Hilary Burrage
07-14-2007, 12:03 AM
Dear all,
I thought you'd like to know about this concert, which as ever is promoted by HOPES: The Hope Street Association. I have appended at the end of this note some info about the history, spanning three and a half centuries, behind the new music to be performed, which is entitled Liverpool First and Last.
Do join us - and please bring all your friends and family - if you can!
HOTFOOT 2007!
Celebrating 30 years of the Hope Street Festival
Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, Hope Street, L1 9BP [ NB 7 p.m. !!! ]
HOPES is grateful to The Liverpool Culture Company and The Community Foundation for Merseyside for support for this concert.
Tickets are NOW ON SALE
(0151-709 3789 / www.liverpoolphil.com)
Sunday 22 July @ 7 pm, Phil Hall, Liverpool
with
* Roger Phillips (Presenter)
* Richard Gordon-Smith (Conductor)
* The HOPES Festival Orchestra and Choir
(Leader / Director: Tony Burrage)
and special guests Surinder Sandhu, Hughie Jones, Sarah Helseby-Hughes & Tayo Aluko
CONCERT PROGRAMME:
Surinder Sandhu and the Saurang soloists
returning to HOPES to perform music by Surinder Sandhu (orchestrated by Richard Gordon-Smith) with the HOPES Festival Orchestra
Songs of the Sea
with Hughie Jones & Friends, featuring some of the performers who made the Mersey Shanty Festival an international success, singing shanties and sea songs from the days of the great sailing ships - the other music that Liverpool gave to the world a century before the Mersey Sound !
HOPES Festival Orchestra
performs Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Petite Suite de Concert
Sarah Helsby-Hughes (soprano) & Tayo Aluko (baritone) join the HOPES Festival Orchestra for Gershwin’s ‘Summertime’ and other songs from Porgy & Bess
Children from Merseyside schools, with the HOPES Orchestra, perform
Liverpool First and Last
which they have themselves devised for HOPES with Richard Gordon-Smith & Tony Burrage, now orchestrated and conducted by Richard Gordon-Smith
Grand finale, where the entire company performs
HOPES’ Song for Liverpool, ‘Light Up The City’ (from Cool Street) by Richard Gordon-Smith.
* We are delighted that the National Trust / Chambre Hardman have also agreed to put on an exhibition in the foyer of the Phil Hall on the day
Tickets for the show (Sun 22 July, 7 pm [please note start time]
are now available from the Phil Box office: 0151-709 3789
or via www.liverpoolphil.com
at £7, £9 & £11 (£5 children).
And, finally……
If you would like to be involved in this concert, as a performer, singer or sponsor / raffle donor, please contact us a.s.a.p. on hope.street@btconnect.com. Thank you!
Notes on the ideas behind [I]Liverpool First and Last
The composer writes:
Liverpool has always been a place of great innovation and the city records attest to many 'firsts' and 'lasts'. In this piece the children of Merseyside celebrate five occasions when history was made on the banks of the Mersey.
In two months of workshops, supported by Liverpool Culture Company and the Local Network Fund Merseyside (Community Foundation for Merseyside), the children created poetry and music spanning three and a half centuries. They have loaded and unloaded the first recorded cargo from America, constructed the first intercity passenger railway, surrendered their ship 'Shenandoah' at the end of the American Civil War, dug the first under-river rail tunnel and cheered Liverpool FC to the first Treble win.
The text and musical ideas have all been invented, and the shape of each section discussed and rehearsed in detail, by the children during creative game sessions with two animateurs, the composer Richard Gordon-Smith (myself) and violinist / pianist Tony Burrage. The score, commissioned by HOPES: The Hope Street Association, was then developed by Richard to present the children's music as a continuous work with the HOPES Orchestra.
Liverpool First and Last
· Introductory fanfare
· 1648 – The First Cargo from America
In the year before King Charles I lost his head, thirty tons of tobacco were landed in Liverpool from America by James Jenkinson in the 'Friendship', the first recorded incidence of such an import. We hear the cargo being loaded, the calm waters of the Atlantic crossing turning to fury in a storm and the thankful sailors unloading their cargo in Liverpool.
