Just The Tonic, Series 1, Episode 7: Music Builds Communities

Introduction (0:00)

[Music]

0:00 Katie: Throughout the series of Just The Tonic, we’ve heard how being involved in music helps people in so many ways.

“It’s helped me by gaining confidence, playing with people again.”

0:12 The singers and players from The People’s Orchestra, and from the fantastic organisations we’ve featured, have told us how it helps with their mental health, with making new friends, de-stressing, boosting their confidence.

“It’s been just absolutely brilliant, and it’s brought me back to myself.”

0:33 We’ve heard that participating in the arts can make communities feel safer and stronger.

“It’s made me feel great, and it’s been good for my family as well, and friends, and being able to share with people. Music can, and does often, bring people together.”

0:54 Well, in this episode I’m going to be finding out how music can help people actually feel part of a community.

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1:04 Christmas is all about getting together with friends and family, after all, but for some of us that’s just not possible. I’m going to be talking to Becky Dell from the wonderful Citizens of the World Choir about the work they do to make refugees and migrants feel welcome in the UK.

1:26 Becky Dell: When you are a displaced human, you’ve had to leave your country, your community, your home. What we’re doing in choir is just saying: come along to choir once a week, and we’ll just sing together for the joy of making art and making music. And that transcends everything else that they’re going through.

1:42 Katie: For some people, like Naomi from Kenya, it’s been a lifeline.

1:46 Naomi: It’s like another family in the UK. Since we are missing the family back home, this is the best place to be.

1:55 Katie: And we’ll be hearing from their patron, acclaimed actor Emily Watson.

1:59 Emily Watson: The way they sang, and what they sang – it was like taking a bath in the opposite of hate. That’s how I like to describe it.

[Music]

TPO's first Christmas concert in two years (2:12)

2:12 Katie: First up, though, let’s hear from the fantastic community orchestra from the West Midlands that we’ve been featuring throughout this series, The People’s Orchestra. It has been a busy few months for them. They’ve been preparing for their Christmas concert. Now, this is a big deal, not just because it’s the first concert they’ve had in two years, but because it’s the first time their main orchestra, their Rusty Players and their five show choirs have all performed together. So that’s 80 singers and 80 players. Their production assistant, Jamie Parker, caught up with some of them at rehearsals. So let’s hear Jamie now, with Claire Doswell, who plays trombone.

2:50 Jamie Parker: Hello Claire. What does it mean to be having a Christmas concert this year, given that last year we never had a Christmas concert, owing to the pandemic?

3:03 Claire Doswell: Well, Christmas is one of my favourite times of the year, and the Christmas concert really is my favourite, so I really missed it last year. So I’m really, really happy that we’re actually getting together and making music again – and especially around Christmas.

3:18 Rosie Edgar: My name is Rosie Edgar and I play alto saxophone. I think the thing I’m looking forward to most is the atmosphere of having the audience in, listening to us and applauding, hopefully.

3:30 Jamie: How has being involved with The People’s Orchestra helped you this year, in 2021?

3:35 Rosie: Oh, it’s helped me so much. After the pandemic, joining the orchestra a few months ago has meant that I’ve got back into playing, having had four years out to have children and to move house. And it’s been just absolutely brilliant, and it’s brought me back to myself. Getting to make new friends, and play this wonderful music – it’s reminded me who I am. So yeah, it means everything to me.

4:08 Katie: And here’s Jamie with one of the stalwarts of The People’s Orchestra, the flute and piccolo player, the marvellous Jacqueline Burke.

4:15 Jamie: What does it mean to be having a Christmas concert this year?

4:18 Jacqueline Burke: The pandemic was really awful for orchestras, and especially for TPO, because TPO is like a big family. We weren’t together for over 18 months, so not seeing those people in rehearsals for 18 months was really difficult – because we’re not just musicians who meet up at rehearsals, we’re friends. Plus, Christmas is a fantastic time for getting in touch with people we haven’t seen for a long time anyway. So that’s why it’s really nice to have this concert.

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4:55 Jamie: What are you looking forward to most about the concert?

