By Scunthorpe Cooperative Junior Choir join choirs from across the country to sing alongside composer, Russell Hepplewhite.
Friday Afternoons is a Britten Pears Arts led singing project connecting teachers and young people with contemporary composers, through creating high quality repertoire, resources and training to encourage challenging and exciting music making experiences for all.
The Friday Afternoons vision is for every young person to have access to high quality music experiences through using their voice.
The project began in 2013 as part of the celebrations for Benjamin Britten’s centenary. What was initially just a Suffolk project became regional, then national, then global, and on Friday 22 November 2013, there were close to 70,000 young people from around the world singing one or more of Britten’s songs.
Russell Hepplewhite
Last year, it was the turn of Russell Hepplewhite who collaborated with former Children’s Laureate Michael Rosen to create EVERYTHING a cycle of 12 songs about…well, pretty much everything!
The elements, human discovery, invention, movement, language, atoms and cells all feature. These songs are designed to fire up the imaginations of infant and primary school children with a healthy dose of fun, humour, playfulness, and heart.
Russell Hepplewhite is becoming widely known for his operatic, musical theatre and choral music. He studied at Chetham’s in Manchester, and then the RCM London as a scholar.
Because of restrictions last year, only two of the songs was premiered, but now the remaining 10 songs are receiving their on-line premiere on 14 May 2021 on the Britten Pears Arts’ YouTube channel.
Each of the ten unperformed songs will be premiered one of ten choirs that were selected after an open call in December last year, and they hail from right across the Britain and Ireland. The ten choirs are:
- Amherst School Choir, Kent
- Cornwall County Choirs
- Dublin Youth Choir
- The Grange Choir, Monmouth Boys’ Prep
- Lodge Moor Childrens Choir, Sheffield
- The National Youth Choir of Scotland
- Poco Amabile, Cumbria
- Scunthorpe Co-Operative Junior Choir
- Somerleyton Primary School Choir, Suffolk
- Southend Boys’ and Girls’ Choirs
34 choristers from Main choir, Training Choir and our Alumni contributed to this performance.
Jacqui Brewster, Chair of SCJC said “we are so proud of each and every one of the children for working so hard and having the courage to record themselves. Thanks must also go to our wonderful parents and music staff for their ongoing support!”
