METAL Presents Anthem at Southend

Friday 6th July 2012 @ 11.30am

The air of Southend will be filled with the sound of 2000 choristers, aged from seven to 80 years, singing a specially-commissioned piece of music by internationally acclaimed composer, Tolga Kashif, as the Olympic Torch reaches the sea.

Anthem 2012 is Metal project that is bringing together a choir of 2000 school pupils and adults from across Southend to sing a specially commissioned new piece of choral music in celebration of the Olympic Torch visit to Southend on Friday 6th July 2012.

Metal in partnership with Southend-on-Sea Borough Council (SoSBC), Southend Education Trust (SET) and Arts Council England (ACE) are working with 34 schools and 7 Community choirs to welcome the Olympic Torch to Southend.

We have commissioned the music from the renowned, Essex based composer, Tolga Kashif.

The piece of music, titled Anthem: Let Your Light Shine is a rousing, epic work that draws on many different music genres, rhythms and styles to represent a global message.  The work has been developed in response to the open-air performance site, the sea and the large number of singers taking part.

It has been written to allow for participation from a wide range of ages and abilities from the age of 7 upwards – and has a memorable refrain that will hopefully get many more singing in the audience

Music and singing has long been one of Southend's cultural strengths.  The town boasts some outstanding musical talent in a number of genres including Benjamin Grosvenor (the youngest pianist to play at the proms) Southend Girls and Boys Choirs, Lee Mead and The Horrors among many others.  As the torch makes its lunch time stop, Southend will celebrate by joining together in collective voice to celebrate the town, its people, its cultural achievements and send a message of good luck to the Olympic athletes.

Music accompaniment for the work is provided by Black Dyke Mills Band among many other musicians.

This ambitious idea, conceived and developed by Metal, forms part of a wider programme of activity programmed by SoSBC to celebrate the torch visit.  It follows Metal's previous, successful mass-participatory cultural projects in the town, including:  breaking the Guinness World record for the Longest Line of Bunting in 2009 (9000 flags were made by the people of Southend) and a visual arts project, Thames to Tama in 2011 that saw 4665 school pupils create one large installation in celebration of the 15th Century explorer and adventurer, William Adams.