Water City Music, Gloucestershire Academy of Music and Marketing Gloucester are joining forces to bring a magical extra dimension to this year’s Gloucester Tall Ships and Adventure Festival.
Visitor numbers to the historic Gloucester Docks reach 200,000 over the weekend (May 25th to 27th) attracting visitors from across the UK and the Water City Music programme will see children and other musical groups perform on three stages around the docks.
Led by Gloucestershire based artistic director Michael Bochmann, Water City Music stages musical events – of assorted size and scale – at striking water-based venues across the UK. The annual flagship Tower of London Festival each June has, in recent years, involved over 1,800 musicians and 60 schools performing for huge numbers of daily visitors and it is hoped that similar success can now be spread to the Gloucester event.
The Water City Music day will be held on the Saturday of the Bank Holiday weekend (25th) with massed choirs put together from Gloucestershire schools to perform songs on one of the stages whilst smaller performing groups will have 20 to 30 minute slots to entertain the thousands of visitors. In the run up to the event schools will receive expert guidance from Gloucester choral specialist Vicki Field.
A third stage will be used to showcase the Gloucestershire GAMELAN, an amazing orchestra of Indonesian percussion instruments bringing the music of the rainforest right to the water’s edge of Gloucester’s historic docks; with free workshops and performances taking place throughout the day.
County schools and performing groups are invited to join the event by enquiring directly with admin@wcm.org.uk or via Gloucestershire Academy of Music.
All participants in the Water City Music festival will get free access to the Tall Ships & Adventure event and free access for 1 accompanying adult. We look forward to seeing you there.
The Water City Music organisation is an entirely self-funding body relying on grants, sponsorship and fundraising to sustain its events and programmes. Every penny we raise goes back into expanding our reach, putting on bigger and better events and more sustainable programmes. Local businesses are invited to contact the charity (admin@wcm.org.uk) to discuss sponsorship and profile-raising opportunities.
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Jason I J Smith 