Wooldale Meeting celebrates George Fox in music
‘In Quaker worship, you have the “priesthood of all believers”, and I’ve always wanted to open this process up to a wider group of people.’ Alan Williams, Composer
Wooldale Meeting is embarking on ‘a collaborative composition’ to mark the 400th anniversary of George Fox’s birth.
The Meeting in West Yorkshire is working with composer Alan Edward Williams, a professor at the University of Salford.
Sue Mosley, co-clerk of Wooldale Meeting, said: ‘We’ve been planning this for about nine months, and are hoping that what we end up creating will share something about what we get out of coming here. There’s a paradox in choosing music to celebrate the richness of silence, but… we’re going to see what happens.’
The piece celebrates the historic Meeting house and Quaker identity. ‘The idea is unusual musically because it opens up the process of composition, normally quite a solitary one, to a larger group,’ said Sue Mosley.
The group’s creative input will influence the final outcome. Alan Williams, who has been going to Wooldale Meeting since the end of the pandemic, feels that this form of collective creation is appropriate to the Quaker ways of doing things. ‘Normally in classical, and many other types of music, the composer sits at the top of the tree and makes the majority of the decisions,’ he said. ‘In Quaker worship, you have the “priesthood of all believers”, and I’ve always wanted to open this process up to a wider group of people.’
People connected to the Meeting will be interviewed, and their stories included in the final piece. ‘I call this method “the Listening Composer” – and I’m learning a lot about how to listen by interacting with Quakers,’ said Alan Williams.
The project is a collaboration with the University of Salford and will also involve students from the Quaker-affiliated Ackworth School. The performance will take place on 28 September at Wooldale Meeting House, with an online video.
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