(A Song for Us – with SoundUK)

I was born in Goole, and never left the town until I went to university and, in spite of living in many different places since, still think of it as “home.” But it wasn’t until about five years ago that  I began to be involved with professional performance there and in the region, starting with The Stopping Train with SoundUK (designed to be listened to on the Goole to Hull stopping train, and back). I met the then mayor Terence Smith at that time (at 19, the youngest mayor in the country) and developed a friendship with Charlie Studdy, director of the arts centre Junction. I gave performances at Junction, and elsewhere in the East Riding (Winestead, in Holderness and Hull, for Hull City of Culture, Nothing like the Sun in Hull). Above Water is one of a number of pieces commissioned by SoundUK as songs for different counties or regions. My collaborator for over thirty years, Blake Morrison, wrote the text, as he had done for The Stopping Train, and it was that project that introduced Blake to the town. The piece planned to use the space within Junction and to celebrate the special character and spirit of the East Riding and of Goole in particular. The original idea was to make a “socially distanced” performance within Junction, with two groups of brass instruments – one in an upper gallery and the other on the stage with a choir of about 25 singers. The singers are Read’s Warblers, a choir of mostly female voices directed by Natalie Walker, and the brass players are ten members of the Armthorpe Elmfield Brass Band, directed by Raymond Kilcoyne. In the event this live performance has not been possible because of pandemic restrictions. It has now been created as a film, with all the amateur participants filmed and recorded individually and assembled as one of SoundUK’s series of filmed performances, and available to view from 12:30pm on Friday April 30th..