Adopt a Music Creator blog: Hepton Singers

Hepton Singers' MD Richard Bunzl ponders how Fergus Hall has drawn on the history of Hebden Bridge to inspire their Adopt a Music Creator 2020/21 collaboration.

Hepton Singers have now had two full choir meetings with their music creator, Fergus Hall. Even over Zoom, with its sometimes dim and grainy pictures, and often intermittent sound, Fergus, alongside Emily Crossland, our project mentor, came across as a breath of fresh air for a choir living through (and coping with) difficult times.

During our first meeting before Christmas, Fergus was keen to find out as much as possible about Hebden Bridge, and the musical (and literary) tastes of the choir and its members. This wealth of information representing the musical and wider cultural perspectives of the choir, including much on what makes Hebden Bridge and the surrounding area of the Upper Calder Valley such a special place to live, was duly written up, collated and sent to Fergus.  

Meanwhile, Fergus was researching and reading up on all he could about Hebden Bridge, including its unlikely historical heritage – from corduroy trousers to hippy squats!

During the following couple of months, Hepton Singers continued with their regular Zoom rehearsals, taking William Byrd’s Mass for Three Voices as their main focus: a work strangely suited to the restricted and somewhat closeted nature of the time in which we are all now living. Meanwhile, Fergus was researching and reading up on all he could about Hebden Bridge, including its unlikely historical heritage – from corduroy trousers to hippy squats! In so doing, he began to take the first very tentative steps towards conceptualising a possible new work for the choir.

The next stage in this process took place in the second week of February, when Fergus, Emily and Hepton Singers gathered once more to share and explore some of the themes Fergus had come up with.   

Beginning with just a few musical fragments, an initial melody, and some gritty words provided by a member of the choir, we had our first glimpse of some of the building blocks that might, ultimately, form the basis of the new piece.

The evening began with a series of listening exercises in which everyone focussed on the sounds from their own individual living space – everything from the sound of a falling tulip petal to the ubiquitous purr of a laptop fan. As we were to discover later in the meeting, this was the prelude to a task Fergus was to set the choir for the coming weeks: to listen to, and record, sounds that are characteristic of the life and landscape of Hebden Bridge.

Then, as if he was leading us into another world, Fergus brought the choir into song. Beginning with just a few musical fragments, an initial melody, and some gritty words provided by a member of the choir, we had our first glimpse of some of the building blocks that might, ultimately, form the basis of the new piece. The collaboration had well and truly begun.  

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The Adopt a Music Creator project matches vocal and instrumental leisure-time music groups with some of the UK’s most promising music creators to collaborate on creating a new piece of music. The project leads to a premiere performance and possible broadcast. If you’re a music group or music creator and you’d like to take part, find out more