The evening will include jazz, rock, and folk music, a ceilidh (with caller), and a bar and buffet. Get your dancing shoes on and join us!

Date: Saturday 9th March 2019
Time: 7.30-11pm
Venue: The Ballroom, Pudsey Civic Hall, LS28 5TA
Price: Adults £10 / Concession £5 (includes entrance and a free buffet)

To reserve your tickets (to collect on the door), please email Catherine at catherine.lloyd@leeds.gov.uk with your name and the number of tickets you require.

Please feel free to share our flyer for the event as well.

Leeds is a musically rich city. The music lives in the institutions of the city, whether they are schools, professional music ensembles, venues or music hubs, in the minds of individuals, and in the lives of families and communities.

Leeds is proud of its international links. Music is a key part of this, and youth music is at the forefront: there are strong musical partnerships with Europe, and further afield. We can celebrate close links with schools and young musicians from the city of Durban, South Africa and Chemnitz, Germany, as well as many other cities and countries across the world.

Culturally, the world risks turning in on itself. At the time of writing (January 2019), the UK is facing Brexit; other European countries are seeing the rise of nationalist politicians; the USA is putting ‘America First’. It is often said that music is an internationally understood language. But is it?

Up to a point, definitely. There can’t be anyone in the modern world who is unaware of the harmonies and rhythms brought to their shores through rock and roll. The familiar cadences of missionary hymns can be heard in songs from all corners of the globe. Our pupils in Leeds schools come from many cultures and bring into school many languages and cultures. They will all share some aspects of musical culture. But each and every child brings three cultures with them wherever they go: the global, the culturally specific and the individual.

Global culture in music is evident in the commercial music world. Pop culture bridges all continents, and pop music is produced in many, many languages. Classical music from Europe has spread into most parts of the world: there is an avid market for western classical music in China, as I found when playing there with a touring orchestra in 2018. These are the music of cultures which are seen as of high status or value: they extend their reach widely, and few can be immune to their influence.

Yet specific cultures and the music they produce survive and thrive alongside the global brands. The indigenous music of many cultures are growing, while others are threatened. Within Europe, we have seen folk music within England rise and fall in popularity in a series of folk revivals in recent years. Each generation reinvents music in its own image: the ‘Bellowhead generation’ was very different from its predecessors. Each generation shows the influence of other musical styles current at the time.

Individual cultures are complex. No child comes to school without an exposure to music. This comes from the family, from the community, from television/radio, and from a wide range of sources. This might be entirely ‘mainstream’, but can be distinctive and individual. (As an example: I spend a lot of time with my grandmother when I was a child, who was born at the end of the nineteenth century and lived all her life in Wales among Welsh speaking communities. The songs she sang me were those of her youth: folk songs in two languages, music hall songs and the songs of the First World War.) Leeds children bring with them a huge range of eclectic, distinctive and utterly unique mixtures of musical cultures. This is a huge richness for the city.

Music in education is for all. One size does not fit all, of course, so the richness of the cultures of Leeds gives those of us in music education the opportunity to deploy a really wide range of styles and genres: steel pans, jazz, classical, opera, South Asian styles, folk music, rock and pop and much more. And for all individuals, the richness of this cultural diversity enables a unique kaleidoscope of musics to fill each and every learner’s mind with sounds and possibilities. Meeting musicians from outside their own geographical and cultural locality is a wonderful thing to do. Hearing them perform broadens the experience, and sharing performances takes this exchange of ideas to a new depth.

In March the young musicians of Rock ‘n’ Strings will visit Leeds, to renew friendship and partnership with young Leeds musicians. They are a group of teenagers from the city of Chemnitz, Germany, who play an exciting mix of pop and jazz on string instruments, with a singer and rhythm section. They’ll feature in the City of Leeds Youth Music Prom Concert at Leeds Town Hall on March 12^th 2019, performing alongside some of the finest young musicians from Leeds.

City of Leeds Youth Music Groups offer young musicians from Leeds the opportunity to sing and play to the highest level. One of our groups, Roots Alive, performs folk and traditional music from this country and beyond. They visited Chemnitz last year to play at the Stadtfest to a huge audience, alongside their German friends in Rock ‘n’ Strings. Sadly, the event was curtailed due to far-Right activity in the city, and it was not possible for the main performance to take place. For young people’s music making to have been cancelled due to the actions of a group of protesters was deeply regrettable, and it is wonderful to welcome our German friends to Leeds. We have the chance to build understanding, to share ideas and reinforce a collective, shared culture of musicianship between the young people in the two groups.

To reserve tickets for the the City of Leeds Youth Music Prom Concert, please email Catherine at catherine.lloyd@leeds.gov.uk

Schools are invited to bring primary, GCSE and A Level pupils along for an afternoon of music in a variety of genres from some of the city’s top young musicians. This year’s theme is “International” and will include performances from the City of Leeds Youth Orchestra, City of Leeds Youth Wind Orchestra, Leeds Youth Jazz-Rock Orchestra, Roots Alive – Youth Folk Group, and Leeds Silver Steel Sparrows, as well as guest group Rock ‘n’ Strings from Chemnitz, Germany.

Date: Tuesday 12th March 2019
Time: 1.15-2.45pm
Venue: Leeds Town Hall
Ticket price: £3.00 (adults and pupils)
Please note that schools are responsible for their own transport to and from the venue.

