an exciting discovery about NYU London’s Academic Centre. Can you describe what you learned and its significance?
In my research, I was fortunate to discover the Oxford and Cambridge Musical Club, a prestigious musical society that began as a gentleman’s club in 1899. Imagine my surprise upon learning that the OCMC had inaugurated its residence at 6 Bedford Square, now home to NYU London’s Academic Centre, nearly a hundred years before. Of all the buildings in London, the OCMC had made 6 Bedford its home, and so I settled to make it mine. The idea to invite the Club back for a celebratory concert occurred to me straight away.
You proposed to chair and curate a May 2014 NYUL-OCMC Golden Triangle Chamber Concert celebrating the centenary of OCMC’s 6 Bedford Square presence. Can you tell us about the event?
In 1914, the Oxford and Cambridge Musical Club took up what became a quarter century’s residence at 6 Bedford Square. From 1914 to the onset of World War II, NYU London’s Academic Centre in Bloomsbury was the lively headquarters of the OCMC. As NYUL members do today, stellar classical musicians, composers, and leading public figures signed in at the foyer entrance. The building was home to countless musical events, and featured concert, smoking and rehearsal rooms, six grand pianos and other instruments, a large music library, several bedrooms, and even offered refreshments throughout the day. Today, the OCMC continues its programmes in Bloomsbury and around London.

As the Global Network University with a strong London presence, NYU now belongs to a longer legacy of universities located in Oxford, Cambridge, and London, which together make up the Golden Triangle. On Thursday 22 May 2014, NYU London hosted the OCMC to celebrate the centenary of its arrival at 6 Bedford Square, musically uniting these three cities. I organized a NYUL-OCMC joint chamber concert, and curated an exhibition of Club archives from the Bodleian’s Special Collections at Oxford. There was even a celebratory reception with wine and cheese before the chamber performances, and student-led tour of the 6 Bedford Square premises.

In all of these preparations I received highly instrumental support from Liberal Studies Dean Fred Schwarzbach, NYU London Director Gary Slapper, Senior Programme Manager for Student Life Tony Skitt, and Liberal Studies Student Council President Norbert Sobczak. Indispensible to the musical collaboration was the gracious assistance and research permissions of Mr Michael Crowe, Chairman of the Oxford and Cambridge Musical Club, and Mr Martin Holmes, Alfred Brendel Curator of Music at the Bodleian Libraries.

Could this become an ongoing affiliate classical music collaboration?
Over Spring Break I traveled to the Bodleian Libraries at Oxford University to examine the Club’s archives, and among them located the first musical programme that was presented at 6 Bedford by the OCMC. This occurred on 3 December 1914. NYU London and myself are looking forward to hosting the OCMC in a programme reenactment exactly 100 years later!

How do you see this event as reflecting on NYU’s presence in London and its global heritage?
The Oxford and Cambridge Musical Club is a living slice of history, as vital now as it once was. The Club’s return to 6 Bedford Square has hopefully reminded students that space changes over time to accommodate different people, and that our life and accomplishments are transient. As most students are only in London for a term or two, the latter point is particularly relevant. It is certainly personally motivating to me, as London’s heritage enticed me to study abroad and I now return home with greater perspective on historical life. In terms of NYU’s global heritage, as the university pursues its new world mission, it remains key to remember that something has always come before, and someday, what we do at NYU London will become part of that legacy.