Highlights of the festival include Anna Mudeka’s engrossing and moving immigration journey, Kure Kure, Far Away at The Sussex Hall, White Rock Theatre, on Monday 18th October at 7pm. Then there’s a rollicking good singalong with the Old Time Sailors at the Hastings and St Leonards Sea Angling Association on Friday 22nd October at 7.30pm.

Helen Epega

Or dive into the mystical feminine at the Goddess Day at the Stade on Saturday 23rd October with female storytellers, singers, activists and performance artists, including Helen Epega and the Venus Bushfires, Juliet Russell, Extinction Rebellion’s Red Rebel Brigade, Xanthe Gresham, Emily Hennessey and Sheema Mukherjee, concluding with dazzling Brazilian performance artist, Livia Gaudencio, directed by Violeta Luma in Urucum – Oracle of Demarcated Bodies.

On Saturday 16th October, you’ll find Padmacandra at Hastings Library with The Tale of the Whale.
On Sunday 17th October wrap up warm, gaze at the sky and dream with Cloudscapes, an immersive audio experience by Gobbledegook Theatre in Warrior Square Gardens. Get inspired by poets AFLO. the Poet at the Electric Palace Cinema on Tuesday 19th October and Luke Wright at the Royal Standard (also available to join live on Zoom) on Wednesday 20th October and hear Letters to my Little Queer Self at the Cactus Hound on Thursday 21st October.

And of course there are oodles of fabulous storytellers for children, including storyteller-in-residence, Thomas Taylor, who’ll bring his fantastical, Hastings-inspired, world of Eerie by Sea into classrooms and Hastings Library, just months before it is made into a movie by Sony Pictures. An illustrator as well as an author, Thomas illustrated the cover for the first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. 

The Old Time Sailors

Schools will also take part in the Caribbean Storytelling Cafewith Guyanese storyteller Tuup and Seven Sisters Spices, and costume and wagon making with artist-in-residence, Sarah Evans and Radiator Arts, in preparation for the Roald Dahl-inspired Parade at the free Children’s Storytelling Day at the Stade on Sunday 24th October (12noon-4pm).

“Children’s Day at the Stade is a fabulous opportunity for families to enjoy top quality free puppet shows, storytelling, performances, workshops and a fun parade,” says Mandy Curtis, Festival Director. “This year there are so many treats for everyone to enjoy including Long Nose Puppets, Out of the Bag Theatre, Bambolina and Dodo, Richard Storybeard, Idolrich Theatre, Tuup, Ed Boxall, Loulou Cousins and Sheema Mukherjee.”

Festival Chair, Dick Edwards added: “Thanks, as ever, to our Patron Sir Quentin Blake, for his much-valued support – and for enchanting us every time we see his drawings.’

• For the full programme, see www.hastingsstoryfest.org.uk

Like us all, I truly appreciate the depth and breadth of musical talent that we have in our town, but when I first heard Vox Salva I thought how could such profound beauty come from someone who is not known more widely? Additionally, I felt some regret that this is Juliet Russell’s first solo excursion for over 25 years.

Juliet heads up three community choirs, two in Hastings and one in Brighton. She has performed across the globe and has always been a strong advocate of group singing. She says she is constantly trying to find the sound of the ancient, especially ancient Britain – some kind of sound that comes from between the spheres and is huge yet lost. “I began to strive for the lowest and the highest of notes,” she tells me. Indeed, during the recording of this album, she discovered that she has a full four octave range.

The work is inspired by wide strong landscapes and skies and sets out to share a “glimpse of the divine”. Let me tell you right now that on listening to this I defy anyone not to experience just that. The compositions are inspired by many traditional musics from different cultures. They blend the inimitable harmonies of Bulgarian choirs, with the guttural vocal rhythms of central Africa and the devotional singing drawn from many European countries’ liturgical history. Whilst acknowledging these influences, Juliet also talks a lot about Bessie Smith, I would say that Vox Salva goes beyond and is more than the sum of its antecedental parts. The album is transcendentally moving.

One of Juliet’s original aims for the album was to celebrate just how much can be achieved with just voices. The whole work is that of a vocal ‘orchestra’ that supplies rich textures, complex rhythms and multiple harmonies. Although some of the tracks have instrumentation the body of all the pieces is built by vocals. 

The album’s title translates as ‘The Voice Survived’. This is particularly pertinent given the fact that Juliet, like the majority of artists, have had their very livelihood threatened by lockdown. That such a mature and stunningly beautiful work could have come out of such a period of adversity is testament to Juliet’s fortitude and indomitable creative spirit.

And so this is yet another story of an artist, despite – no because of lockdown – simultaneously struggling to earn a living, and at the same time who has found the freedom and time to focus on digging deep into themselves in order to achieve their greatest work.

A special mention must go to Edward Blakeley, a Hastings based composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer. Juliet tells me that he “totally facilitated making this album the best it could possibly be. He had an extraordinary ability to bring the best out of me as both a singer and composer.”