Tickets are allocated on a first come, first serve basis.

To reserve tickets for your school or for more information, please email catherine.lloyd@leeds.gov.uk.

The trip was funded through family contributions and funds raised by the young musicians of Leeds themselves through performances over two years. The visit was generously hosted by the Städische Musikschule in Chemnitz and the families of the host musicians.

Nine young musicians travelled, supported by two members of staff and a volunteer.

The exchange stared with a series of workshop performances in schools in Chemnitz, followed by a shared performance at the Städtische Musikschule (city music school), which was wonderful. All involved played and sang beautifully, and the audience was very appreciative.

The main event, sadly, had to be cancelled. Following a tragic violent crime, the Stadtfest was abandoned before the concert could take place, and the city saw marches and protests from right wing groups. These, together with counter demonstrations, made the city centre an unsafe place to perform. The young musicians, the staff and host families were all safe throughout, but the images of violence were upsetting to all. Leeds and Chemnitz staff responded with a high degree of professionalism.

Both sets of young people were upset by this unexpected turn of events. We are very grateful to our hosts for arranging a shared performance at very short notice, and it was wonderful to see and hear how taking part in shared music making allowed both sets of young musicians to bond together, to support each other and to celebrate shared values of inclusion and friendship.

Although one of the key activities of the trip didn’t happen, the trip was very much a success. Musicians from both cities shared their ideas, became friends and realised how much, through music, they shared. The two institutions (ArtForms in Leeds and the Städtische Musikschule in Chemnitz) will continue their professional relationship, and young musicians from Leeds and Chemnitz will perform together in Leeds in 2019.

Student members of Roots Alive were asked to contribute their thoughts and impressions of the trip. Here are three responses, making reference to their enjoyment of the trip, their response to the disruption of plans and a reflection on the very nature of folk music itself.

I’m sitting on a train as I reflect on a tour in Chemnitz, Germany. A train has the potential to transport a person from one country to another, where one might be in a state of peace and the other might be on the verge of disaster. Very fortunately, I am sat on a train travelling between Germany and Britain – not to North Korea. On this tour to Germany with the Leeds folk band, Roots Alive, it is difficult to have enough appreciation for the place of safety and peace that we are travelling from and to. Even when worrying unrest came about, in the form of political demonstrations (and latterly, riots) in Chemnitz and Dresden, we had the innate confidence that we were safe – both due to the incredible guidance and care from the tour leaders (Ruth and Stephen Wild, Hannah Rosebury and Nancy Gibson), but also from the circle of peace that we are unknowingly encompassed in and take far too much for granted, in our Western society.

Our trip consisted of immense highlights (sharing folk music and dance with students in Chemnitz and getting so much joy from it) and sadly, significant lowlights (the political riots which led to the cancellation of our biggest and most important concert in the annual ‘Stadtfest’). However, what I hope everyone deeply appreciates is the inclusivity and friendship that music evokes, building bridges rather than walls between different cultures.

Laura Sutcliffe – aged 17

After four tiresome train journeys, we finally reached Leipzig where we would board our last train.  As the band squeezed into the Hogwarts-style compartment, Rachel began began to quietly hum a little melody. Recognising it, we all gradually joined in until the whole band had their instruments out. We played all sorts of traditional music ranging from English to Chinese. While in full swing, two police officers peered in. As opposed to to telling us to stop, they grinned and carried on their way.

The rest of the journey flew by and before we knew it we had arrived ready to meet our host families and continue our musical journey in Chemnitz.

Róisín Howitt – aged 14

The first day of our trip began at the Red Tower, a landmark in Chemnitz’s city centre, and one of it’s few remaining buildings from before World War II. The rest of Chemnitz’s centre, we learnt, had been destroyed in 1945, and the buildings around us were all new. This reconstruction began in the 1960s and is still taking place to this day. In fact, the city has even had a new name, Karl-Marx-Stadt, which was used between 1953 and 1990.

Later in the week, we visited the bigger, nearby city of Dresden and found that it had a similar story to tell, as over 90% of Dresden was destroyed in the war. However, it also became apparent that the two cities have reacted to this devastation (and need for reconstruction) in different ways: the demand for housing in post-war Chemnitz had taken priority over the preservation and recreation of old buildings, and hence, the city looks unusually new. However, the buildings in Dresden looked old. For example, to the uneducated eye, the Dresden Frauenkirche (a church that stands tall in the ‘Neumarkt’ square) looks at least a few hundred years old. But, like so many of the buildings in Dresden, it was first completed in the 1700s, was destroyed in the war, and then has been rebuilt to be within an inch of its original design and finished in 2003.

In scratching the surface of this history, I couldn’t help but be reminded of an old quote: “Music is liquid architecture; architecture is frozen music”, (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe). And, as the pattern of rectifying the damage that these cities suffered from the Second World War emerged again and again throughout our stay in Germany, it raised questions for me that are oddly familiar to a folk musician… How important are our traditions? Are we obliged to recreate pieces of our history that we have lost? And how do new styles fit in alongside all of this? 

Rachel Darling – aged 18.

This article was written by staff and members from Roots Alive and originally published in on the International Relations Leeds blog.