We are thrilled to have had so many opportunities to bring Eliza Flower’s music back to her home town of Harlow in Essex for the first time in 200 years. We’ve met some fantastic people who have contributed so much to our project and made it their own. Scroll down for more about:
- St John’s Arts & Recreation Centre performance
- De Merc Chamber Choir performances
- a new addition to Harlow Museum
- Livewire singers project (look out for more on this in July)
- Harlow College workshop
- St Marks West Essex Catholic School workshop
- Leah Manning Community Centre performance
No. 2 High Street, Old Harlow, where Eliza Flower grew up
If you missed our historic performance at St John’s ARC on February 25th (or would like to relive the event) here is the video of the performance.
You can download the Song Texts on this link
Superb quality of solo singing
An extraordinary & wonderful performance, absolutely LOVED IT!
HARLOW FLOWER TEAM
Frances M Lynch – Soprano, Composer, Workshop Leader
Laurence Panter – Pianist, Tenor
Oskar Jensen – Historian, Singer
Lauren Lister – BSL Interpreter
Bryony Witt-Davies – Poetry Reader & Workshop Assistant
Herbie Clarke – Sound Production & Marketing Manager
Miranda Melville – Design Production & Stage Manager
Elizabeth Dawson – Costume Design
Elspeth Manders – Artist
Amanda Johnson – Composer & Workshop Leader
(left to right) Laurence Panter, Oskar Jensen, Lauren Lister & Artistic Director Frances M Lynch
De Merc Chamber Choir
conducted by Janette Ruocco
De Merc Chamber Choir rehearsing at St John’s ARC with the EVT BSL interpreter Lauren Lister
This enthusiastic local choir became the first to sing Eliza Flower’s choral music, including “Nearer My God to Thee” since 1846, and probably the very first ever to do so in Harlow, as part of our performance at St John’s ARC on Feb 25th. You can see them in full flow in the video above.
They went on to sing the same works in a special International Women’s Day concert in Roydon.
A superbly well organized event. Congratulations
Huge effort had gone into research. Quality of singing and playing excellent.
Harlow Museum
There is a new display at the museum about the Flower sisters which was inspired by the EVT Eliza Flower Project. It was created for the museum’s Remarkable Women Exhibition in celebration of International Women’s Day. The exhibition includes two photos of Eliza’s music – the August Song of the Month “The Harvests of Time” and “Nearer My God to Thee”. Over the summer they will add audio files so that you can hear how both these pieces sound when you visit the museum in the future.
We visited Harlow Museum when the exhibition first went up and were thrilled to see Eliza Flower’s story and music so prominently displayed
Scores of some of Eliza Flower’s Music will become available on this site over the next few months – subscribe to our newsletter for notification.
WORKSHOPS
We first met the Livewire singing groups at Harlow Playhouse on March 14th when we took over their regular session to introduce them to the life and work of Eliza Flower through song.
Each of the 2 groups quickly picked up Frances’ song about Eliza, learning that she “grew up in Harlow, just like me!”
The younger group have been working on the song ever since, and the older group have begun creating music of their own inspired by Eliza’s political and musical life.
We’ll be picking up again with them in June when they will be preparing to share their work with the public at a lovely festival – more details to come.
Harlow College
We were invited to give a workshop for Performing Arts students at Harlow College. We introduced them to Eliza and her work and sang some of her music, as well as making up our own. We were so impressed with their professionalism, their voices, energy and willingness to give things a go. Click on the player below to listen in as they work on improvised phrases about Eliza some of which later appeared in the St John’s ARC performance.
Bryony Witt-Davies attended our Harlow College workshop and then became part of our team – performing with us at St John’s ARC and Leah Manning Centre and helping out at Livewire workshops.
I liked the BSL element of the workshop at Harlow College
I enjoyed the vocal projection exercises with Frances
On the 9th February we spent time workshopping with 20 Year 8 music students from St Mark’s West Essex Catholic School. What an impressive group, with high levels of concentration, engagement and creativity – as you can hear in the extracts below as they make sounds and sing the months, flowers & seasons and a song of Eliza’s which was played to the audience at St John’s ARC!
We had fun learning about Eliza Flower and how she grew up here
I was inspired by her story and her music and would love to find out more about her
Leah Manning Centre
April 3rd 2024
We made a special performance with a smaller team – just Laurence, Bryony & Frances with Herbie adding sound tracks including a loudly screeching owl that took everyone by surprise! Wonderful to hear the groups stories of their upbringing in Harlow and their joy in finding out about the story of such an important local woman – Eliza Flower.
I would like more events like this to come here
I was inspired by the music and want to find out more about Eliza Flower
