PRESS RELEASE - f r a g m e n t s A six day celebration of the 100th anniversary of TS Eliot’s The Waste Land

[Jan McNulty]

 

PRESS RELEASE

 

f  r  a  g  m  e  n  t  s   

The Waste Land 2022  

a celebration

Commissioned by T S Eliot Estate

Curated by DoranBrowne Arts Imagineers

 

In 22 Churches

City of London

April 7 – 12 2022

 

 

• Six day celebration of the 100th anniversary of T S Eliot’s The Waste Land
   
• Walk where Eliot walked, seeing the churches and streets that map The Waste Land

 

• The streets and churches of the City of London feature throughout the poem and inspired Eliot’s writing while he worked there

 

• A multi-arts programme featuring a plurality of experience: fado & flamenco, Finnish Kaustinen & English folk music, Gospel music & spirituals, classical chamber & contemporary minimalist music, Orkney song & sea shanties, poetry readings & literary in-conversations, Indian Raga & American ragtime, Anatolian sufi & western sacred music, Arabic hip-hop & ancient qunan playing, opera & spiritual rock along with specially commissioned film, video and sound installations.

 

• A spiritual and up-lifting celebration that encourages audiences to journey through the old heart of London connecting with performances in unique and transformative spaces. This will be the largest curated event to celebrate the poem’s centenary
   
• In tribute to Eliot’s masterpiece these 22 churches within the City of London will join together for the first time to allow audiences to curate their own Festival experience

• Featuring a one-off combination of professional and amateur artists

 

• 22 locations marking the 100th anniversary in 2022
   
• Tickets are on sale from 1 March from www.thewasteland2022.com

 

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of TS Eliot’s masterpiece The Waste Land, the Eliot Estate has commissioned DoranBrowne Arts Imagineers to curate f r a g m e n t s, a six day festival featuring multiple diverse performances in 22  unique and extraordinarily intimate late-medieval churches many just a short walk from each other across the City of London inspired by themes and images from the poem. All connecting performance, poetry and place.

 

‘The Waste Land is perhaps the great London poem and the T S Eliot estate is delighted to commemorate its centenary in the City that inspired Eliot’s haunting vision of a collapsing European culture. We hope you will join us at this ‘fragments’ Festival celebrating a masterpiece’s 100^th birthday’  Clare Reihill, Trustee, T S Eliot estate 

 

“T S Eliot’s poem is a rich cultural vision of high and popular art, western and eastern, and as a public celebration we want our audience to feel a similar exhilaration as they experience the f r a g m e n t s festival.   We hope it will be a unique shared experience as the audience move through five or more different genres within the space of one event whilst also taking in the breath-taking beauty of these late medieval churches, 15 of which were originally created by the architect Sir Christopher Wren.  Any centenary of a great work of art such as Eliot’s The Waste Land is a moment in which to pause and reflect. To do so in the actual geography cited in much of the poem is a one-off opportunity not to be missed”. Seán Doran and Liam Browne of DoranBrowne. 

 

Eliot wrote The Waste Land while working as a banker in the City of London, he created his masterpiece immersed in the world of finance while surrounded by places of deep faith and spirituality represented by the myriad churches sitting side by side with the worship and pursuit of mammon, now represented by The Cheesegrater, The Gherkin and the Walkie-Talkie. This celebration - f r a g m e n t s - takes audiences physically to places named in the poem offering a chance to explore this fascinating and intact part of London and to imagine what it might have been like in the early part of the 20^th century as Eliot worked in his below ground office in the foreign transactions department at Lloyd’s Bank. Each fragment is performed in a location that creates an intimate connection between the poem and the place. A unique opportunity to engage with works of art in these spaces, the festival will hope to deliver a spiritual and uplifting experience that is an appropriate celebration of Eliot’s great work as it marks its 100th anniversary.

 

“I should love to write a book on Wren, or at least on the églises assassinées of London” 

T S Eliot (Oct 1921)

 

Following the methodology of Eliot’s writing, f r a g m e n t s has been devised to combine a plurality of different voices, different spiritual cultures, popular culture as well as high art. Just as Eliot brought a diversity of styles, influences and tastes into his writing so the curators have done the same to reflect the defining elements of The Waste Land.

 

Creating an individual ‘shuffle festival’, audiences are invited to design their own route through the events, which will include music, film, poetry and installation. Moving from church to church, all of which are situated within one square mile of each other, they will experience the different performances in fragments reflecting the structure of the poem itself. Audiences will select one of the 5 Celebrations and move between the events programmed in that time slot.

 

A highly spiritual and humanist poem, The Waste Land grew out of a reaction to recent global catastrophes of that period: The Great War and its impact (changes and tensions between the sexes, poverty, a housing crisis, the state of the Empire and Britain’s role internationally), the Spanish Flu pandemic, the rise of the Suffragette movement.  All of this led to a period of major transition and trauma. Set in the City of London where Eliot worked while he was writing it, the poem is multicultural and multilingual, and in it changed poetry forever.

 

DoranBrowne Arts Imagineers has brought together a diverse multi-arts programme featuring a wide range of artists presenting work that either makes direct reference to the poem, or draws upon the themes, settings and past culture that initially inspired Eliot to write the work. At the centre of the festival programme is a specially commissioned sound installation by Pierre-Yves Macé made up of 10 different voices. It all comes together to create an artistic celebration and tribute to the legacy of The Waste Land as it marks its 100th anniversary. The music line-up spanning classical, folk and spiritual music from across the globe includes Gavin Bryars, Sam Lee, Erland Cooper and the Shards Choir, The Secret Ensemble, Amies Freedom Choir, Maya Youssef, Voces8, the Incognito Gospel Choir, the Navarra Quartet and repertoire by Messiaen, Wagner, Stravinsky, Ravel, Pärt and Poulenc among others. Philip Glass’ iconic film Koyaanisqatsi will be screened on a loop alongside live readings of influential poems from the last 100 years selected by previous winners of the T S Eliot Prize performed by Tamsin Greig, Imogen Stubbs and Toby Jones. 

