Sudbury schoolchildren enjoy a peace concert. Photo: Courtesy of Sudbury Friends.
Sudbury Friends invite children to peace concert
Two recent concerts honoured the Quaker Peace Testimony
Sudbury Friends invited local schoolchildren to two recent concerts honouring the Quaker Peace Testimony.
The events in October followed an earlier ‘War and Peace’ concert in July to celebrate the 400th anniversary of George Fox’s birth. The concert was a collaboration with the Gainsborough Ensemble, a local group of professional musicians.
Helen Morgan, from Sudbury Meeting, told the Friend: ‘When I arrived, there were about fifty primary school-age children sitting tidily cross-legged, on the floor… On a chair there was a very large drawing of a bull. I sat down and waited. As before, the programme opened with a cello solo introduced by Natasha Holmes – Pablo Casals’ Song of the Birds. The children had the impression that the birds were singing “we don’t want war, we want peace”. Sonata La Guerra by JP von Westhoff, a seventeenth-century composer and violinist whose work was influenced by the disruption of the thirty years’ war, was then introduced by Pavlo Beznosiuk, who explained its themes.’
The last item was Ferdinand the Bull, about a young bull who did not want to fight, but to sit peacefully under a tree and smell the flowers instead. This story, written by Munro Leaf, ‘went down very well with the children’, added Helen. ‘Over two mornings of that week, about 200 children were treated to this performance which no doubt planted 200 seeds of interest in music… and there was much food for thought on war and peace. It would be fascinating to ask these children in fifteen years or so what effect that morning had on their lives.’
The Gainsborough Ensemble is planning next year’s performances. Other Quaker Meetings can contact them for concerts at gainsboroughensemble@gmail.com.
