GUYO winter celebration
25 November 2010
GRAND UNION YOUTH ORCHESTRA
SUNDAY DECEMBER 5TH, 6:30 PM, BRADY CENTRE E1
The evening is an informal celebration of a year’s remarkable work by and with our Youth Orchestra, and is being arranged entirely by members of GUYO and its committee - which has done everything from devising the music for the show to organising the party catering!
It has been a remarkable year for GUYO, which culminated formally in a hugely successful concert in Stratford Circus Theatre at half-term. Along the way it has performed in a diverse range of other locations and venues, from Paradise Gardens and Shoreditch Festival to the Hackney Empire and Romford Market Place.
Next year will be even more exciting: members are joining the youth ensemble which forms part of Grand Union’s collaboration with the BBC Concert Orchestra; GUYO will be appearing on the South Bank for the frist time; and it has been invited to create a special project commemorating the 75th anniversary of the East End’s legendary Battle of Cable Street in the autumn..
We shall also continue the series of monthly Sunday morning master-classes we inaugurated this year, which give young musicians the opportunity to learn directly from Grand Union’s professional musicians, experts in a variety of musical cultures and techniques; they also put what is lazily termed ‘world music’ into its social, historical - and often political - context..
Sessions this year have been led by Yousuf Ali Khan (Bangladesh), Claude Deppa (South Africa), Carlos Fuentes (Chile), Xavier Osmir (Brazil), Gunes Cerit (Turkey) and Zhu Xiao Meng (China), with input on improvisation and general musicianship from Louise Elliott, Ros Davies and myself..
I’m really proud of what our Youth Orchestra has achieved in less than four short years - it’s an extraordinary collection of resourceful, lively young musicians of different ages and backgrounds, playing many instruments seldom or never heard in youth orchestras, and representing the whole varied society that is East London today..
Tony Haynes