Category Archives: News

Cracked Voices, Uncracked

In 2020 it’s been a delight to hear two songs from Cracked Voices being given a fresh airing (links below).

In Scottsdale Arizona (USA), Michael Tallino and Riley McKinch chose ‘Earthrise’ as part of their Songs of Peace for a Wild World concert (part of the Arts at Nativity emerging artist series) back in June.

In July, Donna Lennard (one of the performers who premiered Cracked Voices) and Benjamin Graves also selected ‘The blessing of the road-born child’ to be part of their first Songs and Sounds online concert, focusing on motherhood.

We hope you enjoy their performances as much as I have. 

Cracked Voices CD to be released on Thursday 31st January

We’re pleased to announce that the Cracked Voices CD will be released at the end of January.

To get your hands on either digital or physical copies of the CD, head to Bandcamp. Further details about digital distribution to follow.

Many thanks all those who made the CD recording happen-  to the four Cracked Voices performers – Miles Horner, Donna Lennard, Sue Pettitt and Ralph Woodward, to sound engineer James Waterhouse and Alpheton New Maltings recording studio. Thank you to the PRS Foundation’s Open Funding for Creators and the Arts Council’s Grants for the Arts scheme for funding the recording.

Cracked Voices at Royston Methodist Church

Thank you to everyone who came to Cracked Objects and Cracked Voices at Royston Methodist Church on Thursday 27th September! It was a fabulous evening.

All images © Sue Hartga 2018.

What’s next? The Cracked Voices scores will be appearing in the next couple of weeks – watch this space! At the end of October the Cracked Voices quartet will be heading into the studio to make a recording of the song cycle – to pre-order a CD please click on the link in the navigation bar.

BBC Singers do Cracked Voices

Things may have gone quiet for a while but Jenni has been busy arranging some of the Cracked Voices pieces for choir.

The British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors (BASCA) has selected one of these songs to be put through its paces by the BBC Singers at the corporation’s Maida Vale studios next week. ‘The blessing of the road-born child’ was inspired by a local postcard from 1905 showing migrants being moved on by the police through Royston.

Composer Jenni Pinnock said, ‘Having the song workshopped by one of the world’s greatest choirs will be brilliant. It’s a challenging piece with lots of twists and turns, so it’ll be interesting to see how the BBC Singers navigate them.’

 

Rescheduled concert date announced!

We’re delighted to announce that the rescheduled performance of Cracked Voices (including the premiere of Cracked Objects) will be on  Thursday 27th September 2018 at 7.30pm at Royston Methodist Church, Royston. The performance will now take place as part of Royston Arts Festival, and all money raised will still go to the MindEd Trust.

If you had tickets for the previous performance you should have been contacted separately.

Premiere at ARU Cambridge

Thank you to everyone who came to our premiere at Cambridge’s Anglia Ruskin University. It was a joy to be able to share Cracked Voices with you. For us it was a moving experience hearing Miles Horner, Donna Lennard, Sue Pettitt and Ralph Woodward taking the songs and making them their own (all photos are from our pre-performance rehearsal).

Feedback was overwhelming: “Quirky” “Novel” “Eclectic” “Soulful” “Poignant” “Unexpected” “Thought-provoking” “Inspirational” “Moving” “Insightful”.

 

We can’t wait to do it all again on April 28 in Royston!

Cracked Voices pop-up talk at the Sedgwick Museum (Cambridge), Saturday 3rd March 2018

Poo and pickaxes 
Saturday 3rd March 2018, 1pm, 2pm and 3pm
Free, drop in

Hear how a hippo lumbered into the Sedgwick’s collection and gave birth to a song (and how Harradine Sell was killed by fossilised poo)!

Come along to Graham Palmer’s free pop-up Cracked Voices talks at The Sedgwick Museum, Saturday at 1pm, 2pm and 3pm