• This is truly a profoundly beautiful album, yet in order to promote it more widely and to attempt to finance its recording retrospectively, Juliet has started a Crowdfunder campaign in order to support the making of
a short promotional video. If you would like to find out more, or to buy a CD, please go to www.vocalexplosion.co.uk

Crowds of around 10,000 are expected at the 14th annual St Leonards Festival this Saturday 29 June. The festival, starting at noon and finishing at 10 pm, centres on Warrior Square Gardens with community stalls, storytelling, food, activities and live entertainment. There’s also a street market on Kings Road.

The festival will kick off with a welcome from Hastings Mayor, Nigel Sinden, and Council Leader, Peter Chowney: a live Zumba session then really gets the crowd warmed up. There then follow performances from Buzz Performing Arts, Silver Swans, Enoch the Partyman, Gizmo Kids, Oksana and the Midnight Cats, the Boathouse Signing Choir and the Bangladeshi Community. A ‘Colours of St Leonards’ parade along the seafront at 3pm includes local drumming and community groups. It culminates in a drumming circle in Warrior Square. 

The festival headline band, Kissmet, a Bhangra-rock fusion, round off the afternoon entertainment at 5 pm. The band – supported by Eat Global – is playing St Leonards Festival on their way to perform at Glastonbury later the same day. 

“Kissmet are an amazing band,” says Mandy Curtis of local events company, 18 Hours, the festival organisers. “Their infectious energy, gusto and sheer talent have audiences bouncing around with huge smiles on their faces.”

Live storytelling takes place throughout the afternoon in the children’s Storytelling Marquee, sponsored by Hastings Storytelling Festival. Performers include Spud & Yam (Irish/Caribbean storytelling), Richard Storybeard and Anusha Subramanium.

At 4 pm opera singer Thomasin Trezise takes to the stage, before Kissmet’s headline session. Following a short break, it’s time for new young talent to shine, with Incubate musicians from Eggtooth, including Commercial Edge Dance, Elisha Edwards, Purely Grey and Benva Doll.

As the sun begins to set around 9.15pm, Warrior Gardens become the magical setting for Ghost Caribou by Thingumajig Theatre. Giant illuminated Caribou puppets will be welcomed to the gardens by a specially commissioned score composed by Juliet Russell and performed by singers from the Vocal Explosion Massive.

A light show in Bottle Alley brings the day to an end at 10.15pm.

Juliet Russell’s music has been both heard and sung by over 40,000 people in over 30 countries. Closer to home she leads the ‘Gospel Soul Choir’ in Hastings, which I can testify sounds wonderful. This project seeks to develop the gospel form, but is wholly secular in purpose. She also runs Hastings Vocal Explosion, which is more genre-free, drawing on the music of indigenous cultures and different times from such sources as Eastern European folk, and traditions from the African continent, Central and South America.

A chance meeting with Juliet on Kings Road SL put paid to the fact that neither of us knew the other lived here. We go way back and used to play at festivals together. I have seen Juliet perform alchemy with over a thousand people, turning them from tired, over-indulged WOMAD-goers to a fully-fledged vocal unit individually flushed and joyous as they experienced the transcendental power of communal singing on a large scale.

Juliet has the vocal range, tone and ability to be a successful solo singer and composer in any context, instead she works with and for others. Brought up in a small minster town in the Midlands, she found herself getting involved in religion-based choirs despite traditional barriers. She cites Bessie Smith, the Cocteau Twins and Trio Bulgarka as major life-changing influences that helped develop her uncompromising and eclectic attitude.

The power of her work was harnessed at a recent International Women’s Forum conference in Barcelona where Juliet led over 1,500 delegates in a mass sing. The impromptu choir embraced over 30 mother tongues and yet within a short time the group cohered into a harmonious pan-national  vocal ensemble. Wouldn’t it benefit us all, if all international diplomatic negotiations had a Vocal Explosion experience as a standard part of the process?

When you sing with others like this you lose your sense of self, your vocal contribution is lost in the overall sum of the parts and it can feel exhilarating.

Nowadays, we live in a God-shaped hole and the Sunday routine of local communal worship has withered and died. In some sense, the baby has been unceremoniously thrown out with the bathwater. Notably, popular philosophers like Alain de Botton are coming to realise this with a view that counterpoints the harshness of the new atheism. Communal, secular singing brings people together, it provides spiritual solace in a time when the firm grip of organised religion has loosened. Community singing is effective for bonding large groups, making it ideal for improving our broader social networks and contributing to neighbourhood cohesion. More than that, it brings untold individual health benefits, including endorphin rushes similar to those we get when we laugh or eat chocolate. Singing increases the depth of breathing and thus in turn blood flow. Recent research also suggests that increased feelings of connectedness felt when singing en masse can have a huge positive impact on mental health and even alleviate depression.

At the time of writing, I am pleased to reveal that a Hastings Vocal Explosion version of the Christmas carol ‘O Come, O Come, Emmanual’ has been shortlisted for the pre-season playlist on Classic FM. Whilst exciting, this is hardly surprising when you hear the quality of the composition and the depth of feeling expressed in the piece. As well as this, two of her choir compositions have been shortlisted to be part of an exhibition at the Barbican Centre in Spring 2019.

Get yourself into the blast
radius of Vocal Explosion, either as participant or audience member, as soon as you can.

n For more information about upcoming shows, commissions
or to participate go to  vocalexplosion.co.uk