· 1830 – The First Intercity Passenger Railway Line
The building of the 35-mile Liverpool to Manchester railway line was an amazing achievement for the time. The engineering feats involved include the 2250 yd Wapping Tunnel under Liverpool from the docks, the 2 mile long (and 70 foot deep) Olive Mount Cutting, the nine 50 ft span arches of the Sankey Brook Valley Viaduct and the hazardous crossing of Chat Moss bog. The ‘Rocket’, which had won the Rainhill Trials in 1829, was the first locomotive to work on the new track. We hear the little train running the line for the first time.
· 1865 – The Last Act of the American Civil War
The American Civil War had badly affected the Lancashire cotton industry due to the Union blockade of Southern US shipping exports. The Confederate vessel ‘Shenandoah’ had spent a year harassing Yankee ships in the Pacific and round Alaska. They were given the news of the North’s victory by an English captain and made an epic non-stop voyage from the Northern Pacific to Liverpool where they surrendered their ship to the rather surprised mayor.
· 1886 – The First Under-River Railway Tunnel
Though authorised by Parliament in 1871, the building for the innovatory tunnel did not begin until 1879 and a further two years passed before digging began on both sides of the river at once, first with pickaxes and explosives, but later with a boring machine called the Beaumont Cutter. By 1884 when (to the surveyors’ relief) the two tunnels met, 1400 men were at work on the project which was completed the following year. Three tunnels were in fact built – the main tunnel, wide enough for two trains side by side, the second for ventilation and the third for drainage. The work was aided by the new electric lighting, and telephone cables were also housed along the tunnel.
· 1984 – Liverpool FC, The First Treble
Liverpool Football Club’s record success in the early ‘80s was crowned in 1984with the winning of three major trophies in one season – the Championship, the European Cup and the four-in-a-row winning of the League Cup. This was the first time any club had managed this feat and the children celebrate by singing, clapping and cheering their way through an imaginary match.
In this city of soccer rivalries, whatever team you support, maybe you would like to sing along with the final chorus, adding your own team name in the correct place, as we round off this celebration of the uniqueness of our city.
“Come on you [Reds]!”
The roar is like the tide,
“For we were born
On the winning side!”
~~~
Our thanks to the staff and pupils of Geenbank and Holy Cross Schools for their enthusiasm and dedication to this project, and to our generous sponsors, without whom the workshops could not have proceeded.
(c) Richard Gordon-Smith
I thought you'd like to know about this concert, which as ever is promoted by HOPES: The Hope Street Association. I have appended at the end of this note some info about the history, spanning three and a half centuries, behind the new music to be performed, which is entitled Liverpool First and Last.
Do join us - and please bring all your friends and family - if you can!
HOTFOOT 2007!
Celebrating 30 years of the Hope Street Festival
Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, Hope Street, L1 9BP [ NB 7 p.m. !!! ]
HOPES is grateful to The Liverpool Culture Company and The Community Foundation for Merseyside for support for this concert.
Tickets are NOW ON SALE
(0151-709 3789 / www.liverpoolphil.com)
Sunday 22 July @ 7 pm, Phil Hall, Liverpool
with
* Roger Phillips (Presenter)
* Richard Gordon-Smith (Conductor)
* The HOPES Festival Orchestra and Choir
(Leader / Director: Tony Burrage)
and special guests Surinder Sandhu, Hughie Jones, Sarah Helseby-Hughes & Tayo Aluko
CONCERT PROGRAMME:
Surinder Sandhu and the Saurang soloists
returning to HOPES to perform music by Surinder Sandhu (orchestrated by Richard Gordon-Smith) with the HOPES Festival Orchestra
Songs of the Sea
with Hughie Jones & Friends, featuring some of the performers who made the Mersey Shanty Festival an international success, singing shanties and sea songs from the days of the great sailing ships - the other music that Liverpool gave to the world a century before the Mersey Sound !
HOPES Festival Orchestra
performs Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Petite Suite de Concert
Sarah Helsby-Hughes (soprano) & Tayo Aluko (baritone) join the HOPES Festival Orchestra for Gershwin’s ‘Summertime’ and other songs from Porgy & Bess
Children from Merseyside schools, with the HOPES Orchestra, perform
Liverpool First and Last
which they have themselves devised for HOPES with Richard Gordon-Smith & Tony Burrage, now orchestrated and conducted by Richard Gordon-Smith
Grand finale, where the entire company performs
HOPES’ Song for Liverpool, ‘Light Up The City’ (from Cool Street) by Richard Gordon-Smith.
