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About Grand Union Orchestra
Grand Union, the UK's most successful and diverse world/jazz orchestra was established in 1984. The Grand Union Orchestra is the acknowledged pioneer and leading exponent of original, cross-cultural music making. It assembles musicians from virtually every part of the world to create and perform new work drawing on their own experience, culture and musical background.
Grand Union’s priority is live performance and touring. Early shows include The Song of Many Tongues, A Book of Numbers and Songlines, followed by Freedom Calls, The Rhythm of Tides, Now Comes the Dragon’s Hour and If Paradise… ” all of which were recorded by the BBC, broadcast on Radio 3 and subsequently published as CDs. Over the last 20 years, Grand Union has notched up hundreds of performances across virtually the whole of the UK, and has produced projects in Holland, Germany, Paris, Luxembourg, Lisbon & Southern Portugal, Shanghai, Turkey, Bangladesh and Australia.
Grand Union is also well known for its large-scale participatory shows, combining student musicians and folkloric groups with the Orchestra. Such projects include Threads, If Music Could.… and Dancing in the Flames; and more recently Where the Rivers Meet at Sadler’s Wells Theatre and Bhangra, Babylon and the Blues, a touring project commissioned by the Eastern Orchestral Board ” both of which were also broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Doctor Carnival was first seen in 2001, and since then has appeared in major venues in twelve regions from the South Coast to Orkney. On Liberation Street was first performed at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds in November 2005, then at Wavendon and Gateshead, and continues to be Grand Union’s flagship large-scale show.
Grand Union’s most current touring show is Can’t Chain Up Me Mind (premiered summer 2007), commissioned to commemorate the bicentenary of abolition of the transatlantic slave trade.
