Share

Aberdeen community united in song as it celebrates culture and heritage

An Aberdeen community is set to celebrate its culture and heritage through the medium of music on Saturday.

In recent years Aberdeen’s Torry community has welcomed a large influx of residents from Central and Eastern Europe.

In order to help the community integrate together an exciting community music project has helped neighbours old and new to explore their creative sides and write original songs, uniting generations and nationalities in the process.

The music project, entitled Parallel Lives: Herring Girls and Migrant Workers, came about when musician Petra Vergunst and Torry Arts Forum chairman Jimmy Thomson were brought together by Aberdeen City Council Community Arts Officer Mandy Clarke.

Both were keen to create an intergenerational choir in Torry and with support from Aberdeen City Council Arts Development and Fairer Scotland Funding they quickly got to work to gather local interest.

Parallel Lives has brought together people born and raised in Torry and their new neighbours who have left their homes in Central and Eastern Europe to start new lives in the Granite City.

Using Scottish folk song ‘The Song Of The Fish Gutters’, which describes the experiences of young women known as herring girls from the North-east of Scotland who travelled to Great Yarmouth in England to work in the herring industry, as their starting point the group realised they could all relate to the new resident’s feelings at having left their lives and loved ones behind.

The long-term Torry residents used the song’s words as inspiration to think about the herring girls feeling of migrating for work while a group of Polish and Czech mothers taking part reflected upon their own experiences of moving to, and settling down in Torry.

Working together at a series of songwriting workshops, both groups were able to capture their feelings in original songs and will come together to sing with family and friends for the first time on Saturday.

The group will perform ‘We’ve Left Oor Hame in Aiberdeen’, which was written by Alice, Betty, Billie, Chrissy, Freda, Jimmy and Mary to the melody of Robert Burns’ ‘A Man’s A Man for A’ That’ as well as ‘We Came Here For A Better Life’, which was written by community musician Petra Vergunst and based on the experiences of Ewa, Gosia, Kasia, Krystyna, Natalia, Yvonna and Zuzia, who all originate from Poland and the Czech Republic but moved to Torry over the past few months and years.

Mandy Clarke, Aberdeen City Council Community Arts Officer, said: “The project has been a great starting point to engage the Torry community in a new and interesting project that has not only brought people together to write and sing their own songs, but to celebrate their local community and its heritage.

“Arts Development will continue to work in collaboration to develop the project further, taking the songs out to a wider audience and involving younger generations.”

On Saturday (29 October) the two groups will sing The Song of The Fish Gutters and the two new songs at Tullos Community Centre, before celebrating their achievements with a taste of traditional Scottish and Eastern European cuisine afterwards.

The Torry participants of the project will be taking part in a rehearsal of their song ‘We’ve Left Oor Hame in Aiberdeen’ on Friday (28 October) at 10.30am at the community centre. The rehearsal is open to all media who wish to informally meet and interview participants as well as hearing their song.

112 views