We were delighted to receive a commission from Bradford Music and Arts Service to work with secondary school students from the District to create a new musical about Bradford. What a great brief!
During the summer holiday a group of students worked with Amanda Glover and Sam Dunkley, with a member of the Bradford team, and created a number of songs and scenes around three themes; Sir Titus Salt’s mill, the Bradford City stadium fire of 1985 and the Bradford race riots in 2001. They chose big themes and worked on them with tact, insight and understanding. The group taking part in the project included young people who had relatives with direct involvement in the two more recent events.
At the end of the week we took their work away and Amanda came up with a brilliant way of pulling these disparate themes together into a complete piece. Sam added some songs to fill a couple of gaps. And Jake – a student going in to Year 13 who was a great jazz musician – arranged the songs for a band of his friends.
The original group, with a couple of extra members, came back together at October half term and rehearsed the complete piece, performing it in the Bradford Alhambra Studio Theatre to an audience of family and friends, as well as invited guests from the Council and beyond.
The show was incredibly well received and the community cohesion team were keen for it to be seen by as many young people as possible. We were delighted that a show tackling challenging themes was performed with such commitment to such a receptive audience by a diverse group of teenagers many of whom has not been on the stage before.
The Music and Arts Service extended the commission in early 2017 with the addition of a schools tour. We recruited a professional cast of actors – five of whom lived, or had been born, in Bradford – and rehearsed the show.
In a week we performed in ten schools, including a PRU, to some 3,000 secondary school students. We included Q&A sessions where time allowed, and at the request of students demonstrated and dissected some stage combat work that had been featured in the show.
The cast reunited to perform in City Park Bradford as part of BBC Music Day to some 5,000 primary school students who danced, sang and clapped along.