We are delighted to announce a new project, the Surtierra Touring Project, which WemsFest will be delivering locally in collaboration with London-based Anglo-Chilean band Quimantu in the first half of 2025!
The Surtierra Touring Project is a large-scale project, run by Quimantu and Musiko Musika (an artist-led music education and cultural organisation). The project will work with five community choirs to tour performances of Mauricio Venegas-Astorga‘s Misa de los Mineros (Miners’ Mass), in Hampshire, West Sussex, and Dorset, culminating with two large-scale performances in London as part of Refugee Week in June 2025, in which all singers/choirs that have been involved in the project will be invited to perform together.
Locally for WemsFest, this project will involve the creation of a collaborative community choir, bringing together locals from all walks of life, as well as deliberately involving refugees who live locally. We have two brilliant choir leaders, Emily Barden and Laura Blake, who will lead our choir. The WemsFest Choir will form to learn, rehearse, and perform the Misa de los Mineros, as well as other pieces chosen by the choir. The choir will perform three local performances of the Misa de los Mineros in Spring 2025, and will then travel to London for a special performance at St Paul’s Church in Covent Garden, in a grand finale for the project in June 2025. For some performances, the WemsFest choir will be joined by similar collaborative community choirs from Andover, Southampton, and Dorset.
WemsFest local performance dates are as follows:
Saturday 5th April, 7pm – St Paul’s Church, Chichester, PO19 6FT
Friday 9th May, 7pm – Park Community School, Leigh Park, Havant, PO9 4BU
Saturday 14th June, 7pm – Portsmouth Cathedral, Portsmouth, PO1 2HA
Tickets for these three local performances are available now at Bookends and Harbour Records and online at www.WeGotTickets.com/WemsFest
*Note tickets cost £12.50 general admission / £7.50 student/unwaged/Universal Credit
If you require special assistance or have mobility difficulties, please contact us in advance and we will do our very best to accommodate you so that you are comfortable.
As part of our celebrations of Refugee Week 2025, the WemsFest Choir will also perform in London, at St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden, WC2E 9ED:
Fri 20th June, 7.30pm
Details and ticket links will be available shortly.
Licensed bar at all performances
Finally, this project is being supported by a generous grant from Arts Council England, but we need to support the project with local fundraising – we have a target of raising £15,000 locally. This money will be used to deliver our arm of the project – paying for the hire of rehearsal spaces and performance venues, paying for the choir leaders who will teach the piece to the choir, paying for the choir’s transportation to and from London for the Finale Performance, etc. If you are interested to donate or to help us raise funds to deliver the Surtierra Touring Project, we’d be absolutely chuffed! You can click on the JustGiving logo below to make a donation to help us deliver this project. Alternatively, if you have fundraising ideas, please get in touch with Mark Ringwood at adwemsfest@gmail.com