4:58 Jacqueline: One of the things I’m enjoying is that my son is actually coming this time – my eldest son is bringing his friend. And also we’re having this massive choir with us, and we’re playing with the Rusty Players Orchestra, which we’ve never played with before.

5:12 Katie: Well, we heard from Rusty Players conductor Bradley Wilson in episode three, so our intrepid reporter Jamie asked some of his Rusty Players what their first outing at the Christmas concert means to them. Here’s Claire, who plays clarinet.

5:28 Claire (clarinet): This is my first Christmas concert for about 25 years, so it’s very exciting for me personally. My parents are coming as well, so it’s good fun. I’m really looking forward to it.

5:38 Jamie: How has it helped you this year?

5:40 Claire: It’s helped me by gaining confidence, playing with people again. It’s easy when you’re at home to play the bits that you can play and not play the other bits! It’s been nice to get out there and play with people again. It’s been a long time, but it’s been good.

5:55 Jeanette: Hi, I’m Jeanette, and I play the clarinet in the Rusty Players Orchestra. I haven’t played in a concert since I was at school – and that was back in about 1983 – so it’s been a really long time. So I’m looking forward to it.

6:12 Jamie: How has being involved with the Rusty Players Orchestra helped you this year?

6:16 Jeanette: It’s been the first bit of socialising that I’ve done on a regular basis, because of Covid. I’ve met a lot of new people, and I’ve really enjoyed coming out regularly on a Monday evening – sometimes when I haven’t felt like it, but I always come home with a spring in my step, really uplifted by the whole thing. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s made a big difference.

6:40 Katie: And a Christmas concert would not be complete without a fabulous choir. We explored the benefits of singing together in episode two of Just The Tonic, and we featured The People’s Orchestra’s Halesowen Show Choir and their musical director, Ula Weber. Here’s Jamie with Marion, one of their newest members.

6:58 Jamie: What are you most looking forward to about the concert?

7:01 Marion: Singing together with my friends – and they’re all very new friends as well, because I knew no one when I came to this choir.

7:12 Jamie: How has being involved with The People’s Show Choir helped you this year?

7:21 Marion: It’s helped me to get back into it. It’s helped me to learn to be with other people that have come from all over Birmingham, and to be back with our musical director – she’s outstanding in her field. I knew that the quality of The People’s Show Choir, with her leading it, would be superb, and it is.

[Music] [Applause] [Music]

7:58 Katie: The wonderful People’s Orchestra, with their Rusty Players and singers from their five show choirs, all playing together in rehearsals for their Christmas concert.

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Citizens of the World Choir: Becky Dell (8:10)

8:10 Katie: Now, Christmas, as we know, is all about spending time with our families, and it’s often the only time of the year when everyone can get together in the same space. We give each other far too many presents, we drink far too much, we catch up on everything that’s happened over the year, and argue over the washing up. But some people have left their families far behind, taking perilous journeys to start a new life in the UK, and the Citizens of the World Choir in London has been a lifeline for them. It’s a community of refugees and friends that express themselves through the power of music and all sorts of different cultures.

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8:50 I caught up with their musical director, Becky Dell, over Zoom while they were rehearsing for their Christmas concert, to find out more about the work of this fantastic choir. I asked Becky how the choir began.

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9:10 Becky: So the choir started in 2017, in response to the refugee crisis in Europe. It was the idea of a brilliant man called Lord Roger Roberts – Lord Roberts of Llandudno, to give him his proper title. He campaigns on human rights and refugee rights. I got to know him after volunteering out in the Calais Jungle – lots of us who run the choir now all met each other out in the Calais Jungle – and we got involved with some legislation to try and bring some children to safety here. Sadly, that legislation didn’t go through, and Lord Roberts had spent a sleepless night worrying about these children. He phoned me the next morning and, being a good Welshman, he said: “how about we set up a choir for the people that are already over here, and give them a warm welcome, and a choir, and a home?” And that’s what we’ve done.

9:46 Katie: What was the response? You had this wonderful idea about inclusivity – people who are refugees here, but not just them; it was the people who already lived here as well. What happened next?