 

A secular sermon by Jeanette Winterson at Southwark Cathedral and a set of songs by Liam Ó’Maonlaí at St Mary Woolnoth forming the double opening event on Thursday 7 April. Eliot described the sermon as ‘a form of literary art’. Winterson’s sermon in Southwark Cathedral is written to inspire us in these difficult times. In the atmospheric surroundings of the small intimate St Mary Woolnoth church, now known as the Amazing Grace church, the Irish singer-songwriter, Liam Ó’Maonlaí (of the Hothouse Flowers) will deliver a soulful set of songs in harmony with the church’s ethos. Macé’s sound installation entitled Spread from Ear to Ear begins on Friday 8 April at 1pm and continues throughout the weekend alongside filmed readings of The Waste Land at All Hallows Crypt. The Festival will then roll out over five three-hour long sessions between Friday evening 8 April and Sunday Afternoon 10 April. Each of the sessions will feature unique performances from a range of performers alongside installations that will happen throughout the weekend. The festival concludes on 11 and 12 April with a tribute to Marie Lloyd, Eliot’s favourite music hall performer, starring Jenna Russell at Wilton’s Music Hall Marie, Marie, Hold on Tight! is a sort-of-musical that marks the centenary of Marie Lloyd’s death and The Waste Land’s birth and which could really only be staged at Wilton’s. It tells the very funny and moving story of the unlikely relationship between the work of two unhappy people and great artists..

 

Performances take place in 22 churches throughout the City of London. All within easy walking distance of each other. Two of the churches - St. Mary Woolnoth and St. Magnus the Martyr - feature in the poem and all have been chosen because of their connection to a theme or line or image from The Waste Land.

 

Full programme information can be found by visiting www.thewasteland2022.com

 

 

 

 

LISTINGS

 

FESTIVAL OPENING NIGHT

 

THURSDAY, 7 APRIL

7PM & 9PM

 

‘April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain’

 

 

Opening Talk – JEANETTE WINTERSON

Looking into the Heart of Light

A Secular Sermon by Jeanette Winterson

Southwark Cathedral, London Bridge, London SE1 9DA

7pm

 

T S Eliot described the sermon as ‘a form of literary art’ and one of the figures who most inspired him was the English bishop, Lancelot Andrewes (1555 - 1626).  Andrewes’ tomb rests in Southwark Cathedral and so it is entirely fitting that to open our celebration of the centenary of The Waste Land the award-winning writer Jeanette Winterson delivers a secular sermon in the Cathedral to inspire us in these difficult times and to open f r a g m e n t s : The Waste Land 2022 – A Celebration.

 

Tickets for this event are available from https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/looking-into-the-heart-of-light-an-evening-with-jeanette-winterson-tickets-271339031347

 

 

 

Opening Concert – LIAM Ó MAONLAÍ

Singer and piano 

St Mary Woolnoth Church, 1 King William St. London EC4N 7BJ

9pm 

 

A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many…….

Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,

To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours

With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.

 

In the atmospheric surroundings of the small intimate St Mary Woolnoth church, now known as the Amazing Grace church, the Irish singer-songwriter, Liam Ó’Maonlaí (of the Hothouse Flowers) will deliver a soulful set of songs in harmony with the church’s ethos. 

 

 

 

f r a g m e n t s : The Waste Land 2022 – Celebration I

 

FRIDAY, 8 APRIL

7PM-10PM

 

 

‘SPREAD FROM EAR TO EAR’ by Pierre-Yves Macé

An electro-acoustic music installation of T S Eliot’s The Waste Land (duration 40mins)

St. Mary-Le-Bow, Cheapside, London EC2V 6AU

 

1pm-7pm Performance starts on the hour each hour, duration 40mins

7pm-10pm Duration Continuous

 

This festival centrepiece is a multi-voice sound installation from French electro-acoustic composer Pierre-Yves Macé. It involves 10 different recorded voices, evoking the many voices and characters, contemporary and mythic, that inhabit the poem, from a primary school child to a nonagenarian, from native French, German and Italian speakers to a Cockney and a Sanskrit speaker. Audiences are invited to enjoy the 40 mins installation in St Mary-Le-Bow church which will be played on a continuous loop during f r a g m e n t s  Celebration 1.

 

*

THE WASTE LAND by T S Eliot 

A Filmed Reading Installation

All Hallows by The Tower Church Crypt, Byward St, London EC3R 5BJ

April 1 – 10 2022

Monday - Saturday 10am-5pm

Sunday April 3^rd 12.30pm-5pm

Palm Sunday April 10^th 3.30pm-5pm

 

In the crypt of All Hallows by The Tower, the church to which bodies were brought after beheading, a new festival film commission will play on a loop. Starting before the official first night on 1 April and running through until 10 April, the film will feature 5 actors who will read The Waste Land, with only heads visible against an empty black background space.  Concept DoranBrowne.  Filmmaker Lisa Cazzato-Vieyra.

 

*

 

BrainWaves

A Video Installation by Susan Hughes

St. Mary Abchurch, Abchurch Yard, London EC4n 7BA

Originally commissioned by 2022 The Linen Hall Library Enlightenment Festival

April 8 10am-4pm

April 9 10am-7pm

April 10 10am-7.30pm

Duration 5 min (on continuous loop)

 

Recent research suggests that the human brain is hardwired to recognise the rhymes and rhythms that poets use.  One can only imagine the effect a poem like The Waste Land has on our brains.  The visual artist, Susan Hughes, in this new video work offers a vibrantly colourful and wide-ranging abstract response to the human brain in action in which natural landscapes in motion offer a homage to the miracle of creative thinking.

 

 

*

POEMS 100: SPECIAL GUEST READER – Tamsin Greig

Poems 100yrs

St Olave’s church, Hart St. London EC3R 7NB

 

7pm, 7.30pm, 8pm Duration 15mins

 

These fragments I have shored against my ruins

 

Five former winners of the T S Eliot Prize (Don Paterson, Roger Robinson, Bhanu Kapil, Hannah Sullivan and Sinéad Morrissey) have selected poems from the last 100 years to be read during the five  f r a g m e n t s  celebrations . This evening in St. Olave’s Church, Hart St. a selection of their choices will be read by the actor Tamsin Greig.

 

*

JOELLE TAYLOR T S Eliot Prize Winner 2022

Reading and In Conversation

St Olave’s Church, Hart St, London EC3R 7NB

 

8.45pm, 9.15pm, 9.45pm Duration 15 mins.

 

I Tiresias……...

Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—

T S Eliot described Tiresias as ‘the most important personage’ in The Waste Land.  The two sexes, he wrote, meet in Tiresias.  Gender fluidity is explored and celebrated in C+nto and Othered Poems, the new collection by the most recent winner of the T S Eliot Prize, Joelle Taylor.  As part of the festival, Joelle will read from the collection and discuss aspects of her life and work, exploring for example her passionate reconjuring of 1980s-90s butch lesbian counterculture in London, the female body and its politicisation, the challenges facing the LGBTQ+ community and the rise in hate crimes against that communit

 

 

*

QUARTET FOR THE END OF TIME by Olivier Messiaen

Priya Mitchell (violin), Mark Simpson (clarinet), Brian O’Kane (cello), Julius Drake (piano)

All Hallows by the Tower, Byward St, London EC3R 5BJ

 

7pm (c.17 mins) – Movt 1 Crystal Liturgy; Movt 2 Angel Announcing End of Time; Movt 3 Abyss of the Birds.

7.30pm (c.12mins) Movt 4 Scherzo & Movt 5 Praise to the Eternity of Jesus

8pm (c.15mins) Movt 6 Dance of Wrath; Movt 7 Tangle of Rainbows

8.30pm (c.6mins) Movt 8 In praise of the immortality of Jesus

8.45pm (c.6mins) Movt 8 In praise of the immortality of Jesus

 

The choice of performance location takes inspiration from the lines: 

 

A woman drew her long black hair out tight 

And fiddled whisper music on those strings 

And bats with baby faces in the violet light 

Whistled, and beat their wings 

And crawled head downward down a blackened wall 

 

burning  burning  burning  burning

O Lord Thou pluckest me out

O Lord Thou pluckest

 

burning

 

Messiaen’s eight part, highly spiritual work, written for inmates in a German prison in 1940, will be performed by four of the UK’s finest classical musicians against the backdrop of the blackened wall at All Hallows by the Tower church which was damaged by German bombing in World War II, also in 1940. 

 

*

ERLAND COOPER and The Shards Choir

St Magnus the Martyr, Lower Thames St, London EC3R 6DN

 

7pm, 7.30pm, 8pm, 8.30pm Duration 15 mins.

 

…….where the walls 

Of Magnus Martyr hold 

Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.

 

Orkney-born contemporary composer & performer Erland Cooper has written a specially commissioned new work for this performance which will feature lines from The Waste Land performed by the Shards Choir. Erland is rearranging for f r a g m e n t s parts of his Orkney albums work for the choir in this evening’s performance. A rich ambient sound will also be created by Erland to resonate around the church to create a spiritual atmosphere of reflection upon the audience’s entrance.  St. Magnus is the patron saint of the Orkney Islands in Scotland.

 

*

SEA SONGS & SHANTIES

Sam Sweeney (fiddle), Emily Portman (guitar) and Jim Causley (accordion)

St Mary-at-Hill, Lovat Ln, London EC3R 8EE

 

8pm, 8.30pm, 9pm, 9.30pm Duration 15 mins

 

            Gentile or Jew 

O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, 

Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

 

St Mary-at-Hill has had a long association with the fish market at Billingsgate and was the parish church for the fishermen and fish sellers. Folk singers and musicians Sam Sweeney, Emily Portman and Jim Causley come together for the first time to celebrate the sea for f r a g m e n t s in the unique acoustic of this beautiful church.  Seafood snacks will be on sale at the church during the performance.

*

INCOGNITO GOSPEL CHOIR

St. Mary Woolnoth, 1 King William St, London EC4N 7BJ

 

8pm, 8.30pm, 9pm, 9.30pm Duration 15 mins

 

To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours 

With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.

 

Stars of Britain’s Got Talent, the eight singers and pianist of the Incognito Gospel Choir will perform much loved gospel standards including Amazing Grace, O Happy Day, Jerusalem and Total Praise. St Mary Woolnoth church is known as the Amazing Grace church as John Newton, who composed the song, was rector there for 28 years.

 

*

DJ SOTUSURA – UNREAL CITY 1: Jerusalem 

St Clement Eastcheap, 27 Clements Lane, London EC4N 7AE

 

8pm-11pm Duration Continuous

 

She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,

And puts a record on the gramophone

 

Who are these hooded hordes swarming

Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth

Ringed by the flat horizon only

What is the city over the mountains 

Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air 

Falling towers 

Jerusalem Athens Alexandria 

Vienna London 

Unreal 

 

Featuring the Palestinian DJ Sotusura on the turntable, Unreal City 1: Jerusalem will feature old Arabic classical music from the last 100 years and old school hip-hop and trap music from more recent years with tracks from Daboor & Shab Jdeed (Palestinian rappers), Sabreen (1980s Jerusalem), Kamilya Joubran, Odeh Tourjam, Jamal Moughrabi and Issa Freij.  This performance evokes the line in the poem, And puts a record on the gramophone, and is the first of five performances that feature music with leitmotifs of one of the five cities featured in The Waste Land. All the performances will take place in St Clement Eastcheap which is the home of the Amos Trust, a creative human rights organisation committed to justice worldwide, building hope and bringing about positive change, especially in Palestine.

 

 

 

*

 

f r a g m e n t s  : The Waste Land 2022 – Celebration II

 

SATURDAY 9 APRIL

10.30AM-1.30PM

 

 

‘SPREAD FROM EAR TO EAR’ by Pierre-Yves Macé

An electro-acoustic music installation of T S Eliot’s The Waste Land (duration 40mins)

St. Mary-Le-Bow, Cheapside, London EC2V 6AU

 

10am-1.30pm Duration Continuous

 

As above

 

*

 

THE WASTE LAND by T S Eliot 

A Filmed Reading Installation

All Hallows by The Tower Church Crypt, Byward St, London EC3R 5BJ

April 1 – 10 2022

Monday - Saturday 10am-5pm

Sunday April 3^rd 12.30pm-5pm

Palm Sunday April 10^th 3.30pm-5pm

 

As above

 

 

*

BrainWaves

A Video Installation by Susan Hughes

St. Mary Abchurch, Abchurch Yard, London EC4n 7BA

Originally commissioned by The Linen Hall Library Enlightenment Festival 2022

April 8 10am-4pm

April 9 10am-7pm

April 10 10am-7.30pm

Duration 5 min (on continuous loop)

 

As above

 

*

 

 

POEMS 100: SPECIAL GUEST READER – Actor TBC

Poems 100yrs 

St Botolph Without Aldersgate, Aldersgate St, London EC1A 4EU 

 

12.15pm, 12.45pm, 1.15pm Duration 15 mins

 

These fragments I have shored against my ruins

 

Five former winners of the T S Eliot Prize (Don Paterson, Roger Robinson, Bhanu Kapil, Hannah Sullivan and Sinéad Morrissey) have selected poems from the last 100 years to be read by an actor during the festival.  A selection from each of the prize winner’s suggestion will be read.

