31 minutes | Tuesday, 19 November 2024
To mark the esteemed Southampton venue Turner Sims’ 50th anniversary the world renowned composer Tunde Jegede presented ‘Voyage of the Heart’ a piece commissioned by Turner Simms that tells the story of migration to and from Southampton.
The show was a diverse collection of powerhouse Southampton musicians and was part of the Mayflower 400 programme.
The day before the performance, Tunde visited the Voice FM studios and was interviewed by Xan Phillips during News at Drive.
During the engaging conversation you’ll hear about he crafted the songs around the stories of Southampton’s migrant communities, collected through the City Archive and a new National Lottery Heritage Fund-supported oral history project.
He woves this testimony into a variety of styles of music into something Tunde Jegede, composer of ‘Voyages of the Heart’ describes the piece as:
“…about heritage, journeys, migration and the transitory sense of home and identities… [asking] pivotal questions of our perception of culture, memory, race and how we see the world.”
Supported by funding from Arts Council England, Southampton City Council and the University of Southampton, the piece involves 25 migrant community musicians from a range of backgrounds and disciplines including: Gospel singers; an operatic choir, a Gaelic singer, and an Indian classical music vocalist.
Instruments include: a string quartet, Irish folk violin and flute, guitar, Sitar, Oud, Tabla, drums and bass.
The piece beautifully blends these varied styles together to create a multi-layered musical journey which is reflective of Southampton’s multicultural population.