'Voice of the People': Ralph Vaughan Williams and Folksong
First performance of a new words & music piece to mark the RVW anniversary.

(There will also be a further performance at Ilkley Literature Festival on the 10th October.)

In the decade before the First War, Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) discovered a source of melody and an approach to music that inspired compositions throughout the rest of his career. During summers spent with the Gatty family at Hooton Roberts Rectory near Rotherham and in visits to village pubs, cottages and gypsy camps from Essex and Surrey to North Yorkshire and Herefordshire, Vaughan Williams recorded around eight hundred songs and tunes that underlie orchestral works like Norfolk Rhapsody, Fantasia on Greensleeves and the English Folk Song Suite and were the sources of tunes in Hymns Ancient and Modern and The Oxford Book of Carols. Folksong was, he wrote, “the voice of the people… beautiful in itself and which has in it the germs of great art.”

Voice of the People brings together Coope Boyes and Simpson, whose innovative acappella arrangements of folksongs collected by Vaughan Williams have already won international acclaim, and Classic FM Christmas favourites Fi Fraser, Jo Freya and Georgina Boyes in a specially written words and music production marking the fiftieth anniversary of the composer’s death. Songs Vaughan Williams noted from the countryside are interlinked with his characteristically perceptive descriptions to give a first-hand account of this exciting period in English music. It's a rare chance to hear the original sources of some of the composer’s best-loved music for concert hall and church, as well as lesser known songs and carols he collected in Yorkshire.

Wentworth Brewery are also producing a special beer, 'Lark Ascending' to mark the occasion.

For more information:
Coope Boyes & Simpson, Fi Fraser, Jo Freya, Georgina Boyes
georgina@nomasters.co.uk
Box Office: 01709 823621
www.coopeboyesandsimpson.co.uk

For more information: Georgina Boyes
Tel: 01709 375 063 / georgina@nomasters.co.uk