ONLINE COMPOSITION MASTERCLASS
Composition and arranging techniques from Grand Union Orchestra composer Tony Haynes
22: 30 Years of Strange Migration
This Post celebrates a highly significant anniversary for Grand Union. Strange Migration was premiered in Glasgow in May 1983, commissioned for the first edition of Mayfest, a brand new festival … Continue reading
21: Ça ira, Ça ira
Grand Union was recently awarded a substantial grant by the European Union Culture Fund for a project with musicians in France and Portugal, which merits some celebration! Music with a … Continue reading
20: Language Wars
Bengal to Bethnal Green resumed this month, and the programme included this song, Chaeridike Aj, given a blistering performance by the featured singer Akash Sultan. This was as it should … Continue reading
19: Trading Roots
New Year 2013 and the launch of Grand Union’s new touring programme Trading Roots, our main project for the next few months. It made a great start, playing to a wonderfully enthusiastic … Continue reading
18: Christmas in Maputo!
A couple of weeks before Christmas I was in Lisbon, making arrangements for a Grand Union project there in spring 2013. Regular readers will know that the Grand Union Orchestra’s collaborations with … Continue reading
17: Liberation and Remembrance
COLLATERAL DAMAGE ANALYSIS - PART TWO Well, what a result – again! Liberation and Remembrance, Grand Union’s contribution to the London Jazz Festival, was one of our most successful shows yet … Continue reading
16: Collateral Damage
Liberation and Remembrance – the Grand Union Orchestra’s contribution to the 2012 London Jazz Festival – explores the related themes of liberty and creative freedom, particularly through jazz, the music … Continue reading
15: Nasrul and the Dancing Girl
Whenever you hear Lucy Rahman – as you can during Grand Union’s Bengal to Bethnal Green events - it is certain she will sing something by the famous Bengali poet-songwriter Kobi Nasrul … Continue reading
14: Bengal to Bethnal Green
This Post introduces the series of regular monthly programmes Grand Union is presenting at the Rich Mix Centre, directed by our tabla player and singer Yousuf Ali Khan; it also … Continue reading
13: The Golden Highway
The story of this song illustrates two further striking features of the Grand Union Orchestra’s work – first, the way it often uncannily anticipates contemporary events (in this case the … Continue reading
12: Shanghai Dragon
Zhu Xiao Meng is one of the most unusual members of the Grand Union Orchestra. Born and brought up in Shanghai, she was a child prodigy and member of the … Continue reading
11: Can’t Chain Up Me Mind
I originally wrote Can’t Chain Up Me Mind for Freedom Calls, which was premiered at the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh during the Festival in August 1988, and subsequently toured the whole … Continue reading
10: Inspired by the Kora
If you have been reading these articles regularly, you will realise by now that I take inspiration from the musicians I work with, and develop ideas from characteristic techniques from their musical culture. This … Continue reading
9: Duet with a great poet
In writing songs for Grand Union shows for singers from a wide range of musical cultures, I realised from the very beginning that – to preserve the distinctive quality of … Continue reading
