“A Ploughman’s Tale”: recital Robert-John Edwards (Bass-Baritone)/Sara Wilander (piano)

“A Ploughman’s Tale”: recital Robert-John Edwards (Bass-Baritone)/Sara Wilander (piano) Friday, 9 November 2018 7:30pm – 9:30pm

To commemorate the centenary of the end of World War One, a story of an everyman who fought in the trenches, told through songs by composers or with words by poets who lived through the time of The Great War.

Performed by Robert-John Edwards (Bass-Baritone) and Sara Wilander (Piano).

The concert will take place after a short first half when some local poets will help us to remember the war and some of the local men who took part in it, and we will remember those commemorated on the two war memorials at St John’s.

There will then be a fifteen minute interval and a chance to view images of Peterborough from the time of the war during it.

Advance tickets will be available from the welcome counter in St John’s when the church is open at £8 or online for £8.50 (https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/boxoffice/select/SHyHIoGEsOVd)Tickets will also be available on the door for £10.

Doors open at 7pm.

Refreshments will be provided by The Green Backyard pop-up café team.

Beginning with Ivor Gurney’s setting of “I Will Go With My Father A-Ploughing” and ending with the heart-breaking setting of Housman’s “Is My Team Ploughing?” by George Butterworth, himself killed in the trenches, twenty songs by a variety of composers tell the tale of a ploughboy, perhaps born around 1890. We start with him as a child, watching his father plough the fields and learning the farmer’s trade. The songs progress through his youth, where he becomes ambitious and then meets the girl of his dreams, woos her, marries her and has a child. He then joins the army, singing uplifting war songs before the horrors of the “Great” War begin to bite. He becomes home-sick, sees death up close and then, at his last hour, is desperate to go home.

The recital also includes a new original setting of McCrae’s “In Flanders’ Fields” composed by Robert-John Edwards.

Friday, 9 November 2018 7:30pm – 9:30pm