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Royal Northern Sinfonia announce Share the Stage: A Child of Our Time.

Posted on 14 February 2024

Share the Stage: A Child of Our Time

Want to perform on the world-famous main stage at The Glasshouse International Centre for Music alongside some of the North East’s most dazzling musicians?

Royal Northern Sinfonia announce Share the Stage: A Child of Our Time.

This is an extraordinary opportunity for people from across the North East to join one of the biggest performing groups the region will have ever seen.

Share the Stage is based around Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time, a deeply moving work for orchestra and chorus that encourages different communities to understand one another more deeply. The project aims to create community through the joy of performing music together. Share the Stage will climax with a performance of A Child of Our Time at The Glasshouse on Sunday 24 November.

Royal Northern Sinfonia are looking for people who love to sing to take part. It doesn’t matter whether this would be your first public performance or you 100th; it doesn’t matter whether you can read music or prefer picking things up by ear. This is an opportunity for music lovers who want to be part of an event to remember.

Everyone singing will be supported by the friendly, fantastic Chorus of Royal Northern Sinfonia and their leader Tim Burke. Royal Northern Sinfonia are also looking for people to play their instruments alongside them, side-by-side.

The project was imagined by Royal Northern Sinfonia’s Principal Conductor, Dinis Sousa, a dynamic young conductor who has recently made debuts at Salzburg Festival; Musikfest Berlin; Carnegie Hall, New York; and Harris Theater, Chicago. And it follows The People’s Requiem, which brought together hundreds of performers after the global pandemic to mark loss and suffering with a powerful performance of Verdi’s Requiem.

This project celebrates the power and collective humanity in bringing together large groups of people to perform great works of classical music.

Dinis Sousa said,

“This project is a celebration of music as a central part of our community.

As with our Verdi Requiem in 2021, we want people to have the time and space to really get inside the music, with support from our wonderful orchestra and chorus, as we prepare for a monumental performance at The Glasshouse. Making music together, in such a welcoming but stretching environment can be a life-affirming experience, and I know that we will all treasure these weeks we spend together bringing “A Child of Our Time” to life.”

Tim Burke, Chorus Master of the Chorus of Royal Northern Sinfonia said:

“If you’ve ever wondered about standing on the stage of Sage One this is your chance. We’re not auditioning singers and we’ll have rehearsals for those who read music and others for those who don’t, so everybody really can take part and share in this fantastic experience. It is such a vital piece of music, a modern classic.”

Weekly rehearsals will begin in September.

To register your interest and find more details visit https://theglasshouseicm.org/share-the-stage/

Next week The Glasshouse will start a two-week focus on the joy of singing and ways everyone can get involved at the music centre.

Visual assets:
To view a selection of relevant photographs from passed large scale singing events at The Glasshouse use the link below.
Share the Stage: A Child of Our Time gallery | The Glasshouse (theglasshouseicm.org)

If you’d like any of these photographs supplied as high res images, please contact Susie Gray at Premier Communications.

/ENDS
Media contact
Susie Gray
susie.gray@premiercomms.com
07834 073795

About The Glasshouse International Centre for Music
The Glasshouse International Centre for Music is a home for live music lovers.

It’s a place where you can hear rock legends or pop icons on the same night as folk trios or string quartets. Where new musicians are nurtured and showcased on the same stages as platinum-selling performers. And where youth choirs and tambourine-shaking toddlers practise in the same spaces as its acclaimed orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia.

Because as an international centre for music they’re focused on creating and celebrating outstanding music – whether that’s unearthing or growing talent from the region or bringing the world’s best artists to their stages. And as a charity they’re focused on making sure all of that is available to anyone – no matter where you’re from, how old you are, how much money you have, or what challenges you face.

Which is why every year more than 2 million people are able to join for top-notch gigs, concerts, and classes – in their venue at Gateshead Quays, out in communities across the North East, and through livestreamed performances and digital lessons.

Whether you’re making it up or taking it in, you’ll find music lives and grows there.

More about The Glasshouse International Centre for Music

From global stars to artists starting out, The Glasshouse has hosted 10,022 performances, totalling 4.7m tickets. To have seen every performance would have meant seeing one show every day for 27 years.

It’s hosted over 220,000 music lessons for North East folk. The region’s young people have learnt to play, sing or produce with us, on over 1.7m occasions.

Royal Northern Sinfonia perform at The Glasshouse, tour the region, and have played to international audiences on four continents, with livestreams reaching people across five.

Like stepping stones, artists like Ward Thomas have worked their way from their free stages to selling out its big hall and getting global recognition.

The Glasshouse regularly opens its doors to a wide range of conferences and events. Since 2004, they’ve welcome over 400,000 delegates from the likes of Greggs, NHS and British Engines, and many, many more.

The charity is one of Gateshead’s biggest employers, and so far it’s generated £500m of economic value to the region.

The charity has been the proud guardians of The Glasshouse for almost 20 years, safeguarding it when live music was put on hold during the pandemic.

The centre, standing 40 m tall, has 630 panes of glass on its exterior.