Road to Jericho

Well, we're deep into the R2J project now and after a really, really successful and unbelievably intense week working with the Aldeburgh Young Musicians, we're back in Aldeburgh to workshop then record 'Who Is My Neighbour?', the new commission by Antony Pitts.

The concert at Spitalfields is on Friday, and we're then leaving for Palestine early the following week.

More news to follow very soon...

At the end of yesterday's exhilarating Aldeburgh Young Musicians open session in the Britten Studio at Snape, composer Antony Pitts put the finishing touches to the score of Who is my neighbour? - just in time for next week's Aldeburgh residency when Fifth Quadrant and Dal'Ouna will be recording the piece (under the watchful ears of Daniel Halford) and premiering it publicly on the opening night of the Spitalfields concert.

What a mindblowing experience. Such kind, hospitable people in such a truly appalling situation. Sure, there are probably a few radicals somewhere in that land but we didn't get to meet them thankfully, no... we played a Baroque concert (4 Seasons, Vivaldi A minor, etc) which went down a storm, then after the concert there was so much energy we just hung out with the kids for an hour or two, playing christmas songs and Bach and pretty much anything they asked for... Drew taught some of them how to play viola, and Simon met up with some of the violin students he already gave a Masterclass to via videoconference - yes, there are now 15 violin students at the Gaza Music School! (it got blown up last year during the invasion, but they've found a temporary building somewhere else).

We're delighted to announce that Aldeburgh Music and Spitalfields Music are to be our main hosts for the UK leg of the tour.

We'll be working with Aldeburgh Young Musicians on an exciting education project to be announced shortly. With Spitalfields Music, we'll be opening their Summer Music Festival in London on 10 June 2010. This will be the final concert of the initial tour, and we couldn't be happier to have Spitalfields as our host.

Tickets will go on sale early in the new year, and we expect to sell out - so watch this space for updates!