9:55 Becky: In that first meeting, where we discussed why we wanted to set up a choir, we had a couple of goals in mind at the beginning. One was to help healing through the power of music. Two was to help community integration, which is why we have a 50:50 ratio of refugees to non-refugees. And also just to change the narrative about the really important contributions that refugees and migrants make to our society. We felt that language had been really missing from our leadership in the country. But also, they shouldn’t just be given a home because we think they can be helpful to us – we should give people a home because they need a home. And so we just want to change that narrative, around love and acceptance and community and diversity.

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10:42 Katie: So what kind of people joined the choir? Was it people who were already musically inclined, perhaps?

10:49 Becky: Interestingly, no – not for everyone. I would say that most of our non-refugee members are pro, semi-pro or amateur musicians. I think people who join choirs are generally quite self-selecting, so people came along who had an interest in music. But interestingly, lots of our refugee members – or displaced humans, as we call them; we understand the term “refugee” is useful as a colloquial term, but we like to call them displaced humans sometimes, because it brings the humanity back to them – some of our displaced members had never even sung before. A couple have come from countries where singing was banned. One was even threatened with execution by Saddam Hussein for singing, which was just horrific. So singing, to some of them, is an act of rebellion, and it’s an act of joy. But yeah, lots hadn’t sung before, and we’ve been going five years now, and it’s incredible to see the development in both their musicianship and their language skills and comprehension. It’s been such a wonderful experience, and had so many more positives than we had realised.

11:58 Katie: So how do you choose the repertoire, then, to cater for this wide range of nationalities and standards in the choir?

12:03 Becky: It’s a really fun task. We’ve sung in about seven languages already. We have a really eclectic set list – we always say we sing pieces that you won’t hear anywhere else. So we take lots of folk music and world music, a little bit of pop, jazz and classical, and we arrange all of our own stuff and add our own twists to it. For instance, at the moment, as it’s coming up to Christmas, we are doing a piece called “Carol of the Bells”, which everybody will know from Home Alone – but actually we’re doing a twist with a Kurdish folk song. We just really like surprising our audiences.

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12:43 When we perform, I always call us our “rainbow tribe”. There are about 50 members in the choir, representing 28 different nationalities, and none of us look like each other, and that’s such a beautiful thing. With such a diverse representation, our music reflects who we are. So we bring music from all over the world, and it melds together in our own unique way.

13:08 Katie: And I’m guessing that has been beautiful, but challenging as well, because all those different nationalities have very different musical histories.

13:16 Becky: Yeah, it’s been the biggest learning curve of our lives – not just musically, but culturally: politics, geography, history, everything. We’ve all learned so much. Understanding different ways of doing things, different ways of communicating, different tonal centres – which is fascinating as a musical director. Like, “what are these quarter tones you speak of? They don’t come between the white notes and the black notes on the piano!”

13:44 Katie: So tell me what effect you think it’s had on the members of the choir.

13:48 Becky: Oh goodness, I could wax lyrical about this. It’s been so amazing. Practically, for them, it’s improved their English, it’s improved their sense of wellbeing, it’s given them a community. We’ve covered some of the basics, right? We’ve helped them with clothes and food and shelter, and a community. But we’ve given a purpose back in life. When you are a displaced human, you’ve had to leave your country, your community, your home. You’ve had an initial event that was very traumatic; you’ve had a journey that’s often been traumatic; and then you’ve had to settle into a new country – a new language, a new money system, a new transport system, a new banking system, a new education system. Everything is new. And what we’re doing in choir is just saying: come along to choir once a week, and we’ll just sing together for the joy of making art and making music. And that transcends everything else that they’re going through.

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14:51 So hopefully, in terms of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we’re reaching some of the top stuff, which is about fulfilment and joy, which is so important.

[Applause]

15:05 Katie: On a personal, human level, clearly the impact has been enormous. But you’ve been making quite an impact on the world stage as well, with the work you’ve been doing recently with that enormous, wonderful puppet, Little Amal. Tell us a little bit about that.

