Grand Union Orchestra at Grand Union Orchestra Music Untamed at Hackney Empire Theatre

Music Untamed in Hackney for Family Arts Festival

Full day of family orientated workshops and performances from Grand Union Orchestra at Hackney Empire

In recent years love and enjoyment of music has brought families together and become something that all ages can experience collectively. Now the UK’s most renowned world-jazz ensemble has created a day-long programme of family friendly participatory performances and workshops specially created for the nationwide Family Arts Festival.

Taking place on Saturday 26 October Grand Union Orchestra’s Music Untamed also forms part of the Hackney Empire’s Family Festival weekend. Grand Union and its musicians will take over the main theatre, studio theatre and rehearsal room of the theatre for a whole day of events including daytime workshops and a participatory performance in the evening. Families are invited to meet a wealth of musicians of all ages who live in North/East London. They will discover more about the enormous variety of musical cultures to be found on the doorstep of the marvelous Empire Theatre. ...

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Music Untamed in Hackney for Family Arts Festival

Full day of family orientated workshops and performances from Grand Union Orchestra at Hackney Empire

In recent years love and enjoyment of music has brought families together and become something that all ages can experience collectively. Now the UK’s most renowned world-jazz ensemble has created a day-long programme of family friendly participatory performances and workshops specially created for the nationwide Family Arts Festival.

Taking place on Saturday 26 October Grand Union Orchestra’s Music Untamed also forms part of the Hackney Empire’s Family Festival weekend. Grand Union and its musicians will take over the main theatre, studio theatre and rehearsal room of the theatre for a whole day of events including daytime workshops and a participatory performance in the evening. Families are invited to meet a wealth of musicians of all ages who live in North/East London. They will discover more about the enormous variety of musical cultures to be found on the doorstep of the marvelous Empire Theatre.

The day begins at 11am with Instrument Menagerie a free workshop for under 12’s. It will allow youngsters to get hands on experience with musical instruments from around the world under the tutelage of Grand Union’s expert musicians. There’s also an invitation to bring along any instruments that may be lying around the house for identification and a demonstration of playing techniques.

The first hour-long Learning Their Tricks workshop for ages 8 to 16 is at 2pm. This is an introduction to playing some of the fantastic instruments in the Grand Union family of music. The session is open to all but those who have their own instruments are invited to bring them along. Amongst the styles covered will be Indian classical music, Bengali and Turkish songs, Gypsy and East European dances, African and Latin-American rhythms, Caribbean ska and calypso, Brazilian samba, Andean folk music and much more! There is a follow on session at 4pm with special pricing for those who book for both.

There are also two open rehearsal sessions at 3.15 and 5.15 (each 30 mins) that will allow family audiences an insight into how a Grand Union Orchestra show is put together, how all the diverse instruments and musical styles are combined, to discover how the music is created and learn about the technical methods of staging it.

The day’s grand finale comes at 7.30 with a full blown Music Untamed family friendly performance from the 24 member Grand Union Orchestra joined by associate and guest musicians. These will include the Grand Union Youth Orchestra, other guest youth/family ensembles and the GUYO string ensemble. Collectively they will play a joyous selection from Grand Union’s repertoire and ‘A Thousand Twangling Instruments’, a new piece from Grand Union Composer/Director Tony Haynes that features an extraordinary wide range of stringed instruments such as sitar, sarangi, saz, erhu, gu zheng and an assortment of tuned percussion. Concert ticket holders will also buy specially priced workshop tickets including FREE children’s tickets.
Grand Union Orchestra
Bringing together the best musicians from all over the world to create stunning original music and spectacular live shows, there’s no musical organisation on the planet quite like the Grand Union. Since it’s creation in 1982 the ensemble has performed all over the world with its repertoire of original shows composed by co-founder Tony Haynes. It broadcasts regularly and has produced several impressive CDs, featuring musicians like Claude Deppa, Shanti Paul Jayasinha, Chris Biscoe, Tony Kofi, Louise Elliott, Gerry Hunt, Baluji Shrivastav, Yousuf Ali Khan and Zhu Xiao Meng who have been in GUO since its early days. www.grandunion.org.uk

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