Hartley Anniversary- Let Us Sleep Now
For:
Hartley Anniversary- Let Us Sleep Now
Event date:
15th January 2012
Event venue:
Whitley Bay Playhouse
Tickets:
grimethorpeband.com/engagements/playhouse
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The piece is being written for brass with the first performance being made by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band. Martin Ellerby has a working title – ‘Let us sleep now’ which came out of his research visit to New Hartley where 150 years ago our nation was sent into mourning when 204 men were killed by when an engine being collapsed blocking the only exit from the pit. This led to legislation requiring more than one shaft on all UK mines. Thus, this anniversary is one pertinent to a whole nation and as such has already featured on an edition of the BBC television programme, ‘Who do you think you are?’.
Ellerby says: “I visited the site and memorial to the Hartley pit disaster in May 2011, and found the experience moving and inspiring. The proposed work will be reflective rather than descriptive and written in a language understandable to a broad listening audience without compromising artistic integrity. 150 years on, I want to create a piece of work that will help to keep alive the memory of this seminal moment in British mining history and I know, having previously written a piece about the Aberfan tragedy, that my music has the potential to provide a common denominator to enable this to happen.”