News
Musituality – Birmingham Cathedral Sat May 30
The dust has barely settled on Project X at the weekend and Im straight into the promotion of a new event coming up at St Phillips Cathedral Birmingham on Sat May 30th.
I’ve been meeting regularly for some months now with my friends Mick Perrier and Amran Ellahi and this is the fruit of our efforts. Mick and I have a long history – he recruited me to join St Marys Church Choir over thirty years ago and he is still the Organist and Choirmaster there. I’ve now put on a number of concerts at the Chuch (not least one of the venues in the recent Project X event) with his help and cooperation.
Amran is the driving force behind Aashiq Al Rasul – a successful and brilliant Muslim faith group playing either acoustic (rousing vocals and exciting percussion) or sometimes as a full band. I met Amran via a curry with Andrew Dubber of New Music Strategies fame in one of the many synchronous moments that have characterised the Project X experience (we were looking for a Qawwali band to collaborate with myself and a Einstellung (a heavy instrumental guitar band).
I also invited Aashiq to perform at one of my annual Music by Candlelight concerts at St Marys where they were a great hit and the sight of Christian, Muslim and other people all clapping happily along together was inspiring and joyous.
Soon after Amran contacted me and suggested we had a model that was worth progressing. At some point in the meetings we created the name “Musituality” – a compound of the words “music and spirituality” and we decided that Birmingham Cathedral would provide an iconic and beaitful setting.
At one point we also got Padmakumara of the Birmingham Buddhist Centre onboard who suggested we apply for a small grant from the Roger Hooker Memorial Trust and we have also received support from the Prevention of Violent Extremism fund.
and now, some months later, here we are – excited to announce:
Musituality – Music in the Spirit of Harmony – Sat May 30, 7.30pm, Birmingham Cathedral.
Click here for tickets (£8 or £7 concessions or groups).
It should be a beautiful evening – hope you can make it.
Xx
