Songs Of The Great War

OPEN Ealing is delighted to combine forces with Patricia Hammond and Matt Redman as they take a nostalgic look at music-making as it was a hundred years ago whilst Chef Vix looks to the future with his food. – what a divine combination!

Hand-crafted, multilayered, acoustic and virtuosic: descriptions that define them all

Matt Redman plays a multitude of instruments from the time, including a banjo that went to the Western Front in WW1 and made it back in one piece! Patricia Hammond sings from her extensive collection of old sheet music, telling the stories behind the songs and presenting not only the enormously familiar (Pack up your Troubles, Roses of Picardy, Long Long Trail) but fascinating glimpses of some songs you might not know so well. We hear tuneful offerings from the French, German and Pacifist perspectives. Chef Vix cooks up a storm to complement the music whilst bringing the dishes right up to date and putting his twist on things.

"We do so appreciate the tender and respectful way you have treated the songs, not wrenching them up to date but just giving them your honest and creative reaction, as of now." – Dame Emma Kirkby

"One of the good things about the ongoing First World War Centenary is the way some of the wartime songs are being reassessed. Songs of the Great War takes them seriously and delivers an almost historically-informed approach, stripping back decades of postwar performance practice in arrangements of famous and neglected numbers that references the evidence from old recordings, from field hospital performances and even the trenches themselves…The pleasure of discovery ought to delight anyone with a soft spot for songs of the period." – Andrew McGregor, BBC Radio 3 Record Reviews