15:18 Becky: Yeah, so we have just completed a four-month project with the Royal Opera House. Obviously they were incredible musicians and they sang with us – there were 16 of them, and then 41 of us, and then an ensemble of six musicians as well – but they were so generous, and so kind and welcoming. We sang this beautiful piece composed by Ayanna Witter-Johnson, an all-round incredible human being and an amazing musician. So yeah, we had this incredible four-month experience at the Royal Opera House to welcome Little Amal, and then in the same week we also went down to Folkestone to welcome her into the UK.

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15:55 Katie: Well, congratulations – what a week, and what an achievement. Just fantastic. I can’t wait to speak to some of the members of the choir, which we’re going to in a moment, to hear about their stories and how it’s helped. But it’s obviously doing amazing work. So what’s the future for the choir?

16:10 Becky: I think right from the beginning – we’ve got a team of six of us that run the choir, and a music team of four, and we’re all professional musicians – we have said we want this to be the best representation of refugees and migrants anywhere. We call ourselves the UK’s leading choir for displaced people and allies. And we never want people to listen to us and go, “oh, it’s the refugee choir“. We want people to listen to us and say, “oh, it’s a refugee choir? Wow” – you know, that we’re doing a really good job musically, as well as doing a really good job in a community-based aspect. So we want to keep spreading our message of peace and love and inclusivity.

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Aref and Naomi (16:55)

16:55 Katie: Little Amal, who Becky mentioned – and who’s not so little, at three and a half metres tall – is the living artwork of a young Syrian refugee child who walked across Turkey, Greece, Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and the UK, to focus attention on the urgent needs of young refugees. I’m sure you will have seen pictures of her on the news or in the papers. Singing with the Citizens of the World Choir at the Royal Opera House concert for Little Amal meant a lot to Aref from Afghanistan.

17:30 Aref: It was so touching, so moving.

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17:38 Because Amal was… I came the same journey – not exactly as her, but it was like I could see myself in her. So for me, it was like I was singing for myself. All these songs were for me – it felt like that to me. So that’s why it was so moving for me.

18:00 Katie: I think it was moving for everybody, but I can’t imagine how much more for you. So how have you found being part of this choir community?

18:08 Aref: I think it’s fantastic. I wanted to be involved, or to join a community, to be a part of a community. So that’s why I just joined.

18:25 Katie: And have you made some good friends through the choir?

18:28 Aref: Actually, I also brought another friend here, and I was joking with him, because he’s good at socialising. He called one of the members his granny, another one his sister, another his mum. So I said, “you’re making your family here” – because he’s also alone here.

18:50 Katie: Being made to feel part of a community is also something that’s been a huge help to Naomi from Kenya.

18:57 Naomi: It makes you feel like you have a family, because everybody loves each other. They will check on you. So it’s like another family in the UK. Since we are missing the family back home, this is the best place to be. So I love the choir so much.

19:17 Katie: Have they become like family – not just when you’re singing together, but in the rest of the week as well?

19:22 Naomi: I tell you, they are more than family, because they will check on you even within the week. They will text you: “are you OK?” In case you say you are coughing, they want to know how the cough is going, on and on. So you can imagine – while family members don’t do that! You tell them you’re coughing, they forget about it. So this is more than family.

19:45 Katie: So tell me what kind of music you love to sing with this choir.

19:49 Naomi: You know what? The choir introduces all sorts of music and songs and languages, and I’m one of the people who love knowing other people’s languages. So when we sing in Arabic, I’m very busy singing to other people who speak Arabic – I was saying to them, “oh, I know a bit of Arabic!” When we have the words, they teach us. All the songs we have been singing are from different places and different languages, so I think we are experts in all languages.

20:17 Katie: You’re going to be working for the United Nations!

20:20 Naomi: I think so – I think another United Nations, in brackets, because we represent a lot of countries.

20:27 Katie: That’s a good one. So you were performing at the Royal Opera House recently – how was that?

20:33 Naomi: I tell you, it was such a wonderful experience to be there in the first place, and to sing with the professionals in between us – because they were standing between us, so I could hear them singing with a very nice tone, very professional. So I was also trying to reach their professionalism! Yeah, it was a really good and nice experience for our choir.

