Grand Union Orchestra 40th anniversary FILM
Grand Union Orchestra has produced a film of its 40th anniversary events, featuring British artists representing every major musical culture worldwide.
Many of the musicians are first generation migrants, and our work reflects their experience and global heritage. It also dramatises historical and contemporary events in a programme of songs and music by Tony Haynes, drawn from the whole 40 years of the Orchestra’s touring shows.
You can purchase the film here
Synopsis
First we summon up Eleggua, the Yoruba orisha, protector of travellers, to welcome the audience in.
I Live in the City is based on poems by East End schoolchildren, acts as a more formal ‘overture’.
The first sequence of pieces, ECHOES FROM ASIA, features first our Indian and Bangladeshi musicians. The music, based on the Indian Rag Mishra Kafi, passes through several different rhythms and harmonies.
Then comes a medley of arrangements of Chinese folk songs, including traditional instruments – Dance of the Yao People, Picking Betel Palm and The Song of Four Seasons.
The next sequence is HOPE, CONFLICT AND RESOLUTION, beginning with The Mother, The River, telling the story of Bangladesh’s struggle for independence through the eyes of a woman who goes down to the river every night with a candle, asking it for news of her sons and praying for their safe return from the war.
In I Never Sleep, a refugee from a similar but unnamed conflict sings of trying to keep her daughters safe until they can be reunited with their father.
Eleggua Kó, Eleggua Rá is an upbeat big band version of the orisha’s chant, with African drums and rhythms.
Next comes a setting of the great biblical lament of a people in captivity By the Waters of Babylon, followed by the defiant taunting of an enslaved African labourer pf his master, Can’t Chain Up Me Mind.
The next section COUNTING THE HUMAN COST OF EMPIRE begins with Songs and Weapons. It sets the words of an exiled dissident Portuguese poet, who compares the wasting of conscripts’ lives in ruinous colonial wars to the deforesting of the land to build the ships that established the empire originally.
Collateral Damage speaks for itself, dramatising conflict and the damage it inflicts on innocent civilians caught up it in so many parts of the world today and in the past.
The final section, THE ROLE OF MUSIC TO HEAL AND UNITE, begins with If Music Could…, a kind of elegy, on how we as musicians wish to create a better world, and must strive to do so through our art.
Raise the Banner provides a positive, upbeat assertion of this ambition, celebrating colourful crowds gathering in our parks and streets in a spirit of peace and unity.
Credits
Music composed and/or arranged by Tony Haynes
Lyrics by Mohammed Rafiquzzaman, Sara Clifford, Manuel Alegre, Valerie Bloom, David Bradford and from traditional sources.
Musicians
Victoria Couper (Portugal/Brazil) voice
Kate Shortt (England) voice, cello
Anna Opochinskaya (Russia) voice
Lucy Rahman (Bangladesh) voice
Richard Scott (England) voice, tenor saxophone
Josh Brandler (Switzerland/Jamaica) voice, congas
Shanti Jayasinha (Sri Lanka/Scotland) trumpet, cello
Claude Deppa (South Africa) trumpet, percussion
Kevin Robinson (Jamaica) trumpet, flugelhorn
Byron Wallen (Belize) trumpet
Tim Smart (England) trombone
Ros Davies (Wales) trombone, flute
Maia Wilson (England) trombone
Andy Grappy (Caribbean British) tuba
Lauren Breen (England) alto saxophone
Chris Biscoe (England) soprano and alto saxophone
Tony Kofi (Ghana) alto and baritone saxophone
Jason Yarde (Caribbean British) saxophones
Louise Elliott (Australia) tenor saxophone, flute
Jyotsna Srinkanth (India) Carnatic violin
Zhu Xiao Meng (China) gu zheng (Chinese harp)
Ruijun Hu (China) dizi, xiao (bamboo flutes)
Yousuf Ali Khan (Bangladesh) tabla, dholak
Mahesh Parkar (India) tabla
Carlos Fuentes (Chile) Latin-American percussion
Abass Dodoo (Ghana) African drums
Gerry Hunt (England) guitar, saxophones
Javier Fioramonti (Argentina) bass guitar
Marc Parnell (England) drums
Tony Haynes (England) piano, trombone, director
Production team
Sound and lighting: Paul Sparrow, Steve Fox
Direction and Production: Mark Duncan, Richard Mallett
Filming and Editing : Daniel Oluwasayo Olabode
Management: Jo Cole, Jane Deppa, Basia Talago-Jones