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OperaUpClose - fundraising concert for Red Cross in Japan

Adam Spreadbury-Maher

Theatre news

THIS Sunday (March 27, 2011), Olivier Award-winning OperaUpClose are holding a major fundraising concert for the Red Cross in Japan. Entitled The Tokyo Song Cycle, it will take place at the 500-seat St Mary’s Church, Islington.

Commissioned a little over a week ago, the event is a 45-minute song cycle for soprano, baritone and piano, and was specially commissioned from one of the opera world’s most exciting young composers, Stephen Crowe.

It uses facts, figures and images from the international press used to report to the western world the human devastation occurring in Japan following the largest earthquake in human history.

OperaUpClose Artistic Director Adam Spreadbury-Maher said:

“OperaUpClose are responding in the only way we know how, with singing and music. Stephen Crowe has composed his song cycle for Japan in only 7 days, and we hope to raise funds for the Red Cross but also awareness of the magnitude of this world-changing human even.

“This song cycle for Japan will perhaps ensure that we all know exactly what is going on, as the audience will experience the information, facts etc in a different way. It will arrest the audience, and ask them to meditate on the situation, which I hope will then provoke the appropriate action that our fellow human beings in Japan deserve.”

Every penny raised will be donated to the Red Cross, specifically to help them in their efforts helping the Japanese people in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake.

Tickets: £10 to £100 – available from the box office on 020 7478 0160.

Time: 3pm.

NB: St Mary’s Church, Islington, is directly across the road from London’s Little Opera House at the King’s Head Theatre at 115 Upper Street, London, N1.