Inspiration, Epiphany, and Extraordinary Music of Outstanding Beauty

All photos © Janne Wieslander (excluding photo no. 1)

In November 2012, Interplay London-Sweden 2012, our first collaboration with our partners in Sweden, proved to be a huge success and massively inspirational from the perspective of the partner organisations, the participating musicians, and audiences. 

Overwhelmingly, audience feedback was that this programme produced ‘extraordinary music of outstanding beauty’, and all who experienced the live performances were struck by the closeness and cohesiveness of our first Interplay – a cohort of exceptionally gifted musicians that exemplified diversity in terms of age, gender, race, culture, experience, and musical style.

All the partners agreed that Interplay was ‘one of the best and most inspiring programmes we’ve ever produced’, and we all now look forward with great anticipation to Interplay 2013.  

The musicians described their Interplay experience as ‘inspirational’, ‘idyllic’, ‘life-changing’.  And we agree wholeheartedly with the audiences: the music was exceptional and, according to Yazz Ahmed, was made possible through ‘enabling the music to grow and flourish’ over an intensive incubation period. But you don’t have to take our word for how wonderful this music was… 

Click here to feast your ears on the broadcast of their concert for Swedish Radio. The ‘Listen’ (‘Lyssna‘) button is on the right hand side (you may have to scroll down a bit) and will be available until mid-January 2013. The performance starts around 3 mins 15 secs into the broadcast. 

There’s also an interview with Gary Crosby around the 51 mins mark, where he talks about the Interplay programme and his epiphany as a participant in the programme. The concert continues after the interview.  Enjoy!

More about Interplay 2012

Interplay was the first programme in an exciting new partnership between Tomorrow’s Warriors and Swedish partners Musik i Syd and Jazz i Malmö that facilitated an artistic collaboration from 11-24 November between six extraordinary musicians from the UK and Sweden whose cultural heritage spans Scandinavia, Russia, the Middle East and the Caribbean:

Yazz Ahmed – trumpet/fluegelhorn (UK), 
Denys Baptiste – saxophones (UK)
, Gary Crosby – double bass (UK), 
Ira Mogilevsky – piano/keyboard (Sweden)
, Samuel Hällkvist – guitar (Sweden)
, Michala Østergaard-Nielsen – drums/percussion (Sweden)  

The group performed four concerts in Sweden (including a special radio concert for broadcast by Swedish Radio), and three concerts and three workshops in England. 

Planning for Interplay 2013 is now underway and the cause of much excitement here at TW HQ and at our partners’ offices in Sweden.