5 minute read
Creative Project
CREATIVE PROJECT TUESDAY 15TH NOVEMBER
Tuesday 15th November features a specially commissioned new work creatively produced by Music for Youth Mentor Adey Grummet and composed by celebrated musical director and composer Michael Henry. Over 2,000 young musicians from the length and breadth of the country will come together to perform this world premiere.
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Back Together is an exploration of how we have pieced our music-making together now that we have emerged from our lockdown isolation. Things might have been lost or left behind but things have also been discovered and explored. We are not the same as we were and that is interesting, fertile and exciting territory. There are three elements that form the Back Together springboard. The first being a comment by MFY young presenter Grace Harman, at the National Festival in Birmingham, who said that ‘there was a spark when we got back together’. There was then a comment from a music leader at the Swindon Regional Festival in Spring, who said that her group’s performance that day was the first time they had played under a roof for two years! And finally, on a personal reflection Adey said the thing that she missed the most was the physical sensation of creating sound right alongside colleagues, singing into the same air.
Back Together is a celebration of what it has been like to work up to the heartstopping moment of performance. From early days of beginning work on a new idea or starting a new piece of music, getting notes right and rehearsing over and over, to making decisions about how to present the performance and actually arriving on stage in front of an audience, everyone has been on a massive journey.
Not only are we here with our individual projects to perform for each other but we have the mutual experience of having done it in an extraordinary moment in history. The story we tell of coming back together is one of creative inspiration, hard work, generosity and joy. Everyone on this stage tonight has done something amazing!
With thanks to Patrick Bailey for arranging the music for the Creative Project to ensure that every young musician has a part that is suitable for them.
ADEY GRUMMET CREATIVE PROJECT LEADER & LYRICIST
Adey is a singer and lyricist originally from Australia. She worked in radio broadcasting, choral music, drama and musical theatre (original Australian casts of Cats and Les Miserables). She has worked in the UK since 1988 for companies including the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, English Touring Opera, Opera North, Welsh National Opera, Music Theatre Wales, Tête à Tête and D’Oyly Carte in classical repertoire from mainstream to contemporary. Adey’s passion is devising and developing new work with contemporary artists in all media. Adey is a Music for Youth Mentor at Regional Festivals, the National Festival and other events.
MICHAEL HENRY CREATIVE PROJECT COMPOSER
Born in 1960’s London, Michael’s musical education came primarily from the I.L.E.A. Centre For Young Musicians (CYM) 1977-81, and the Royal College Of Music, studying clarinet and composition 1981-85. Alongside early experiences as a school chorister and clarinettist, he wrote his first piece at the age of 7, wrote a symphony in biro at the age of 14, was lead vocalist and bass guitarist in a punk trio during his secondary school years and lead vocalist in a jazz funk quintet during his college years. He has been an eclectic, professional musician ever since, who now works primarily in theatre. As a Theatrical Musical Director, Michael has been regularly engaged by many of London and the UK’s leading establishments since 2009.
BACK TOGETHER LYRICS
A long time since I’d seen these friends New times, new faces, a new page to turn, and a new piece of music, a brand new idea, a lot to get right, a lot of notes to learn
When we got back together, there was a spark. For the first time in ages, we played, we sang under the same roof, in the same room We made the same air ring. We made our music take wing When we got back together
And over and over we worked that piece Dynamics and rhythms and phrases to transform into movements and moments that sounded just right. Bit by bit, our music took its form.
Chorus When we got back together ...
Do we stand, Shall we sit In a group, In a line Should we all wear hats, or blue Will we ever remember the very last page Do we count this tempo in four or in two
Now I’m nervous, I’m happy, I’m proud and I’m thrilled. I know we can make this great. I’m going to give it more than a hundred percent. Just watch all the dreams that we create
So here we are together, lit up by that first spark, and for you and for this moment we play, we sing in this incredible space, on this very special stage we make the same air ring, every beat, every breath, every string, and it’s the most AMAZING thing to make our music take wing Now we are back together
PARTICIPATING GROUPS Bedford High School Advances Singers Bedgrove Junior School Band Club Canons Choir Chesterton Community College Junior Choir Christ’s College Finchley Choir Corby Business Academy
Concert Band Croyland Primary School Dame Bradbury’s Choir Eastlea Vocal Collective Goldhawk Sounds Haling Harmony Lady Margaret Primary School Manor School Massed Ensemble Millway Primary School Monumental Nelson Primary School Orchestra Newton Farm Orchestra and Choir NPTC GROUP JAZZ ENSEMBLE PercWorks Ensemble Soundskool Unsigned St Johns Orchestra TCS Jukebox The De Joses Ukulele Orchestra of Pye Bank Worsbrough Common Primary
School Choir Xavier Choir
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Talented young musicians from across England, creating and performing inspirational new takes on traditional music
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