JAM concert: Breaking Through The Silence

09 July 2009 at 7:30 pm

A unique fundraising performance of music and words presented by JAM (John Armitage Memorial) and English PEN in honour of persecuted writers worldwide.

The Chapel Choir of Selwyn College, Cambridge
Onyx Brass
Nicholas Cleobury - Conductor

This very special event featured JAM commissions – Thoughts Scribbled on a Blank Wall by Adam Gorb (lyrics by John McCarthy), No Answer by Timothy Jackson (lyrics by Chris Abani) and Michael Tippett's haunting Five Spirituals from Child of Our Time interspersed with readings from the work of persecuted Burmese writers - including English PEN Honorary Members Aung San Suu Kyi and Zargana.

Special guest readers included: Alexander Armstrong, Jo Brand, Clarissa Dickson Wright, Ruth Padel and Reece Shearsmith.

Over the past nine years JAM has annually commissioned new works for choir, brass and organ (or any combination of these) ensuring that the new music is performed through direct promotion of concerts throughout the UK. To date, JAM has enabled the performance of more than 40 new works since its foundation in 2000.
www.jamconcert.org

English PEN is the founding centre of PEN, the international association of writers. The Writers in Prison Committee campaigns on behalf of writers and journalists who are unjustly persecuted, harassed, imprisoned and, in the most extreme cases, assassinated, in violation of their right to freedom of expression.
www.englishpen.org/events