The first international festival of activist street bands, Honk UK held as part of Bradford City of Culture 2025 is a collaborative effort achieved with the help local street band Peace Artists and Ken Field of Honk USA.
Each part of installation reminded me of a factory where the workers had just left for some unexplained reason. Leaving the cloak behind and the newsprint instructions for the work they were doing. The mysterious unfinished job incomplete all that remained was their ghostly image next their workstation.
Sophie Cooper’s composition Echoes of Reclamation, performed by the Milnrow Brass Band. Recycled speakers and brass band instruments were repurposed to create a bespoke sound system, splitting the instrumental sounds across different channels.
The rehearsals were intense, and challenging. I was impressed with the Conductor, Matthew Hardy’s enthusiasm to motivate and quickly identify problems in the music and tightening up all the parts.
The composer, Uri Agnon was present at each rehearsal, he seemed very calm and laid back about the progress being made towards the final performance which was to be aired on BBC Radio.
Elisabeth Gunawan was the solo narrator for the performance, she was constantly working through her lines throughout the rehearsal, and even in the breaks. In the performance she was the star of the show being front of stage delivering her lines with such power, conviction and emotion the effect was electrifying.
Only a few weeks after the Britons celebrated Queen Elizabeth’s Jubilee the nation received the announcement that the monarch had died. Otley Parish Church historic bells peal at the onset of a period of mourning.
Gradual decline, entropy, or death by natural causes: buildings are still there, but look structurally unkempt, free from droppings, no longer teaming with wildlife, except the occasional clinging shrub or weed sprouting from waterlogged gutters or fall-pipes. Walls strained with the seasonal flow of rain cascading down the side of the building caused by glogged arteries and moribund maintenance cycles.
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