21:03 Katie: I think you’re stars – you are stars now. Tell me, in one little final question, why the choir has meant so much to you.

21:13 Naomi: Well, the choir really motivated me a lot, and it made me feel even more welcome in the UK. I used to be a little bit shy, but to be honest with you, it has moulded most of the refugees and the immigrants in such a way that we have all integrated with each other. We feel more comfortable with each other, and we love each other. We are like brothers and sisters, and others are like mums, and others are like that. So it’s a family.

Alison (21:50)

21:50 Katie: As we heard from Becky, the Citizens of the World Choir is not only for refugees like Naomi and Aref, to help them integrate. Its members include people from the local community.

22:00 Alison: Hello, thank you for having me. My name is Alison, and I’m from London – south-east London.

22:07 Katie: You are one of the members of the choir who’s not a displaced person – you were born here.

22:12 Alison: Yes, I was born here, but I also come from a background of migration. My parents migrated here under difficult circumstances at the time. But yes, I am a Londoner. What inspired me to join the choir, really, is that I’ve always loved singing. I’d had short stints with choirs whilst at school, and I grew up playing the piano and the flute, but stopped that for quite a long time – probably 20 years, I’ve not picked it up. During lockdown, I guess we all became different people in many ways – or people that became our essence. So there was an opportunity to join, and I took it.

22:50 Katie: Because I love music – I’m such a huge fan of people taking part in music, singing in choirs, being in bands, whatever – but this is a very special group of people. How has it made you feel, being part of this?

23:03 Alison: I feel connected to other human beings, regardless of origin, where people might come from, and regardless of age. Just being connected as human beings and making beautiful sounds together – it’s made me feel connected. But it’s good for mental health as well. I think that you can flourish in a choir with music, regardless of what you may or may not sound like – just coming together and being interdependent, whatever the word is: connected. It has brought me to life in many ways again, and it’s really quite inspiring just to watch how passionate people are when they’re sounding words or making sounds. So it’s made me feel great, and it’s been good added value for my family as well – just to see me happy – and friends, and being able to share with people. I think sometimes we lose that, and music can, and does often, bring people together.

24:03 Katie: Hear, hear – I couldn’t have put that better myself. My goodness, I’ve been very moved as well to hear even just a few little details of the stories of some of your friends in the choir who have recently arrived in the UK. It’s a healing process as well, isn’t it, being part of this sort of group?

24:22 Alison: Yeah, I think you’re right – and healing in many ways, because obviously people have had difficult journeys, and when you’re able to capture a space where you can be at peace, or just connected to other human beings, it’s really wonderful.

24:38 Katie: It’s interesting – I don’t want to in any way pry into any difficult territory at all, but you mentioned that your family had come from a migration background and had a difficult time. Do you think that something like this would have helped them when they arrived here?

24:52 Alison: I wonder. I think it was a slightly different time then, historically, for the UK. I think that they love music – I think it’s something that’s universal. So yeah, I guess in many ways it would have helped. We’ve always used music as a way to connect, and bring joy and healing.

[Music]

Emily Watson (25:25)

25:25 Katie: It’s clear from chatting to Becky, and to Aref, Naomi and Alison, that being part of the Citizens of the World Choir has had a huge impact on their lives. And they have a very special patron championing their cause. Actor Emily Watson has had an illustrious career. She’s won countless awards for her performances on stage and on TV, including Oscar nominations for her debut film role in Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves, and for her stunning performance as cellist Jacqueline du Pré in Hilary and Jackie, a film about the virtuoso cellist and her sister. Emily is the patron of the Citizens of the World Choir, and I was delighted to be able to chat to her over Zoom. I asked her why the choir means so much to her.

26:10 Emily Watson: I’ve been around with them since the very beginning, and I remember very clearly being at the very first concert, when they had just pulled a few things out of the air, and just being bowled over by it. It was so moving – particularly in the climate at the time; I guess it’s still quite similar – that sense of the hostile environment, and people really, really struggling to find a place, find a way in, feel safe. And the way they sang, and what they sang – it was like taking a bath in the opposite of hate. That’s how I like to describe it.