 

*

SPECIAL GUEST IN CONVERSATION - tbc

St Botolph Without Aldersgate, Aldersgate St, London EC1A 4EU 

 

10.30am, 11am, 11.30am Duration 15 mins

 

A series of conversations with writers and artists across the festival exploring themes from The Waste Land that offer a contemporary resonance such as landscape, mechanisation, gender-fluidity, ecology, pollution, women’s rights, the power of myth and mental health and well-being.

 

*

 

RAGA

A Morning of Indian Classical Music                

St. Mary Aldermary, 69 Watling St, London EC4N 4SJ

 

10.30am (duration 75 mins)

12.15pm (duration 75 mins)

 

Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata 

    Shantih  shantih  shantih

 

MUSICIANS TBC

 

Incorporating santoor, tabla, sitar and vocals, the musicians perform ragas that link to themes within The Waste Land, for example Raga Deepak (which is said to ignite fires) responds to Part III of the poem, The Fire Sermon, and Megh Malhar engages with Part IV Death By Water, being a Hindustani classical raga that has power in legend to produce rain wherever it is sung or performed.

 

Thanks to MILAP for their assistance to help develop this event (milap.co.uk)

*

KREETA-MARIA KENTALA (Baroque Violin)

St. Olave’s Church, Hart St., 8 Hart St.  London EC3R 7NA

 

11.30, 12pm, 12.30pm, 1pm Duration 15 mins

 

A woman drew her long hair out tight

And fiddled whisper music on those strings

 

International baroque violinist Kreeta-Maria Kentala seamlessly weaves together folk music in the Kaustinen fiddle playing tradition of central Finland with a selection of Bach’s partitas. 

 

11.30am: Hintrikki Peltoniemi`s Funeral March (trad.) - J.S. Bach (1685-1750): Allemanda

Otto Hotakainen ((1908-1990): Two Polkas: Ravit Käpylässä & Koukkulammin polka

 

12pm: J,S. Bach Gavotte en rondeau -  Little Cantor´s Schottische (trad.)

Erik Tulindberg (1761-1814): Polonaise con variation

 

1pm: J.S. Bach: Loure - Wiljami Niittykoski (1895-1985): Polka Mazurka

H.i.F. Biber (1644-1704): Passacaglia

 

1.30pm: Konsta Jylhä (1910-1984): Walz for Jaana - J.S. Bach: Gigue

Johann Joseph Vilsmayr (1663-1722): Partita

- Preludio - Aria - Gavott - Menuett - Guigue, Final

 

*

IT’S RAGTIME

St. Mary Woolnoth, 1 King Wiliam St., EC4N 7BJ

 

10.30am-1.30pm Duration Continuous

 

O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag – 

It’s so elegant

So intelligent

 

 

T S Eliot and Scott Joplin lived in St Louis at the same time and Eliot may well have been introduced to syncopation when he was growing up in the city.  To celebrate Eliot’s delight in ragtime, f r a g m e n t s. presents some of the classics, in both ragtime and jazz.

 

Pop into St. Mary Woolnoth and create your own fragment of ragtime piano experience.

 

 

*

 

THE NAVARRA STRING QUARTET - 100 years of slow movements (1922-2022)

St Vedast alias Foster Church, 4 Foster Lane, London EC2V 6HH

 

Benjamin Marquise Gilmore  (violin), Jonathan Stone (violin), Sascha Bota (viola), Brian O’Kane (cello)

 

 

10.30am, 11am, 11.30am, 12pm Duration 15 mins

 

And fiddled whisper music on those strings

 

'Performed in the traverse in the exceedingly beautiful St. Vedast Chapel, the Navarra Quartet has selected a number of exquisite slow movements from the string quartet repertoire of the last 100 years as f r a g m e n t s of music they believe should be carried forward for future generations.’

 

10.30am

Arvo Part - Da Pacem Domine ‘5

Caroline Shaw - Entr’acte ‘11

 

11am

Thomas Adès - Oh Albion from Arcadiana ‘3

Jane O’Leary - 2nd movement from The Passing Sound of Forever ‘3

Samuel Barber - Adagio from string quartet Op.11 ‘8

 

11.30am

Dmitri Shostakovich - Adagio from string quartet no.8 ‘5

Gyorgy Kurtag - Arioso ‘2

Maurice Ravel - Tres Lent from string quartet ‘8

 

12pm

Karol Szymanowski - Andantino Semplice from string quartet no. 1 Op.37 5’

Caroline Shaw – Entr’acte 11’

 

 

*

 

KOYAANISQATSI (Film). 

St Michael Cornhill Church, St. Michael’s Alley, London EC3V 9DS

 

10.30AM-1.30PM Duration Continuous

 

Here is no water but only rock 

Rock and no water and the sandy road……

If there were only water amongst the rock 

Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit 

Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit 

There is not even silence in the mountains 

But dry sterile thunder without rain 

 

A 20th century classic of music and film (dir. Godfrey Reggio) from the early 1980s, a cry of despair at climate change and man’s ruination of earth. A large screen will be erected in front of the altar of this high-ceilinged church.  The film will be on a loop for audiences to choose their own time for a visit and from which to create their own fragmentary experience. 

 

*

 

DJ SOTUSURA & GUEST – UNREAL CITY 2: Athens            

St Clement Eastcheap, 27 Clements Lane, London EC4N 7AE

 

11.30-2.30pm

Duration Continuous

 

She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,

And puts a record on the gramophone.

 

Who are these hooded hordes swarming

Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth

Ringed by the flat horizon only

What is the city over the mountains 

Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air 

Falling towers 

Jerusalem Athens Alexandria 

Vienna London 

Unreal 

 

Featuring a guest DJ from Athens, Unreal City 2: Athens will play on the record turntable music from Athens and Greece over the last 100 years. This performance evokes the line in the poem, And puts a record  on the gramophone, and is the second of five performances that feature music with leitmotifs of one of the five cities featured in The Waste Land. All the performances will take place in St Clement Eastcheap which is the home of the Amos Trust, a creative human rights organisation committed to justice worldwide, building hope and bringing about positive change, especially in Palestine.

