Concert News

Live audiences welcomed back for Angel Field Festival 2021

• 24th May 2021

Audiences are being welcomed back to Liverpool theatres for a ten day arts festival that’s set to explore themes of ‘communication and information’. 

The Angel Field Festival, organised by Liverpool Hope University, launches Thursday June 24th and runs to Saturday July 3rd. 

Headline acts will include Americana band Django Rhinestone, which features former Death in Vegas founder Steve Hellier on guitar, as well as a spectacular stage performance of The Ballad of Mulan – the story of a real Chinese heroine that inspired Disney’s famous Mulan movie. 

Centred on Hope’s famous Cornerstone and Capstone theatres, other acts include magician and performer Vincent Gambini, contemporary chamber music ensemble rarescale and Bite! Theatre’s Pucker Up, a political comedy show that’ll make you question what you think you know about femininity and female empowerment. 

There will also be a performance of music from acclaimed Liverpool composer Stephen Pratt.

And festival organiser Professor Stephen Davismoon says crowds will be able to take their rightful places in theatre seats – with safe social distancing measures in place – as COVID-19 restrictions continue to be eased. 

Prof. Davismoon, Head of Hope’s School of Creative & Performing Arts, said the event is on course to be one of the ‘first fully “live” festivals to take place in the UK since the commencement of the world pandemic’. 

He adds: “2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the sending of the first email and the 50th anniversary of the development of the first microprocessor.  The main theme of our festival this year marks these anniversaries – Communication and Information

“There are many things that lockdown has taught us about what is important – vital even – to life, possibly above all it’s the loss of the presence of others – those close to us, as well as the possibility of spending time with those that we’ve never met before; the opportunity to make new friends and expand our lives – to communicate and gain information.

“It’s my hope that the Angel Field Festival this summer will offer us many occasions to share time and space with others allowing us opportunities to marvel, laugh and contemplate life.”

As part of the festival’s exploration of ‘communication and information’, audiences are also invited to two unique sound installations. 

The About Us-For Us show will feature, among other things, telephone calls recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic and which document the experiences of people living in West Everton during this troubling period of time. 

And the immersive and interactive Simul Sunder exhibition will allow visitors to select YouTube videos before the clips are run through various digital processors to create ‘ambient soundscapes and abstract visualisations’. Those experiences will also be live-streamed over the Internet. 

The Angel Field Festival will showcase the work of Hope students through various displays and performances. 

Meanwhile there will also be a screening of Charlie Chaplin’s 1921 film The Kid to coincide with the movie’s 100th anniversary. The film will be screened in Hope’s Capstone Theatre – on the very same site that London-born Chaplin himself attended the former St Francis Xavier Elementary school during his brief time in Everton as a young boy in 1900.

Prof Davismoon reveals: “The festival features music, fine art, story-telling, dance, drama, film, magic and comedy. I always attempt to bring international culture to Everton; with the current travel constraints this has proven much more difficult.  C

“However, we can say that we have culture on offer from China, Argentina, Italy, Brazil, Serbia, Russia, Australia, USA, India amongst many other regions of the world as well as that, that is much closer to home.”

For the full line-up, as well as ticketing details, please visit: https://www.hope.ac.uk/news/allnews/angel-field-festival-2021-line-up-revealed.html

FULL LIST OF EVENTS:

Liverpool Hope Storytelling Showcase

Thursday 24th June, 7.30pm

Free Admission

Capstone Theatre

Ticket link: https://www.ticketquarter.co.uk/Online/storytelling-21

In the toughest times, stories are an essential survival-kit. They gift us courage and endurance. They challenge us to hope. They remind us how to be brave. How to care and be kind. How to be human.

So we’re delighted to invite you to join Liverpool Hope University’s young storytellers for an evening of live spoken-word and contemporary digital story-spinning. Welcome to a place where ancient myths and tall stories, outrageous fantasy and true-life narratives collide, and spill new light into all our lives …

This showcase is presented in celebration of NHS and Key Workers, with gratitude and thanks from the whole Hope Community.

About Us-For Us (Sound Installation)

Friday 25th June, 11am – 3pm

Free Admission

COR 200

No tickets necessary

About Us-For Us is a sound artwork created in West Everton and the surrounding areas. It features the voices of three community members alongside field recordings from the local area. Telephone calls recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic illustrate the experiences of local residents during this difficult time.

