East London Music Group’s second commission, 1936, an East London Uprising by Robin Haigh, was premiered at Queen Mary University of London on 16 March 2018. We were very grateful to receive generous funding from the Leche Trust and the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust to enable this project to go ahead.
The work was commissioned to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street and in it two narrators tell the story of the battle using text derived from eyewitness accounts, period journalism, and Hansard. In the premiere performance the narrators were Clark Alexander and Rhiannon Sommers, and the conductor was Matthew Hardy.
Video by Mitchell Harris at Pocket Blockbuster
East London Music Group's first commission, Strange Joy by Edward Nesbit, was premiered at Queen Mary University of London on 25 November 2015. A generous grant from the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust helped cover the costs.
In the work, Nesbit sets music to three poems by East London First World War poet Isaac Rosenberg. "On Receiving News of the War", "Break of Day in the Trenches", and "Returning, We Hear the Larks" are narrated by Joseph Hardy, and the performance is conducted by Matthew Hardy.
Flute - Sarah Bennett / Clarinet - Max Mausen / Saxophone - Jamie Fathers /
Trumpet - Sarah Campbell / Cello - Tatiana Chernyshova / Percussion - Sam Wilson