 

*

 

f r a g m e n t s  : The Waste Land 2022 – Celebration III

 

SATURDAY, 9 APRIL

3.30pm-6.30pm

 

‘SPREAD FROM EAR TO EAR’ by Pierre-Yves Macé

An electro-acoustic music installation of T S Eliot’s The Waste Land (duration 40mins)

St. Mary-Le-Bow, Cheapside, London EC2V 6AU

 

3.30pm-6.30pm Duration Continuous

 

As above

 

*

 

THE WASTE LAND by T S Eliot 

A Filmed Reading Installation

All Hallows by The Tower, Church Crypt, Byward St, London EC3R 5BJ

April 1 – 10 2022

Monday - Saturday 10am-5pm

Sunday April 3^rd 12.30pm-5pm

Palm Sunday April 10^th 3.30pm-5pm

 

As above

 

*

 

BrainWaves

A Video Installation by Susan Hughes

St. Mary Abchurch, Abchurch Yard, London EC4n 7BA

Originally commissioned by The Linen Hall Library Enlightenment Festival 2022

April 8 10am-4pm

April 9 10am-7pm

April 10 10am-7.30pm

Duration 5 min (on continuous loop)

 

As above

 

*

 

POEMS 100: SPECIAL GUEST READER – Toby Jones

St. Magnus the Martyr, Lower Thames St, London EC3R 6DN

 

3.30pm, 4pm, 4.30pm Duration 15 mins

 

These fragments I have shored against my ruins

 

Five former winners of the T S Eliot Prize - Don Paterson, Roger Robinson, Bhanu Kapil, Hannah Sullivan and Sinéad Morrissey - have selected poems from the last 100 years to be read during the festival.  In St Magnus the Martyr church a selection of their choices will be read by the actor Toby Jones.

 

*

 

SPECIAL GUEST: IN CONVERSATION - TBC

St. Mary Woolnoth, 1 King William St., EC4N 7BJ

 

5.15pm, 5.45pm, 6.15pm Duration 15 mins

 

A series of conversations with writers and artists across the festival exploring themes from The Waste Land that offer a contemporary resonance such as landscape, mechanisation, gender-fluidity, ecology, pollution, women’s rights, the power of myth and mental health and well-being.

 

*

 

SAM LEE (singer) with James Keay on keyboard

St James Garlickhythe, Garlick Hill, London EC4V 2AF

 

3.30pm, 4pm, 4.30pm, 5pm Duration 15 mins

 

…………….yet there the nightingale

Filled all the desert with inviolable voice

 

St James Garlickhythe is a church intimately connected with wandering and pilgrimage, and in olden times was called ‘The Lantern’ because its lit up high windows were so visible from the River Thames.  The singer, Sam Lee, a latter-day folk pilgrim, links through his work to some of the themes explored in The Waste Land: the role of the Thames and rivers in English folk music; the life of the nightingale; and the existence of the spirit / folk world in contemporary life. 

 

*

 

PORTUGESE FADO TRIO

St. Michael’s Church (Seaman’s Mission Church): Paternoster Royal, College Hill, London EC4R 2RL

 

4.30pm, 5pm, 5.30pm, 6pm Duration 15 mins

 

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead

Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell

 

An evening of fado performed by Joana Leao (fadishta) with guitar accompaniment in the church that is the central office of the Mission to Seafarers. Fado is Portugal’s national song culture inspired by the nostalgia of sailors yearning for home. 

 

*

 

FLAMENCO QUARTET

St Margaret Pattens, Rood Lane, Eastcheap, London EC3M 1HS

 

Lourdes Fernández (Flamenco Dancer), Monica Garcia (Flamenco Singer), Ramon Ruiz (Flamenco Guitarist), Ayoze de Alejandro Lopez (percussionist). 

 

4pm, 4.30pm, 5pm, 5.30pm Duration 15 mins

 

An evening of Flamenco in the church which traditionally derives its name from pattens, wooded-soled overshoes that enabled people to walk about the streets of London without muddying their feet. 

 

*

 

KOYAANISQATSI (Film). 

St Michael Cornhill Church, St. Michael’s Alley, London EC3V 9DS

 

3.30pm-6.30pm Duration Continuous

 

Here is no water but only rock 

Rock and no water and the sandy road……

If there were only water amongst the rock 

Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit 

Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit 

There is not even silence in the mountains 

But dry sterile thunder without rain 

 

A 20th century classic of music and film (dir. Godfrey Reggio) from the early 1980s, a cry of despair at climate change and man’s ruination of earth. A large screen will be erected in front of the altar of this high-ceilinged church.  The film will be on a loop for audiences to choose their own time for a visit and from which to create their own fragmentary experience. 

 

*

 

CHARLES OWEN & KATYA APEKISHEVA (Piano 4 Hands)

St Vedast alias Foster, 4 Foster Ln, London EC2V 6HH

 

3.30pm – The Rite of Spring Part 1

4pm – The Rite of Spring Part 2

5pm – Petrushka Parts 1 & 2

5.30pm – Petrushka Parts 3 & 4

Durations c.15 mins

 

April is the cruellest month, breeding  

Lilacs out of the dead land….

 

Hearing The Rite of Spring for the first time in London in June 1921 the experience had a profound impact on Eliot while he was composing The Waste Land and accounts for some of the poem’s lines, particularly the famous opening lines.

 

“The music seemed to transform the rhythm of the steppes into the scream of the motor-horn, the rattle of machinery, the grind of wheels, the beating of iron and steel, the roar of the underground railway, and the other barbaric noises of modern life.” T S ELIOT (1921)

 

*

DJ SOTUSURA – UNREAL CITY 3: Alexandria            

St Clement Eastcheap, 27 Clements Lane, London EC4N 7AE

 

4.30pm-7.30pm Duration Continuous

 

She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,

And puts a record on the gramophone.

 

Who are these hooded hordes swarming

Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth

Ringed by the flat horizon only

What is the city over the mountains 

Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air 

Falling towers 

Jerusalem Athens Alexandria 

Vienna London 

Unreal 

 

Featuring the Palestinian DJ Sotusura,, Unreal City 3: Alexandria will feature old classical Arabic music from the last 100 years and more recently old Arabic funk including music of rappers Marwan Pablo, Wejz & Raptor as examples of Alesandria’s new vibrant music scene. This performance evokes the line in the poem, And puts a record  on the gramophone, and is the second of five performances that feature music with leitmotifs of one of the five cities featured in The Waste Land. All the performances will take place in St Clement Eastcheap which is the home of the Amos Trust, a creative human rights organisation committed to justice worldwide, building hope and bringing about positive change, especially in Palestine.