26:52 A lot of them left with nothing, and have no actual physical contact with their own family, and it has given them a sense of family. And also, a lot of them are very highly intelligent, highly educated, very creative people – and suddenly, from feeling like you are utterly at the bottom of the pile, and nobody respects you, and you’re just a tick or a cross on a piece of paper, to being seen as a fully rounded, creative part of a community… For some of them, that’s been transforming.

27:29 Katie: Before you got involved with the choir, what was your musical background?

27:33 Emily: I’ve got Grade 2, I think, in one or two things – possibly piano and cello – and I sang at school, but not very well! But then obviously I had involvement with musical films, so I learned to fake quite a few things. I learned to fake the cello for Hilary and Jackie, very effectively, I might say! So I don’t consider myself musical at all, but I love music, and I admire people hugely who have that gift and that facility. It’s an amazing thing.

28:13 Katie: You experience, though, I suppose, what members of the choir are feeling – that transformative power of music – because you don’t have to be good to enjoy it, do you?

28:22 Emily: Absolutely. I think it’s something that, obviously, in any way, shape or form can utterly lift and transform and change your mood – change everything about the way your neural pathways are directing you. It can utterly change the direction of your day. I get sort of nervous around music, because I always feel very ignorant, so it takes a lot for me to really let go. But I think with the choir, I found a way in with them which was more to do with words. We did some workshops together, and I helped them write a piece, and that was a fascinating experience for me.

29:28 We told the story, for them, of home, and the journey, and then being here. But I only ever asked them to offer up fragments of those experiences – fragments of tastes and smells and sounds, and little phrases, really – which they did, and that was incredibly moving. At the end of it, we had a Sainsbury’s bag full of little pieces of paper full of words, which we then put together into a sort of narrative verse, which was then set to music.

30:12 But I think almost the most moving little piece of paper I found in the bag was one that just said “pending”. That was an answer to the question, “how does it feel to be here now?” And it was “pending” because so many people are waiting, waiting, waiting to discover whether they’ll be allowed to stay. They don’t have status, they don’t know, and they’re not allowed to work during that time. And there are obviously political and practical reasons for all of these things, and it’s a huge, long, difficult argument. But as a human being in that situation, you are deprived of a very, very fundamental plank of your being, which is knowing who you are and where you belong. So I think having the choir is a vital thing.

31:16 But to me, the choir is not just about that sense of community and belonging and all those things. Musically, they’re amazing – they do some really, really incredible stuff. It’s another great example of how the whole is often so much more than the sum of the parts. It’s that whole thing about being together: you are much more than you ever would be on your own.

31:45 I think at the first in-person concert they did, they sang “God Only Knows” – and that line in it, about not knowing where you’d be without someone, just developed and developed, with all different voices joining in. And then they blended it with “Siyahamba”, which is that amazingly powerful folk song, and it had everybody on their knees. It was so beautiful. But I think, for a lot of them, that line – that’s what the choir is.

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Close (32:25)

32:25 Katie: And that is why inspirational communities like the Citizens of the World Choir are so vital for the people they help and support. Huge thanks to their patron, Emily Watson, to musical director Becky Dell, and especially to the choir members Aref, Naomi and Alison. Big thanks also, as always, to the players, singers and staff at the fabulous People’s Orchestra. We’ve enjoyed hearing from them so much throughout the series so far.

[Music]

32:52 And thank you so much to you, our listeners. All the very best for the holidays – I hope you have a lovely Christmas, and I hope you will join us when we are back in the New Year, when we’ll be meeting staff and participants in the fantastic Changing Tunes project, which helps prisoners and young offenders get their lives back on track through the power of music.

33:14 And as I always say: if you are thinking about joining a choir or a community orchestra, or maybe looking for musicians to start a band, go for it. Search online for community arts organisations in your area, or get in touch with Arts Council England, the Arts Council of Wales, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland or Creative Scotland.

33:33 Just The Tonic with Katie Derham was produced by Jill Davis and is a Peanut and Crumb production, supported by The People’s Orchestra and Arts Council England.

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