The Dancing Folk project is a video collaboration centring around a new orchestral work of the same name. Designed to be open to musicians of all abilities around the world, it is the brainchild of conductor Tim Redmond, who conceived the project in the spring of this year when looking for ways to override the frustration that so many musicians would be feeling at not being able to come together to make music on summer courses.
As the recently appointed musical director of Winston-Salem Symphony in North Carolina, he was able to secure the voluntary participation of a top-notch technical team and some fine professional players. And having worked with composer Jeff Moore on several performance projects bringing together professionals and people of all musical abilities, he knew exactly who he wanted to commission to write the piece.
Redmond is a great admirer of Moore's music, ‘because in essence it's so inclusive and joyful,’ says the conductor. ‘There are plenty of people who have done similar [video collaboration] projects, but I'm not sure anybody else has commissioned a full-size orchestral work to be performed by so many musicians in so many places. We've created something new. This is a piece that is going to live in the concert hall and this is the beginning of it.’
In the time between the launch of the participatory project at the beginning of August and its closing date on 20 September, Dancing Folk reached more than 2,500 musicians in 50 countries. There were contributions from young people in the UK, Ireland, Central America, South America and even one of the most remote places on Earth, Easter Island, with some entries submitted by socially distanced ensembles rather than by individuals. ‘A couple of organisations decided to run a course around this piece of music; somebody else decided to offer it as an extra for all their students,’ says Redmond, ‘and then Amelia Conway-Jones came on board and has invited so many more people to take part.’
Violinist Amelia Conway-Jones's participation in the project gave it an extra dimension. She is the driving force behind the campaign Musicians for Musicians, which she launched towards the end of March 2020 in order to raise funds for the charity Help Musicians (formerly the Musicians Benevolent Fund). Through donations and the release of a multi-genre album, Many Voices on a Theme of Isolation, Conway-Jones's campaign has so far raised over £26,000 for musicians in need.
As Conway-Jones says, ‘The coronavirus pandemic has hit musicians working in all genres, with live events as we knew them seriously compromised for the foreseeable future. It saddens me so much to see the thriving UK musical community brought to its knees. Musicians have the creativity and drive to adapt to whatever the future new normal may be, but they desperately need practical, financial assistance to allow them to make that journey. Since the shutdown of the industry in March, Help Musicians has distributed over £11 million in targeted aid to musicians in severe financial hardship and I feel passionately that I want to help them even more’.
Following the successful release of the album, Conway-Jones sensed an opportunity to throw open her appeal to more musicians by inviting colleagues to take part in Dancing Folk to create a kind of super-orchestra. This now includes Sergey Levitin, Leader of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House; Stephen Bryant, leader of the BBC Symphony Orchestra; and Zoe Beyers, leader of the BBC Philharmonic; as well as musicians from most of the top British orchestras, West End shows and high-profile string quartets.
The audio of the large-scale Dancing Folk collaboration was released on 6 November 2020 as a single in its own right via Bandcamp, and all of the proceeds from the audio release are donated to Help Musicians.
James Ainscough, Help Musicians CEO said: ‘We would like to say a huge thank you to Amelia … and we are delighted to see another creative collaboration under the Musicians for Musicians banner. This brilliant fundraiser will be a vital contribution to our work as a charity. We'd like to extend our thanks to Tim Redmond and all involved as we eagerly await the outcome of Dancing Folk.’
The Dancing Folk charity single can be streamed and bought at: www.musiciansformusicians.bandcamp.com
The Dancing Folk collaboration can be viewed at: www.dancingfolk.org