The work’s title refers to West Everton Community Council’s powerful principle: “nothing about us, without us, is for us.” As a collaboration between local residents and an outside musician (John Lowndes), the sound work explores what it means to represent the area during austerity and the pandemic.

Liverpool Hope Fine Art and Design Degree Show

Friday 25th June, 5pm

Free Admission

Cornerstone Building

Ticket link: https://www.ticketquarter.co.uk/Online/art-design-21

rarescale

Friday 25th June, 8pm

£11.50 (Free to Hope students and staff)

Capstone Theatre

Ticket link: https://www.ticketquarter.co.uk/online/rarescale-21

rarescale is a flexible-instrumentation contemporary chamber music ensemble, formed by low flutes specialist Carla Rees in 2003 with the aim of creating and championing new repertoire for her instruments. Bringing together performers with a passion for new music, collaboration and supporting the work of both emerging and established composers, rarescale has a core of 9 players who perform in a combination of small chamber formations.

rarescale celebrated its 10th Anniversary in 2013 with the premieres of 17 new works in ten days, at a competition for composers at the Royal College of Music, and a Concerto Gala Concert at Shoreditch Church. The ensemble has recorded for BBC Radio 3, as well as five discs for its own label, rarescale records. 

In this concert rarescale will perform premieres of new works by Stephen Davismoon, Sonia Allori, Mike Vaughan and Eduardo Miranda, as well Nono’s classic A Pierre. 

Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid (Screening)

Saturday 26th June, 11am

Free Admission

Capstone Theatre

Ticket link: https://www.ticketquarter.co.uk/Online/the-kid-21

Duration: 1 hour

Cert: U

To celebrate the centenary of Charlie Chaplin’s first full-length feature The Kid (1921), the film will be screened in Liverpool Hope’s Capstone Theatre, on the very same site that Chaplin himself attended school (St Francis Xavier Elementary School) during his brief time in Everton as a young boy in 1900.

The Kid is a silent masterpiece about a tramp who discovers a little orphan, played by Jackie Coogan, and brings him up but is left desolate when the orphanage reclaims him. 

As a supporting feature, Hope student composer Bethany McNerlin and animator Mike Raymond introduce and present their short film One World, One Climate. 

Bite! Theatre presents Pucker Up

Saturday 26th June, 7.30pm

£11.50 (Free to Hope students and staff)

Capstone Theatre

Ticket link: https://www.ticketquarter.co.uk/Online/pucker-up-21

Taking on the theme of “Information and Communication”, Bite! Theatre explores the societal construction of femininity through their debut piece, Pucker Up. Combining immersive practices with clowning, dance and quirky visual performance with zestful comedy and dark political bite, they explore popular culture and mass marketing, challenging the communication of reductive ideologies in contemporary media culture and their own active consumption of these messages.

Pucker Up asks the audience to consider their own role in the suppression of women and the binary ways in which we think, examining the insidious and harmful messaging women endure and internalise throughout their lives. Engage in a nuanced discussion of female empowerment, consumerism and collective liberation, and expect in your face ‘girly-ness’, grotesque burlesque, unapologetic angry feminists and the transformative powers of a woman’s bathroom. 

Pagoda Chinese Ensemble

(Sponsored by The Confucius Institute)

Sunday 27th June, 3pm

£11.50 (Free to Hope students and staff)

Capstone Theatre

Ticket link: https://www.ticketquarter.co.uk/Online/chinese-orchestra-21

An afternoon of music from China, showing you the musical development since the Warring State Period (475-221BC) to present day, how music in China has been influenced throughout history by cultures, trade and language inside and outside of China, the diversity of Chinese music and its composition structure compared to that of Western music, and how Chinese sound have been adapted to modern day contemporary music.

** This event is kindly supported by The Confucius Institute at The University of LIverpool. 

The Ballad of Mulan

(Sponsored by The Confucius Institute)

Sunday 27th June, 5.30pm

£11.50 (Free to Hope students and staff)

Capstone Theatre

Ticket link: https://www.ticketquarter.co.uk/Online/ballad-of-mulan-21

Woman, warrior, Legend. For ten years Mulan disguised as a man, has fought for the Chinese Empire. Now the fighting is coming to an end, one last battle and she will be going home – but can she return to her old life, become a woman again. A search for identity in a violent world. 

