Sun 18 May 'Sing for a Change': Sheffield Socialist Choir Celebrates 20 Years
Octagon Centre, Sheffield University publicity leaflet click here

Two day-time workshops: Morning: led by Ali Burns from Scotland, whom many of you will already know as a first-class workshop leader and composer of wonderful harmonies. http://www.aliburns.co.uk/ Afternoon: led by Pete Moser of More Music at Morecambe. Pete plans to work on 'The Long Walk' which now incorporates 'Crossing the Border' that he and the poet Lemn Sissay wrote for us; it is about migration and commemorates the deaths of the Chinese cockle-pickers in Morecambe Bay. www.thelongwalk.info and http://www.mormusic.net/

Evening Performance: 7.30-11 pm Featuring seven newly commissioned songs for a better future, and their composers: Peggy Seeger, Leon Rosselson, Ali Burns, Pete Moser and Lemn Sissay, Theo Simon (of Seize the Day), Chumbawamba, and Mahdia Daulne, including interviews by Compere Rony Robinson. After the choir's set and an interval, Chumba will play; and we will end with everyone singing Leon's 'Power of Song'.

To book for 18 May, please ring our special Box Office number: 0777 9021939.
Tickets will also be available from Jacks Records, Aberdeen Court, Division Street, Sheffield S1 sales@jacksrecords.idps.co.uk

Also look out for 'Sing for a Change' T-shirts and bags to buy.
There are plans also for a CD to follow, and hopefully a souvenir programme or songbook.

Please spread the word far and wide and hope to see you there

Background Info

For our 20th anniversary in 2008, we have commissioned seven new ‘songs for our times’. We felt a need to help stimulate the production of some new and contemporary political songs, to reinvigorate our repertoire and to pass on to other interested choirs. The composers and writers, to whom we are very grateful, are:

• Leon Rosselson: website ‘The Power of Song’, about the role of song in political movements.
  
• Peggy Seeger: website ‘How I Long for Peace’, a title which is self-explanatory.
  
• Theo Simon (of Seize the Day): website ‘Somewhere on Sea’, about our environmental legacy to future generations.
  
• Lemn Sissay (words) website and Pete Moser of More Music in Morecambe (music), ‘Crossing the Border’, about the experiences of displaced peoples. It forms part of a bigger work created by Pete and Lemn called ‘The Long Walk’, about the tragedy of the Chinese migrant workers who died cockle-picking in Morecambe Bay: website
  
• Ali Burns: website ‘We Are All Under the Stars’, an innovative song incorporating spoken text.
  
• Chumbawamba website ‘Sleep’, a lullaby with a twist – we will outlive our oppressors and sing them to sleep.
  
• Mahdia Daulne of the Grammy-nominated 'Zap Mama' website 'Bongola', a chant in the KiNgwani-lingana language of the Congo, about how change for the better starts with ourselves.

The full set of songs will be sung at our 20th Anniversary celebrations in Sheffield on 18 May 2008, in the presence of most of the composers. They will also form the core of a new CD, and we are planning a songbook of them.

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