 

 

*

 

f r a g m e n t s  : The Waste Land 2022 – Celebration IV

 

SUNDAY, 10 APRIL

10.30am-1.30pm

 

‘SPREAD FROM EAR TO EAR’ by Pierre-Yves Macé

An electro-acoustic music installation of T S Eliot’s The Waste Land (duration 40mins)

St. Mary-Le-Bow, Cheapside, London EC2V 6AU

 

10.30am-1.30pm Duration Continuous

 

As above

 

*

 

THE WASTE LAND by T S Eliot 

A Filmed Reading Installation

All Hallows by The Tower – Church Crypt, Byward St, London EC3R 5BJ

April 1 – 10 2022

Monday - Saturday 10am-5pm

Sunday April 3^rd 12.30pm-5pm

Palm Sunday April 10^th 3.30pm-5pm

 

As above

 

 

*

BrainWaves

A Video Installation by Susan Hughes

St. Mary Abchurch, Abchurch Yard, London EC4n 7BA

Originally commissioned by The Linen Hall Library Enlightenment Festival 2022

April 8 10am-4pm

April 9 10am-7pm

April 10 10am-7.30pm

Duration 5 min (on continuous loop)

 

As above

 

*

 

POEMS 100: SPECIAL GUEST READER – Actor tbc

St. Mary-Le-Bow Crypt Chapel, London EC2V 6AU 

 

10.30am, 11am, 11.30am Duration 15 mins

 

These fragments I have shored against my ruins

 

Five former winners of the TS Eliot Prize  - Don Paterson, Roger Robinson, Bhanu Kapil, Hannah Sullivan and Sinéad Morrissey - have selected poems from the last 100 years to be read during the festival.  

 

*

 

SPECIAL GUEST IN CONVERSATION - tbc

St. Mary-Le-Bow Crypt Chapel, London EC2V 6AU 

 

12.15pm, 12.45pm, 1.15pm Duration 15 mins

 

A series of conversations with writers and artists across the festival exploring themes from The Waste Land that offer a contemporary resonance such as landscape, mechanisation, gender-fluidity, ecology, pollution, women’s rights, the power of myth and mental health and well-being.

 

*

 

COSKUN KARADEMIR & THE SECRET ENSEMBLE

St. Margaret, Lothbury, London EC2R 7HH

 

10.30am, 11am, 11.30am, 12pm, 12.30pm Duration 15 mins

 

Coşkun Karademir - Kopuz, Baglama, Singer

İbrahim Suat Erbay  - Singer

Muhammed Ceylan  - Ney

Murat Süngü - Cello

Hatice Dogan Sevinc - Kamancha

Ömer Arslan - Percussion

 

The Secret Ensemble presents a Sunday morning of Sufi and mystic music making from Anatolia. The ensemble of 6 musicians play hypnotic sacred music of ancient Turkey and Iran in the St Margaret (of Antioch) Lothbury church. Sitting behind the church’s bespoke wooden screen in front of the altar, the musicians will create a deeply mystical morning of music and song.

 

 

*

 

MAYA YOUSSEF (Qunan Player)

St. Ethelburga, 78 Bishopsgate, London EC2N 4AG

 

10.30am, 11am, 11.30am, 12pm

Duration 15 mins

 

St Ethelburga is a small church that was renovated following an IRA bomb in the early 1990s. It has a beautiful, reflective Islamic style entrance gate and garden. Qunan-player Maya Youssef, who is originally from Syria, will play a solo concert of Arabic music and her own songs. The Qunan, which resembles a zither, is one of the world’s oldest musical instruments.  The church is now an international Centre for Peace and Reconciliation that sits at the intersection of climate and peace.

 

*

 

VOCES8 & Kiku Day (Shakuhaci flute)

St. Anne & St. Agnes Church, Gresham St, London EC2V 7BX

 

11.30am & 12.30pm

Roxanna Panufnik – Zen Love Song 6’ 

Ola Gjeilo – Ubi Caritas 4’ 

Arvo Pärt – The Deer’s Cry 4’30   

 

12pm & 1pm

William Byrd: Civitas Sancti Tui 5’45 

Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson – Hevr himna smidur 3’30   

Roxanna Panufnik – Zen Love Song 6’   

 

What is that sound high in the air 

Murmur of maternal lamentation

 

The international vocal ensemble Voces8 is resident at St Anne and St Agnes church. They will sing miserere lamentations by Elizabethan composer William Byrd in one of two fragment slots and songs from the last 100 years from composers such as Roxanna Panufnik (accompanied by a Japanese Shakuhachi player) in the other. 

 

*

THE GAVIN BRYARS ENSEMBLE

Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet – two performances

St. Katharine Cree, 86 Leadenhall St, London EC3A 3BP

 

11am and 12.30pm Duration 50 mins

 

Who is the third who walks always beside you? 

When I count, there are only you and I together 

But when I look ahead up the white road

There is always another one walking beside you 

Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded 

I do not know whether a man or a woman 

- But who is that on the other side of you?

 

The Gavin Bryars Ensemble will play a 50 minute version of Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet, which features a recording of an ‘old tramp’ singing. The work will be performed twice, with the audience in its ‘come and go’ visit creating its own fragment from this continuous piece in St Katherine Cree church.  Both Handel and Purcell played on the church’s organ.  

 

*

DJ HOLGER of Restless Leg Syndrome: UNREAL CITY 4: Vienna

St Clement Eastcheap, 27 Clements Lane, London EC4N 7AE

 

11.30am-2.30pm Duration Continuous

 

And puts a record on the gramophone.

 

Who are these hooded hordes swarming

Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth

Ringed by the flat horizon only

What is the city over the mountains 

Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air 

Falling towers 

Jerusalem Athens Alexandria 

Vienna London 

Unreal 

 

Unreal City 4: Vienna will feature samplings of Austrian traditional folk instruments and tracks from older eras including back to classical music for which Austria is internationally renowned.  This performance evokes the line in the poem, And puts a record  on the gramophone, and is the second of five performances that feature music with leitmotifs of one of the five cities featured in The Waste Land. All the performances will take place in St Clement Eastcheap which is the home of the Amos Trust, a creative human rights organisation committed to justice worldwide, building hope and bringing about positive change, especially in Palestine.

