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Grand Union Orchestra

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…

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Live Review

Grand Union Orchestra at Wilton's Music Hall

Read "Grand Union Orchestra at Wilton's Music Hall" reviewed by Duncan Heining


Grand Union Orchestra Wilton's Music Hall London June 14, 2017 Song of Contagion, Grand Union Orchestra's latest show, would be a strange subject indeed for any other ensemble. But for leader/composer Tony Haynes and his comrades, it sits perfectly within the orchestra's progressive dialogue between the musics and diverse histories of this small planet. Emerging from a conversation between Haynes and epidemiologist Elizabeth Pisani, Song of Contagion is about disease. ...

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Live Review

Grand Union at the Hackney Empire

Read "Grand Union at the Hackney Empire" reviewed by Duncan Heining


Grand Union Orchestra Hackney Empire Undream'd Shores London November 2, 2014 A while ago, I started to suggest to Tony Haynes -Grand Union's artistic director -that he write an opera. I stopped mid-sentence, suddenly realising that he's been doing just that for years. Undream'd Shores is less an opera, more a song cycle but those familiar, recurring GUO themes of migration, exile, loss and ultimate transcendence were all present at this their most recent ...

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Extended Analysis

Grand Union Orchestra: The Song of Many Tongues

Read "Grand Union Orchestra: The Song of Many Tongues" reviewed by Duncan Heining


The Song of Many Tongues was the first album of the Grand Union Orchestra. Originally only available on cassette, this marks its first CD release and GUO's thirty-year-long history under the leadership of composer/director Tony Haynes. It's a testament to continuity and musical development but also to the commitment of its members to this unique vision. Of those present here, Claude Deppa, Chris Biscoe, Ros Davies, Andy Grappy, Carlos Fuentes, Gerry Hunt, Dave Adams and, of course, Haynes himself are ...

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Live Review

Grand Union Orchestra: London, UK, June 7, 2013

Read "Grand Union Orchestra: London, UK, June 7, 2013" reviewed by Duncan Heining


Grand Union OrchestraSpirits of Cable StreetWilton'sLondon, UKJune 7, 2013A tribute to music hall star Marie Lloyd set to a reggae beat? Could only be Grand Union Orchestra. Surprisingly, this is only the band's second visit to Wilton's, this historic East End venue that sits very close to the site of the battle of Cable Street. If you caught Stephen Poliakoff's 1930s jazz drama, Dancing on the Edge, on the BBC, then you may ...

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Profile

Grand Union Orchestra: Music and Movement

Read "Grand Union Orchestra: Music and Movement" reviewed by Duncan Heining


In March, 2012, The Grand Union Orchestra, one of the jazz world's finest and most ambitious ensembles, celebrates its thirtieth anniversary. Maybe you haven't heard of the band yet but if you have the chances are you'll revel in its kaleidoscopic blending of jazz and music from across the planet. Though based in the East End of London, it would be an outrageous misnomer to call it “Britain's Grand Union Orchestra." After all, it draws its participants from Africa, the ...

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Extended Analysis

Grand Union Orchestra: If Paradise

Read "Grand Union Orchestra: If Paradise" reviewed by Chris May


Grand Union OrchestraIf ParadiseRed Gold2011 If Paradise, the biggest jewel in British composer, keyboardist and trombonist Tony Haynes' recording career to date, joins a handful of orchestral albums which have not so much crossed genre and cultural boundaries as rendered them meaningless. Off-piste singularities may exclude these discs from mainstream jazz history, but their exalted singularity make them artifacts to be treasured. Other high-carat items are pianist Joachim Kühn and arranger ...

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Live Review

Grand Union Orchestra at LSO St Luke's, London

Read "Grand Union Orchestra at LSO St Luke's, London" reviewed by Chris May


Billed, irresistibly, as 'World Musicians United In A Journey Through Bhangra, Babylon & The Blues,' these two performances (on 23 & 24 October) by the 19-piece world-jazz Grand Union Orchestra promised much, and delivered it all - including the London premiere of the band's most recent major work, the impassioned raga-based suite If Paradise... , inspired by recent history in the Middle East.

The Back Story:

Little known outside British jazz circles, GUO was formed by the visionary composer and ...

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Performance / Tour

The Grand Union Orchestra at Shoreditch Town Hall on December 9th at 8pm

The Grand Union Orchestra at Shoreditch Town Hall on December 9th at 8pm

Source: All About Jazz

Uncharted Crossings- The Backstory of the Windrush Generation Uncharted Crossings may well be Grand Union Orchestra’s most powerful and politically committed show in its thirty-year history. The music traces the contribution to British culture of the people who came to these shores from the Caribbean from the late forties onwards. In many ways, theirs was just a chapter in a story that had begun five centuries earlier on the slave ships that crossed the Atlantic carrying human cargo to the ...

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

The Song of Many...

Redgold Records
2014

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Grand Union...

Redgold Records
2014

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Grand Union...

Unknown label
2011

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Freedom Calls

Rune Grammofon
1989

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Videos

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