Workshops

The Grand Union Youth Orchestra runs monthly masterclasses/workshops for its members as well as open introductory workshops during school holidays and half-terms for new recruits. All sessions are free and without auditions.

Contact Joshua Brandler josh@grandunion.org.uk or the Grand Union office 020 8981 1551 to find out more.

WE SHALL ANNOUNCE AN AMBITIOUS PROGRAMME OF PROJECTS FOR 2021 AT THE END OF JANUARY, TAILORED TO CORONAVIRUS SAFETY MEASURES

Many activities in 2020 were filmed and streamed: details will be found on our EVENTS and YOUTH ORCHESTRA pages.

PROGRAMME FOR AUTUMN 2020

OCTOBER

Sunday 4 ^th – GUYO masterclass, Rich Mix
45-47 Bethnal Green Road, London E1 6LA
The autumn masterclasses centre on the art of improvisation, and the first session is led by Shanti Jayasinha (trumpet, cello), expert in both Cuban and South Asian music. The sessions will be run live, with physical distancing, and filmed for wider distribution (details to follow) Flyer

Tuesday 27^th to Thursday 29^th – Alternative Summer School, Rich Mix
'SITTING IN WITH THE GRAND UNION ORCHESTRA'
...AND LIVE-STREAMED (full information here and on our Summer School page)
Unable to run our annual residential summer school this year due to the pandemic, we replaced it with a three-day half-term residency on the theme of ‘improvisation’ - see this blog post. With a handful of young musicians working live in a Covid-safe environment, sessions were streamed live for musicians at home to join in, ‘sitting in with the Grand Union Orchestra’. It finished with a performance of the work created with and by the young musicians. Details of how it worked can be found HERE, videos of the individual workshops will be available later in December.

HALF-TERM WORKSHOPS - OUTLINE PROGRAMME

Tuesday October 27^th10.30 am: South African township, Claude Deppa (South Africa, trumpet)
2.30 pm: South Asian music, Alaur Rahman (Bangladesh, voice, tabla
Wednesday October 28th
10.30 am: Latin-American forms, Andres Lafone (Uruguay, bass guitar)
2.30 pm: Jazz with African roots, Tony Kofi (Ghana, saxophones)
Thursday October 29^th10.30 am: Afro-Cuban, Shanti Jayasinha (Scotland/Sri Lanka, trumpet, cello)
2.30 pm: revision of work created, rehearsal for closing presentation
4.00 pm: performance of work created to an invited audience

Sunday November 8th – GUYO masterclass, Rich Mix
Again centred on the art of improvisation, led by legendary jazz saxophonist Tony Kofi (whose parents came originally from Ghana), the session will be run live, with physical

We shall continue to place material online, will start a new programme in February 2021 (whether live or online), and hope to resume full-scale performance and participatory projects by April.

WHAT WE HAVE DONE SINCE THE ORIGINAL LOCKDOWN...

...published a 'bitesize' newsletter every fortnight, each covering a specific theme:

#1 introduced the series and our Friday night Lockdown Live programme, and celebrated International Jazz Day
#2 highlighted the prophetic resonance of Song of Contagion, and mourned the passing of Tony Allen and Ginger Baker
#3 carried an appreciation of GUO co-founder John Cumming and looked back at his work with the Company
#4 was dedicated to our work with young musicians, and launched a new resource, our YouTube Library Channel
#5 commemorated and supported Refugee Week, Windrush Day and the Black Lives Matter movement
#6 provided an overview of our community and participation projects now, in the past and in the pipeline for the future
#7 reflected on the shortcomings of music education, and the improvements we might make in the light of current concerns about diversity
#8 (the last of the current series) was a Youth Takeover edition, in which our young musicians express their own views of GUO’s work

...Tony Haynes has posted regularly on his Music Blog:

Post 72: on his visit to Dhaka in January preparing a project for Mujib Year (see below) and the unexpected relevance of Song of Contagion (February)
Post 73: a memoir of his work with John Cumming, and the lessons of the late 70s/early 80s for creative artists and the cultural establishment (April)
Post 74: responding to the murder of George Floyd and the anger of African Americans, revisiting powerful work he had produced with the Grand Union Orchestra in 1988! (June)
Post 75: on 'improvisation', not only in music, but also as a useful life skill - being able to think on your feet, live by your wits, adapt to changing circumstances.
Post 76: on 'staying ahead of the game' - how the Grand Union has been able to cope productively with Covid-19, not merely by adapting, but re-imagining its work in new ways
Post 77: on the way the shortcomings of big institutions are being exposed by the pandemic, and how the key to cultural recovery lies with individual creative artists and independent artist-led companies

...GUO musicians have produced weekly Lockdown Live sessions on YouTube; here is a selection:

Andres Lafone – Latin-American bass techniques, Brazilian styles
Ruijun Hu – Chinese bamboo flutes (dizi, xiao)
Shanti Jayasinha – cello and trumpet with self-accompaniment
Tony Kofi - jazz saxophone with African roots
Günes Çerit – Anatolian songs and baglama (saz) pieces
Jyotsna Srikanth – Carnatic violin, live from Bangalore!

...and launched a new Library Channel on YouTube, as an online resource for professional or educational use.
Featuring an unimaginable range of instruments and singing styles worldwide, it brings together essentially lyric or narrative pieces from the Grand Union canon, ranging from simple arrangements of traditional music to Tony Haynes’s compositions for large-scale shows, especially those involving young musicians. This Playlist, The Isle is Full of Noises, gives a general overview.

More Playlists group the dramatic material under other subject headings – eg ‘rivers and seas’ ‘jobs and occupations’, ‘conflict’, ‘villains and victims’ and so on. They aim primarily to inspire musical interest and creativity, but for schools they also form an imaginative way in to a range of historical topics (the slave trade, wars of independence, the Silk Road), social issues (disease, migration, inequality), world instruments and dance styles, cultural and political debate, and even languages (widely represented in GUO repertoire).

The Annual Residential Summer School (Monday July 27th to Thursday 30th at Writtle University College) had to be cancelled, but we are running a substitute residency (partly online if necessary) during the autumn half-term (October 27th to 29th).

Here are examples of the work we are likely to cover...

GUYO musicians summon up the Yoruba orissa Eleggua with West African 12/8 drumming, and Ogun with Northeast Brazilian 12/8 rhythms and his traditional Candomble chant :