Never Again (2018)
10, 11, 16 & 17 November 2018, Strood Station, Southeastern train network & Chatham Historic Dockyard.
Watch:
Never Again is a 9-part song cycle for community choir, speaking voice and tape featuring archival sound recordings. It was created to commemorate the WW1 centenary of Armistice Day on 11 November 2018. Never Again was inspired by the testimonies of local people in Rochester, Gravesend, Sheerness and Sittingbourne, who shared ideas, stories and recollections in number of workshops during the summer of 2018. A project community choir of 35 singers premiered the work on moving trains and at train stations in the Southeastern train network, with musical and sound content geographically mapped to the route. I created a period-style postcard set for audience members to keep as a memento, featuring WW1 propaganda and song lyrics. In 2019, Never Again nominated for an Ivor Novello Composers Award for Community Music.
Performance locations
Materials: 9-part song cycle for community choir and learning resource pack including video and audio demonstrations of each part, lyrics, sheet music and cue-sheets. Archival sound recordings sourced from open access archives, and custom-made postcard sets with WW1 propaganda imagery.
Team: Composer and learning resource creation: Emily Peasgood. Lyrics by Emily Peasgood and Kate Lynn-Devere. Audio demo editing and mastering: Matthew Smyth. Artistic Director: Tania Holland-Williams.
Commissioned by Ideas Test for Sea Folk Sing, a SparkedEcho production, funded by Arts Council England, The Baring Foundation, Optivo and Kent County Council. #SeaFolkSing
The Musical Work
Listen to the audio DEMO provided to singers:
The musical score can be viewed here:
As part of the creative process, I attended a number of workshops and rehearsals to work with participants. Images by Hope Fitzgerald.
Postcards
Hi Emily looks great I’m hoping to get along to see and hear this, will you be at any of them as I see some dates over lap Peter