Entertainment / Invitation to lend your voice to highlight climate crisis
MAREEL is set to host a community singing event next month which will see Edinburgh’s Soundhouse Choir collaborate with the Shetland Community Choir, supported by local children and community groups.
The Midsummer Chorale on 18 June will hear songs from both choirs’ own material and will culminate in a mass performance of Enough is Enough, a song written by renowned Scottish artist Karine Polwart in response to the climate emergency.
It all started when back in November 2020 when Oi Musica, an Edinburgh-based organisation that promotes community engagement in music, received funding from Creative Scotland to run a pilot project to test the potential of engaging communities with the climate crisis via the medium of music making.
A video featuring Enough is Enough, made during lockdown, was released to mark the date of when the postponed 2020 COP26 in Glasgow should have taken place.
Then in November last year the piece was performed live in Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh and on the streets of Govan in Glasgow to communicate to the tens of thousands of delegates participating at the COP26 climate conference that Enough is Enough.
One hundred singers from Soundhouse Choir, three street bands, school children from Govan and a 70-strong ‘flashmob’ choir in the audience all participated in the event.
The wider project Let it Grow is much bigger still. People worldwide have been invited to contribute to an online ‘tidal wave’ of music making by providing the resources to take the piece and interpret it freely, record it and upload it with hashtags to connect the activity.
That ‘tidal wave’ is now about to hit Shetland. Shetland Community Choir has extended a warm invite to director of the Soundhouse Choir Heather Macleod to offer the wider Shetland community an opportunity to participate in a similar experience.
One of the local organisers Dave Hammond, said: “This will celebrate community collaboration and continue building awareness and the Let it Grow participation in the lead up to COP27 in Cairo later this year.
“The concert will also feature a set by well-known Shetland headline act Jack Sandison with a preview of his new rock choral work The Hearthole of Winter, and another Karine Polwart composition Travel These Ways which the amassed choir will feature.”
To take part in the performance onstage or in the flashmob contact Dave by text 07714 712340 or email dave@burntcandle.co.uk
More information, including how to buy tickets, can also be found on this Shetland Arts page.
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