Together Is Beautiful The Earth Orchestra

• 1 Together Is Beautiful 06:51
• 2 Mirage 04:59
• 3 Tracks In The Ice 03:02
• 4 Out N Back 02:51
• 5 Maya's Song 03:25
• 6 Drifting Through Blue 04:53
• 7 Calling 03:54
• 8 Earth Orchestra Interlude 01:48
• 9 Rhythm-m 04:30
• Total Runtime 36:13

Info zu Together Is Beautiful

For the first time ever, musicians from every country in the world record together on Together Is Beautiful, the most significant statement of global creative optimism for a generation. Valerie, a pianist, violinist and music teacher, is part of an international orchestra called The Earth Orchestra. The orchestral group release their first piece Together is Beautiful.

The Earth Orchestra is a worldwide orchestral project that aims to bring all the countries in the world together to create a song and celebrate the world we live in. The group features at least one musician from all 197 countries. The idea was created two years ago by Emma Newman and Jude Dexter Smith. They wanted to create the first worldwide orchestra. The pair have been searching and contacting musicians all over the world with only a handful of countries left to participate. Musicians were brought to London’s famous Abbey Road Studios to record with The Earth Orchestra and music composer George Fenton.

In 2018, an ambitious idea emerged to ask at least one musician from each country – 197 in total – to record a piece of music together, in the hope that they could light a beacon of hope for our future. Cultural and language barriers were not in question for those who accepted the challenge, each having a deep understanding of the unifying power of music.

“Connecting with a musician from every single country in the world has been an incredible experience for us both. Music is such a potent tool of communication, and to see these people and hear the final recording with all 197 musicians on it is so powerful. We are humbled by the experience and hope that it brings joy to what has been an incredibly challenging year globally for everyone around the world.” Emma Newman & Jude Dexter Smith (Project Directors, The Earth Orchestra)

Over the course of three years, with delays due to the ongoing global pandemic, musicians from all over the globe came together to bring The Earth Orchestra and song ‘Together Is Beautiful’ to life. Under the watchful eye of BAFTA- winning composer George Fenton (The Blue Planet, Ghandi, Cry Freedom), who has written the music specially for those involved, the first themes and melodies of this incredible piece begin to emerge.

Nyamdavaa said: “It makes so much sense that everyone can be different, everyone living in different countries, different language, different culture, but in the end we are just making this one piece of music, so beautifully as one, as a whole together.”

Fenton said: “The Earth Orchestra is the largest and in my view the most significant orchestra in history. The willingness of these gifted and diverse people to participate says it all for me. It’s simple and profound.”

"Together Is Beautiful attempts to crowbar classical, jazz, reggae, hip-hop and folk, along with myriad indigenous traditions, inside six minutes and 51 seconds. The promise of hearing the Darbuka drum of Libya’s Nadia Al Faghih Hasan, pounding against the Uruguyan percussion of Edgardo Cambon, elevating the Mongolian throat singing of Bat-Erdene Victor Nyamdavaa to ecstatic heights, could have made for a thrilling sound clash. Yet the distillation of those 197 potent musical styles has resulted a disappointingly polite global stew. It’s the kind of pleasantly anonymous ambient wash of sound one might encounter floating across the speakers in a New Age shop. It’s certainly a magnificent achievement and heartening to see states in conflict, such as Saudi Arabia and Yemen, united by the power of piano and the oud." (Adam Sherwin, inews.co.uk)

The Earth Orchestra George Fenton, conductor


Produced by George Fenton

George Fenton
was born in Bromley, Kent in 1949. He was one of five siblings. His father was a mechanical engineer, and his mother had been a dancer and dance teacher before becoming a nurse during the war. Both his parents were musical – his mother played the piano and his father the drums – but weren’t musicians. However, his great grandfather on his father’s side was a conductor, and as a child had been a chorister and had even sung at the funeral of the first Duke of Wellington. George sang in church choirs as a boy, but it was the electric guitar – a Rosetti Lucky 7 – that first won his heart at the age of 7.

At the age of 12, George began to study the church organ. This was a crucial part of his musical upbringing. Not because of the organ itself (although church music was to be a lasting influence on his writing), but because it was at this point that he was fortunate enough to encounter two exceptionally gifted musicians who would have a lasting influence on him. They were both former cathedral organists and worked at St Edward’s School in Oxford: David Pettit was the director of music, and Peter Whitehouse the assistant director. David Pettit went on to have an outstanding career as a performer and an academic. George credits Peter Whitehouse with being the most important person in his musical life, as a teacher and, ultimately, as a colleague. Peter continued to mentor and work with George until his death in 1992.

Having turned down the opportunity to go to university, George played in various bands and did a string of odd jobs until he auditioned for and was cast in Alan Bennett’s play, Forty Years On, in 1968. He also understudied the musical director of the show, Carl Davis. In order to appear onstage he had to join the actors union, Equity, and the rules prohibited two people having the same name. George was christened George Howe but because of this rule had to change it. That’s how he came to adopt his mother’s maiden name, Fenton.

While George was still in Forty Years On, he signed a record contract at MCA as a recording artist, and then one with his band at Decca. He worked as a session musician for some pop artists, including B. A. Robertson in the early days of his band. He also did some arranging for Carl Davis and others in theatre and television. He became increasingly interested in Middle and Far Eastern music thanks to meeting, studying, and working with the remarkable musician and ethnomusicologist John Leach.

In 1974, George was asked by the director Peter Gill to write the music for Twelfth Night for the RSC in Stratford. Since then he has written extensively for theatre, television, and film. Reflecting his new role, he was one of the original group that founded the Association of Professional Composers in 1976, which later amalgamated with two other organisations to become the British Academy of Composers & Songwriters. His theatre composition work spans all of Peter Gill’s productions at Riverside Studios to Alan Bennett’s Hymn and Cocktail Sticks at the National Theatre. He also wrote the musical Mrs Henderson Presents, which was produced in the West End in 2016. The BBC’s 2020 Talking Heads series for which George wrote the music, has also been produced at London’s Bridge Theatre and was followed closely, again at The Bridge, by the Beat The Devil theatre production, directed by Nicolas Hytner and starring Ralph Fiennes.

George Fenton lives in London. He is a BASCA Fellow which makes him just one of 18 songwriters and composers to have been bestowed this huge honour. He is also a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and is a visiting professor at the Royal College of Music and the University of Nottingham. He continues to compose for film, television, and theatre. Last year saw the release of Cold Pursuit with Liam Neeson and Red Joan starring Judi Dench and Sophie Cookson and so far this year, we’ve had ‘The Secret: Dare To Dream’ and BBC’s new Talking Heads and subsequently produced at London’s The Bridge Theatre.

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