21 October — 30 November 2019

Wysing studio artist Bettina Furnée presents the Even You Song Tour 2019, supported by Wysing Arts Centre, King’s Lynn Festival, Young Norfolk Arts and The National Centre for Writing.

Tour Schedule and Tickets

Upcoming

29 November 7pm
St James’ Piccadilly, London
(London Oriana Choir, Dir. Dominic Ellis-Peckham)
To purchase tickets, please click here.

Past

2 November 6.30pm
Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge
(Cambridge Chorale, Dir. Owain Park)

13 October 6.30pm
All Saints and St Andrew’s Church, Kingston, Cambridgeshire
(Cambridge Chorale, Dir. Owain Park)

15 July 6.30pm
King’s Lynn Minster
(Even You Song Choir, Dir. Jane Wells)

Even You Song is an interdisciplinary art project that presents an innovative interpretation of Choral Evensong asking couples whether they can travel into space together.

The work is co-created by Wysing studio artist Bettina Furnée and writer Lucy Sheerman, and set to music by celebrated composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad. The tour involves the participation of adult and school choirs in four new performances across East Anglia and London, with new writing and digital projections.

Online review of the 2017 premiere at Peterborough Cathedral: http://www.planethugill.com/2017/02/an-immersive-experience-even-you- song.html

Even You Song was created during an artist residency at Metal Peterborough by writer Lucy Sheerman and artist Bettina Furnée. The work reflects a long-standing engagement with the concept of travel, space and locality in their practice and is the result of a highly collaborative process bridging art forms and communities.

Even You Song follows the format of Choral Evensong, with a libretto based on interviews with twelve couples from Peterborough, contemplating a space journey to the moon of indefinite duration, echoing the popular call-out by the Mars Foundation for a ‘mature couple' to go to Mars. The work is accompanied by digital projections using footage taken from their homes. Even You Song explores the musical and spiritual traditions of Choral Evensong and is devised to engage with the community in which it takes place as the 50-minute piece for choir and organ will be performed by local adult and school choirs, and two of the spoken sections are rewritten for each performance. This element involves diverse writers and a focus on a range of topics.

Even You Song Tour 2019 is supported by King’s Lynn Festival, Young Norfolk Arts and Wysing Arts Centre, and is made possible with funding from All Saints and St Andrew, Arts Council England, Cambridgeshire Music, National Centre for Writing & Norfolk Music Hub

Bettina Furnée’s visual art practice ranges from small text and moving image pieces to complex and collaborative environmental projects, using language as source material. She has executed many public realm projects commissioned by art organisations, local government, architects, Arts Council and Ministry of Justice. She is studio artist at Wysing Arts Centre. She has most recently been working with MKGallery and Art+Christianity to create new site-specific works. bettinafurnee.co.uk.

Lucy Sheerman has poetry collections with Cam Rivers Press, Dancing Girl Press, Oystercatcher Press and was included in Infinite Difference, the Shearsman Anthology of Innovative UK Women Writers. She was commissioned to write a play with the Apollo astronaut Al Worden for HotBed 13 and a libretto for ‘Together to the Workhouse Door’ an opera produced by Viva Sinfonia for Gressenall Farm and Workhouse. She was artist in residence at Metal Peterborough and poet in residence at the Scott Polar Institute, Cambridge. She runs the University of Cambridge Centre for Creative Writing and is currently working on a series of essays and fan fictions which respond to Jane Eyre.

Admired for her originality, fluency and professionalism, Cheryl Frances-Hoad has been composing to commission since she was fifteen. Classical tradition (she trained as a cellist and pianist at the Menuhin School before going on to Cambridge and King’s College, London) along with diverse contemporary inspirations including literature, painting and dance, have contributed to a creative presence provocatively her own. Her output - widely premiered, broadcast and commercially recorded, reaching audiences from the Proms to outreach workshops - addresses all genres from opera, ballet and concerto to song, chamber and solo music.