 

 

*

 

f r a g m e n t s  : The Waste Land 2022 – Celebration V

 

SUNDAY, 10 APRIL

4.30pm-7.30pm

 

SPREAD FROM EAR TO EAR by Pierre-Yves Macé

An electro-acoustic music installation of T S Eliot’s The Waste Land (duration 40mins)    

St. Mary-Le-Bow, Cheapside, London EC2V 6AU

 

4.30pm-7.30pm Duration Continuous

 

As above

 

*

 

THE WASTE LAND by T S Eliot 

A Filmed Reading Installation

All Hallows by The Tower – Church Crypt, Byward St, London EC3R 5BJ

April 1 – 10 2022

Monday - Saturday 10am-5pm

Sunday April 3^rd 12.30pm-5pm

Palm Sunday April 10^th 3.30pm-5pm

 

As above

 

*

 

BrainWaves

A Video Installation by Susan Hughes

St. Mary Abchurch, Abchurch Yard, London EC4n 7BA

Originally commissioned by The Linen Hall Library Enlightenment Festival 2022

April 8 10am-4pm

April 9 10am-7pm

April 10 10am-7.30pm

Duration 5 min (on continuous loop)

 

As above

 

 

*

POEMS 100 - SPECIAL GUEST READER - Imogen Stubbs

Poems 100 

St. Martin Ludgate, 40 Ludgate Hill, London EC4M 7DE

 

Five former winners of the T S Eliot Prize - Don Paterson, Roger Robinson, Bhanu Kapil, Hannah Sullivan and Sinéad Morrissey - have selected poems from the last 100 years to be read during the festival.  A selection of their choices will be read by the actor Imogen Stubbs.

 

*

 

SPECIAL GUEST IN CONVERSATION - tbc

St. Martin Ludgate, 40 Ludgate Hill, London EC4M 7DE

 

A series of conversations with writers and artists across the festival exploring themes from The Waste Land that offer a contemporary resonance such as landscape, mechanisation, gender-fluidity, ecology, pollution, women’s rights, the power of myth and mental health and well-being.

 

*

 

CLAIRE BOOTH (soprano) and CHRISTOPHER GLYNN (Piano)

The Human Voice (La Voix Humaine) by Francis Poulenc (original text by Jean Cocteau)

St. Stephen Walbrook, 39 Walbrook, London EC4N 8BN

 

5pm, 5.30pm, 6pm Duration c.13-15mins

 

‘My nerves are bad tonight.  Yes, bad.  Stay with me 

Speak to me.  Why do you never speak?  Speak. 

     What are you thinking of?  What thinking? What? 

I never know what you are thinking. Think.’ 

 

With text by Jean Cocteau, Poulenc’s 40 minute monodrama opera written in 1958 and in which the solo soprano sings down a telephone, deals with suicidal despair.  St Stephen Walbrook is the church where the Samaritans were founded and has the original red telephone on display.  The church also features a marble altar by Henry Moore, kneelers by Patrick Heron and a dome by Christopher Wren. The performance will be sung by Claire Booth.

 

*

 

The Amies Freedom Choir

St Mary Woolnoth Church, 1 King William St, London EC4N 7BJ

 

5pm, 5.30pm, 6pm, 6.30pm Duration 15 mins

 

The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king 

So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale 

Filled all the desert with inviolable voice 

And still she cried, and still the world pursues… 

 

The AMIES Freedom Choir consists of young women from around the world who have each survived sex trafficking and who sing together to find expression, joy and confidence.  St Mary Woolnoth church is known as the Amazing Grace church because John Newton, who composed the song, was rector there for 28 years.

 

*

 

RUBY PHILOGENE MBE (mezzo soprano) & Riho Akaji (Piano)

St. Margaret Lothbury Church, Lombard, London EC2R 7HH

 

Im Treibhaus and Träume: Two songs from The Wesendonck Lieder by Richard Wagner

Negro Spirituals

 

5pm, & 6pm

Wesendonck Lieder by Richard Wagner

Duration 15 mins

 

5.30pm & 6.30pm

Negro Spirituals

Duration 15 mins

 

Frisch weht der Wind 

Der Heimat zu 

Mein Irisch Kind, 

Wo Weilest du?….. 

Oed’ und leer das Meer.

(Eliot’s quote in the poem from the opening lines of Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde)

 

The first of two fragments performed will be Im Treibhaus and Traume from Richard Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder, both studies from Tristan and Isolde. The second will be a selection of Negro spirituals. Both fragments will be sung by the mezzo-soprano Ruby Philogene.

 

*

 

THE ACADEMY OF ST. MARY-LE-BOW ORCHESTRA

St Katharine Cree Church, 86 Leadenhall St, London EC3A 3BP

 

4.30pm, 5pm, 5.30pm, 6pm Duration 15 mins

 

The Academy of St Mary Le Bow Orchestra is a non-professional orchestra consisting of conservatoire graduates based in the City of London.

 

4.30pm & 5.30pm

Arvo Pärt - Mien Weg (strings, bass drum and bell, 6 mins)

Elizabeth Maconchy - Music for Strings, Movement 1 only (strings, 7 mins)

 

5pm & 6pm

Arvo Pärt - Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten (strings and bell, 4 mins)

Britten - Sinfonietta (Chamber Orchestra, 13 mins)

 

 

*

 

SOLO PIANIST - tbc

St Vedast Alias Foster Church, Foster Ln, London EC2V 6HH

 

4.30pm, 5pm, 5.30pm

Duration 15 mins

 

A recital of solo classical piano with repertoire from 1922-2022 featuring Orkney composer Peter Maxwell Davies’ Farewell to Stromness, John Cage’s Dream and finishing with John Cage’s piece of silence 4’33” (1952) performed as a final celebratory evocation of the end of the poem’s 433 lines. 

 

*

CLOSING EVENT

REKESH CHAUHAN (Piano) to be accompanied by Tabla player

St. Vedast Alias Foster Church, Foster Ln, London EC2V 6HH

 

6.15pm & 6.45pm – Duration 15mins

7.15pm – Duration 30 mins

Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

                  Shantih     shantih     shantih

 

Eliot’s closing words in The Waste Land are the traditional ending to an Upanishad and in his notes to the poem he offers as an equivalence in English, ’The Peace which passeth understanding.’  To conclude our celebration we welcome the multi-award winning pianist and composer Rekesh Chauhan to perform, on the piano, ragas that share with The Waste Land themes such as rain, romance and fire.

