We are so excited to be back. This is us at our first 2022 concert rehearsal which took place on 12th March 2022.
Femmes Fortissimo, which is made up of women players from brass bands across Yorkshire, will be performing as part of the programme for York International Women’s Week 2022.
The concert, on 2 April, will feature guest soloist Siobhan Bates, tenor horn star with the world-famous Black Dyke Band, fresh from their triumph as winners of the Yorkshire regional brass band championships. Geneva Performing Artist Siobhan, 23, will perform original pieces by composers Paul Lovatt-Cooper and Andy Wareham – the latter a world premiere – as well as a tenor horn feature with the band. Two other young talented players from the region, teenagers Emerson Hampshire, 17 (Shepherd Group Concert Brass Band, Kirkbymoorside Town Brass Band, and Yorkshire Youth Brass Band) and Imogen Fewster, 17 (Shepherd Group Brass Band and Youth Band), who have both won places at the prestigious National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain, will also be performing solos. The event will also notch up a world premiere from the pen of euphonium player Tracey McGuire, written in response to the murder of Sarah Everard who grew up in York and attended Fulford School. Tracey, a co-organiser of Femmes Fortissimo, wrote a poem about how women feel walking home alone, on which her piece, A New Anthem, is based. The Femmes Fortissimo band have been regular contributors to York International Women’s Week since 2018, when their first concert was put on to mark the centenary of some women getting the vote. In it, the band played the March of the Women, written by Ethel Smyth, which became the anthem of the women’s suffrage movement throughout the UK and more widely. The band’s conductor, Sue Sykes, who is Musical Director of York Concert Band, also features as one of 100 women changemakers in community history project HerStory.York, an exhibition spanning 100 years of brave, spirited women who have inspired change in York. It opens on 9th March 2022 at York Castle Museum as part of York International Women’s Week. Profits from the Femmes Fortissimo concert will go to local charity Survive, which offers specialist counselling and support work to all adults across North Yorkshire who have experienced sexual trauma. CEO of Survive, Mags Godderidge, said: "We launched our £50k Covid-19 Recovery Appeal in May last year – to meet the increase in demand for our specialist services. Money raised through this event will help us get nearer to reaching that fundraising target. We are so grateful to Femmes Fortissimo for supporting us in this way". Femmes Fortissimo: Loud and Clear, is on Saturday 2 April at 7.30pm at Acomb Parish Church Hall, Front Street, Acomb, York. Free car parking is available close by next to Morrisons supermarket. There are limited disabled parking spaces outside the venue. Tickets cost £10 (£5 under 16s) and are available from TicketSource. |
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