* We are delighted that the National Trust / Chambre Hardman have also agreed to put on an exhibition in the foyer of the Phil Hall on the day
Tickets for the show (Sun 22 July, 7 pm [please note start time]
are now available from the Phil Box office: 0151-709 3789
or via www.liverpoolphil.com
at £7, £9 & £11 (£5 children).
And, finally……
If you would like to be involved in this concert, as a performer, singer or sponsor / raffle donor, please contact us a.s.a.p. on hope.street@btconnect.com. Thank you!
Notes on the ideas behind [I]Liverpool First and Last
The composer writes:
Liverpool has always been a place of great innovation and the city records attest to many 'firsts' and 'lasts'. In this piece the children of Merseyside celebrate five occasions when history was made on the banks of the Mersey.
In two months of workshops, supported by Liverpool Culture Company and the Local Network Fund Merseyside (Community Foundation for Merseyside), the children created poetry and music spanning three and a half centuries. They have loaded and unloaded the first recorded cargo from America, constructed the first intercity passenger railway, surrendered their ship 'Shenandoah' at the end of the American Civil War, dug the first under-river rail tunnel and cheered Liverpool FC to the first Treble win.
The text and musical ideas have all been invented, and the shape of each section discussed and rehearsed in detail, by the children during creative game sessions with two animateurs, the composer Richard Gordon-Smith (myself) and violinist / pianist Tony Burrage. The score, commissioned by HOPES: The Hope Street Association, was then developed by Richard to present the children's music as a continuous work with the HOPES Orchestra.
Liverpool First and Last
· Introductory fanfare
· 1648 – The First Cargo from America
In the year before King Charles I lost his head, thirty tons of tobacco were landed in Liverpool from America by James Jenkinson in the 'Friendship', the first recorded incidence of such an import. We hear the cargo being loaded, the calm waters of the Atlantic crossing turning to fury in a storm and the thankful sailors unloading their cargo in Liverpool.
· 1830 – The First Intercity Passenger Railway Line
The building of the 35-mile Liverpool to Manchester railway line was an amazing achievement for the time. The engineering feats involved include the 2250 yd Wapping Tunnel under Liverpool from the docks, the 2 mile long (and 70 foot deep) Olive Mount Cutting, the nine 50 ft span arches of the Sankey Brook Valley Viaduct and the hazardous crossing of Chat Moss bog. The ‘Rocket’, which had won the Rainhill Trials in 1829, was the first locomotive to work on the new track. We hear the little train running the line for the first time.
· 1865 – The Last Act of the American Civil War
The American Civil War had badly affected the Lancashire cotton industry due to the Union blockade of Southern US shipping exports. The Confederate vessel ‘Shenandoah’ had spent a year harassing Yankee ships in the Pacific and round Alaska. They were given the news of the North’s victory by an English captain and made an epic non-stop voyage from the Northern Pacific to Liverpool where they surrendered their ship to the rather surprised mayor.
· 1886 – The First Under-River Railway Tunnel
Though authorised by Parliament in 1871, the building for the innovatory tunnel did not begin until 1879 and a further two years passed before digging began on both sides of the river at once, first with pickaxes and explosives, but later with a boring machine called the Beaumont Cutter. By 1884 when (to the surveyors’ relief) the two tunnels met, 1400 men were at work on the project which was completed the following year. Three tunnels were in fact built – the main tunnel, wide enough for two trains side by side, the second for ventilation and the third for drainage. The work was aided by the new electric lighting, and telephone cables were also housed along the tunnel.
· 1984 – Liverpool FC, The First Treble
Liverpool Football Club’s record success in the early ‘80s was crowned in 1984with the winning of three major trophies in one season – the Championship, the European Cup and the four-in-a-row winning of the League Cup. This was the first time any club had managed this feat and the children celebrate by singing, clapping and cheering their way through an imaginary match.
In this city of soccer rivalries, whatever team you support, maybe you would like to sing along with the final chorus, adding your own team name in the correct place, as we round off this celebration of the uniqueness of our city.
“Come on you [Reds]!”
The roar is like the tide,
“For we were born
On the winning side!”
~~~
Our thanks to the staff and pupils of Geenbank and Holy Cross Schools for their enthusiasm and dedication to this project, and to our generous sponsors, without whom the workshops could not have proceeded.
(c) Richard Gordon-Smith