 

Rekesh Chauhan is a multi-award winning British pianist and composer. He has performed at the Royal Albert Hall, Symphony Hall and British Houses of Parliament to name just a few venues amongst his international tours. Rekesh’s collaborations range from Nobel Peace Prize performers to Mercury Prize Award winners. He is an iTunes World Charts Top 3 artist, a TEDx speaker and a collaborator with the University of Oxford on music research productions. Rekesh was awarded 'Young Musician of the Year' at the National Indian Arts Awards in 2018 and in 2020, Rekesh was commended by the UK Prime Minister for raising awareness of mental health through arts.

 

 

Many thanks to MILAP (www.milap.co.uk) for their assistance to help develop this event

 

 

*

 

DJ SOTUSURA – UNREAL CITY 5: London

St Clement Eastcheap, 27 Clements Lane, London EC4N 7AE

 

5.30pm-8.30pm Duration Continuous

 

She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,

And puts a record on the gramophone.

 

Who are these hooded hordes swarming

Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth

Ringed by the flat horizon only

What is the city over the mountains 

Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air 

Falling towers 

Jerusalem Athens Alexandria 

Vienna London 

Unreal 

 

Featuring the Palestinian DJ Sotusura, Unreal City 5: London will go back through the decades of the last 100 years from today's music featuring staples such as Amy Winehouse to Blur, Gorillaz/Damian Albarn projects to the 90's vibrant Jungle and drum and bass scene and further in time through the late 80's alternative rock scene and 70's music to 1922.  This performance evokes the line in the poem, And puts a record  on the gramophone, and is the second of five performances that feature music with leitmotifs of one of the five cities featured in The Waste Land. All the performances will take place in St Clement Eastcheap which is the home of the Amos Trust, a creative human rights organisation committed to justice worldwide, building hope and bringing about positive change, especially in Palestine.

 

*

 

FESTIVAL CODA EVENT

 

MONDAY 11 APRIL and TUESDAY 12 APRIL

 

 

Dead Poets Live – Tribute to Marie Lloyd

Wilton’s Music Hall, 1 Graces Aly, London E1 8JB

 

7.30pm

Tickets from https://www.wiltons.org.uk/whatson/711-dead-poets-live- 

 

‘He said, Marie, 

Marie, hold on tight.  And down we went.

In the mountains, there you feel free.

I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter

 

Using many of Marie Lloyd’s greatest songs, The Waste Land and other more surprising Eliot poems, ‘Marie, Marie, Hold on Tight!’ is a sort-of-musical that marks the centenary of Marie Lloyd’s death and The Waste Land’s birth and which could really only be staged at Wilton’s. It tells the very funny and moving story of the unlikely relationship between the work of two unhappy people and great artists.  

Starring Jenna Russell, Luke Thallon & Tom Hanson

Written by James Lever & Susie Boyt

Musical director Nigel Lilley

 

 

[Jan McNulty]

PRESS RELEASE

 

TICKETS NOW ON SALE FOR 

f r a g m e n t s - The Waste Land 2022

www.thewasteland2022.com

Images available here

 

 

 

A bespoke one-off experiential festival takes place in the heart of London next month to attract new audiences in a post-Covid environment with an indoor & outdoor mix of short events followed by equal intervals of fresh air.

 

Box office opens today with 30 actors, writers and musicians leading a reimagining of T S Eliot’s five part epic poem The Waste Land in the world’s largest celebration of the poem in the geography of its setting.  

 

Star artists led by Tamsin Greig, Toby Jones, Jeanette Winterson, Gavin Bryars, Jenna Russell, Liam Ó’Maonlaí (Hothouse Flowers), Sam Lee, Erland Cooper and the 2022 T S Eliot Prize winner Joelle Taylor head up a cross disciplinary line-up of classical, folk & world music, fado & flamenco, talks & readings and free sound, video and film installations performed in 22 City of London mediaeval churches.  

 

Commissioned by the T S Eliot Estate, the arts imagineers DoranBrowne (former curators of the 50th anniversary Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper in Liverpool in 2017 and the highly acclaimed annual Happy Days Samuel Beckett Festival in Ireland) have devised a new festival model in search for new audiences of the post Covid era -  short espresso hit 15 minute f r a g m e n t performances across a square mile of 22 churches (15 by Sir Christopher Wren).

 

Audiences will balance a rotation of 15-minute performances followed by 15 or less minutes walking through the streets of old London encountering hidden and extraordinary beautiful church interiors.  Cultural offerings in the church acoustics range from Indian Raga to Ragtime, the Syrian Qunan to Kaustinen folk, Sufi to spirituals music and western classical and baroque music to contemporary minimalism & hip-hop. 

 

Audiences can book one of five walking route options in any of  the 5 x 3 hour f r a g m e n t slots getting the opportunity to watch and listen up to 7 short 15 minute event bursts.  The more adventurous ticket buyer can deviate from the routes and create their own order of events in an unique ‘shuffle festival’ style.

 

The festival opens on April 7th with the writer Jeanette Winterson giving a secular sermon in Southwark Cathedral at 7pm followed by the Hothouse Flowers supremo Liam Ó’Maonlaí with the Opening Concert in St. Mary Woolnoth church, known as the Amazing Grace church.  The festival centrepiece, a world premiere 40 minute electro-acoustic music composition by French composer Pierre-Yves Macé opens in the Bow Bells church, St. Mary-Le-Bow, on April 8th.  This is followed by 5 x 3 hour  f r a g m e n t s  sessions:  April 8th 7-10pm; April 9th 10.30-1.30pm & 3.30pm-6.30pm and April 10th 10.30am-1.30pm & 4.30pm-7.30pm. The final event will be at Wilton's Music Hall. Exploring the deep and surprising relationship between Marie Lloyd, T. S. Eliot’s poetry Marie, Marie, Hold on Tight! is a sort-of-musical that marks the centenary of Marie Lloyd’s death and The Waste Land’s birth. It tells the very funny and moving story of the unlikely relationship between the work of two unhappy people and great artists. Starring Jenna Russell, Luke Thallon & Tom Hanson. Tickets available at  www.wiltons.org.uk

 

A single 3 hour slot event ticket costs £20 (£15 concession) with Day tickets £35 on Saturday and Sunday April 9 & 10. Full programme information and tickets are available from  www.thewasteland2022.com