From the team behind Edinburgh fringe Sell-Out The Unknown Soldier, Grist to the Mill, and working in collaboration with British-East-Asian theatre Company Red Dragonfly Productions, we bring you the real Chinese heroine that inspired Disney’s animation and live-feature Mulan.

‘A powerful exploration of gender, war, and identity, as relevant and timely today as ever’ **** – Tulpa Magazine, Adelaide Fringe

On Reflection – Music by Stephen Pratt

Monday 28th June, 7pm (pre-concert talk), 7.30pm (concert)

£11.50 (Free to Hope students and staff)

Capstone Theatre

Ticket link: https://www.ticketquarter.co.uk/online/stephen-pratt-21

For almost his entire career, Stephen Pratt has been based in his hometown city of Liverpool. He began teaching music at Christ’s College – one of Hope’s founding institutions – in 1971 before eventually becoming head of Hope’s Music department from 1991 to 2012. 

As a composer, Stephen’s career also reflects his lifelong association with Liverpool and the North-West; he has had around a dozen major works premiered by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Ensemble 10/10, and has also worked closely with the Manchester-based ensemble Psappha and members of tonight’s ensemble, Pixels. Beyond Liverpool, his work has been heard at home and abroad, including performances at London’s South Bank, and through broadcasts on BBC Radio 3. Stephen has also worked as a broadcaster for the BBC, including interviewing composers such as Michael Tippett, Peter Maxwell Davies and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

NB: The concert starts at 7.30pm. There will be a pre-concert event open to all ticket-holders at 7pm.

Lunchtime Dance Showcase

Tuesday 29th June, 1pm

Free Admission

Capstone Theatre

Ticket link: tba

This lunchtime presentation will include the screening of two new Dance films by choreographer Dora Frankel – Touch the Beast and Tread Lightly on the Planet.

Touch the Beast evokes a gothic world through the lens of the 21st Century, featuring a charismatic cast caught in a moment of time; sensual, strange, gender fluid it is inspired by the tales and poems of Edgar Allan Poe and the visual art of Aubrey Beardsley.

Tread lightly on the Planet is the third and final part of a JMW Turner-inspired trilogy, along with part 1, The Unfolding Sky: Turner in the North (2013) and part 2, Figures in a Floating Landscape (2019). The film coincides with Dora Frankel’s 70th birthday and celebrations of her nearly fifty year career. It is her fourth collaboration with composer Peter Coyte.

The rest of the lunchtime programme will consist of a live Bharatanatyam dance performance by award-winning dancer/choreographer Santosh Nair. Santosh’s piece will explore the grammar of Bharatanatyam dance, creating a journey through the repertoire of this ancient Hindu dance form.

Liverpool Hope Directing Showcase

Tuesday 29th June, 7.30pm

Free Admission

Capstone Theatre

Ticket link: https://www.ticketquarter.co.uk/Online/directing-21

Theatre is the place we come to imagine together – so what happens in a year when we can’t do that? How do we find new places and platforms for our collective dreaming?

This showcase celebrates the work of Hope final-year directors and first-year actors, who’ve been working together this spring to re-imagine their collaborative art in new digital and multimedia forms. Their diverse and challenging end-of-year projects invite us to venture into chat-rooms and bedrooms, law courts, artists’ studios and the dark spaces of our dreams, sampling new ways to make theatre – and to connect with each other – in the twenty-first century.

Simul Sunder (Sound Installation)

Wednesday 30th June, 11am – 3pm

Free Admission

COR 200

No tickets necessary

Simul Sunder is an interactive installation that converts online videos into audiovisual material. Created as a response to the seemingly endless consumption of online content due to the distancing measures brought by the 2020 pandemic, the aim was to turn passive viewers into active participants of a performance.

Inside the installation room, four computers are available for visitors to search and select YouTube content. The sound and video from each computer are transmitted to a processing system that creates ambient soundscapes and abstract visualisations. Several parameters defining the resulting material’s texture, energy, and localisation across the multichannel sound system are determined according to the original content’s characteristics, with a further set of eight parameters available for manipulation from a tablet.

As well as inviting in-person participants, the installation will also be streamed live. Remote visitors will be able to interact with the system’s parameters through Open Sound Control apps, such as TouchOSC, Mrmr, OSC Controller, and so on. App templates and the necessary instructions will be made available closer to the launch of the installation.

