Undream’d Shores – the complete project

 

 There are four elements in the Undream’d Shores ‘package’ which can be programmed separately, or delivered on a single day, over a weekend or across a longer period. Together with related activities, they make up an integrated project which will be Grand Union’s main focus for the next three years 2015-2018.

1: Instrument Menagerie

See and handle musical instruments from many musical traditions worldwide, under the guidance of the expert musicians who play them.

2: Music Untamed

Workshops and masterclasses in the musical styles related to these instruments, led by musicians born and brought up in these traditions.

3: The Isle Is Full Of Noises

Grand Union Orchestra show for family or schools audiences, performing a repertoire illustrating a wide range of instruments and musical styles worldwide.

4: Undream’d Shores

Music composed/arranged by Tony Haynes around the experience of migration, embracing all the ideas described above and featuring all GUO’s world musicians and singers, as either (a) a Grand Union Orchestra stand-alone show (18-25 musicians); or (b) the core GUO musicians (16-20) with local performers drawn from youth orchestras (strings, wind, brass), jazz groups, drum/percussion groups, world music ensembles (eg South Asian, Chinese), choirs and singers added.

Twelve underlying principles/themes (from simplest to more controversial!)

• Showing a range of (often unfamiliar) instruments from around the world
• Demonstrating music from all major musical traditions worldwide
• Meeting musicians who are genuine, authentic exponents of these musics
• Passing on their skills equally to young musicians and seasoned professionals alike through practical workshops in these styles
• Encouraging improvisation in music, and hence enhancing also other life-skills
• Bringing together a wide range of musical styles to creative purpose
• Putting their origins into historical context (eg Slave Trade, Silk Road)
• Drawing on the experience and skills of present day migrants (esp musicians)
• Creating new work that relates to migrants and migrant-descended communities
• Recognising the significance of the UK’s ever-broadening demographic
• Countering the timidness and negativity that characterises anti-immigration rhetoric
• Daring people to imagine a more equal, generous and progressive society