Teatro Pomodoro presents Sirens, Men and Crabs

Wednesday 30th June, 8pm

£11.50 (Free to Hope students and staff)

Capstone Theatre

Ticket link: https://www.ticketquarter.co.uk/Online/sirens-men-crabs-21

Welcome to a world where the Sirens are the unsung heroines, Ulysses will never be the hero he wants to be and Giant Crabs are taking over. Sirens, Men and Crabs is a surreal show that blends clown and cutting satire, taking you on a hilarious journey of Greek epics leaving Mount Olympus in ruins.

While it will make you laugh, the use of Greek Tragedy with Teatro Pomodoros unique, absurd twist is meant to deliver underlying messages about current social issues. Prepare to be lured in by the seductive, comic song of the Sirens! 

Directed by Mark Bell (The Play That Goes Wrong).

Liverpool Hope Music Department Summer Concert

Thursday 1st July, 7.30pm

Free Admission

Capstone Theatre

Ticket link: https://www.ticketquarter.co.uk/online/summer-concert-21

This performance will include items by Hope Big Band, directed by Dr Tom Sykes, and Hope Choir, under the leadership of Dr Chris McElroy. The rest of the programme will feature pieces in a range of styles by some of Hope’s final year music and popular music students.

Liverpool Hope Music Department Lunchtime Live

Friday 2nd July, 12 noon

Free Admission

Capstone Theatre

Ticket link: https://www.ticketquarter.co.uk/Online/lunchtime-concert-21

While the past 12 months have been a challenging year for performing musicians, Hope’s music students have been working hard on their performance skills under the tuition of department staff. We are delighted to present a selection of student performances in a range of music styles.

Django Rhinestone: Snake Oil – Stories for the Soul

Friday 2nd July, 8pm

£11.50 (Free to Hope students and staff)

Capstone Theatre

Ticket link: https://www.ticketquarter.co.uk/Online/django-rhinestone-21

Stories are the reason you listen to songs, Django Rhinestone has plenty to sell like a traveling circus of tales that take you someplace else. But are the stories some sort of snake oil or are they real? You’ll have to decide: it’s a long tradition of country music to blur the two. Snake oil at its best makes you feel like you’ve found the answer, Django Rhinestone might be it.

Features Steve Hellier, founder of critically acclaimed dance act Death in Vegas, on guitar. 

Support artists to be announced.

The Disappearing of Vincent Gambini

Saturday 3rd July, 4pm

£11.50 (Free to Hope students and staff)

Capstone Theatre

Ticket link: https://www.ticketquarter.co.uk/Online/vincent-gambini-21

Film screening, plus live magic performance

Magician Vincent Gambini returns to the Angel Field Festival with a film and a live performance.

The film charts the process of Vincent Gambini (aka performance artist Augusto Corrieri) coming to terms with the cancellation of his 2020 UK theatre tour, and reaching out to film maker Hugo Glendinning in the attempt to make a film about the cancelled magic show. The film will be accompanied by Gambini’s first return to the stage, in which he will likely be trying to remember how to shuffle a deck of cards, whilst savouring the thrill of not being stuck inside his flat. The film is supported by Arts Council England.

The Music of Astor Piazzolla – A Centenary Celebration

Saturday 3rd July, 7.30pm

£11.50 (Free to Hope students and staff)

Capstone Theatre

Ticket link: https://www.ticketquarter.co.uk/online/astor-piazzolla-21

Studio 6 celebrates Astor Piazzolla’s centenary with a programme of some of the composer’s best loved works.

Born in Argentina in 1921 and raised in the musical melting pot of New York City before returning to his native country, Astor Piazzolla revolutionized the tango as a compositional form, incorporating jazz and classical idioms into what he called nuevo tango. He was also a virtuoso bandoneon player, an Argentine/Uruguayan instrument somewhat similar to an accordion.

Piazzolla was spotted playing bandoneon by renowned pianist Artur Rubenstein, who encouraged him to study composition with noted Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera. Ginastera, in turn, persuaded Piazzolla to enter a composition contest, and by winning, he was granted a scholarship to study with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Boulanger quickly convinced Piazzolla to abandon his formal compositions, which she felt lacked originality, and explore his musical roots. He returned to Argentina, formed an octet, and developed his nuevo tango style of composition.