SYMPHONY 1 “WAR CHILD”
Composer: Apollo Premadasa
Conductor: John Landor
Orchestra leader: George Hlawiczka
Orchestra: I Maestri
Holy Trinity Church, South Kensington, London, UK.
22nd January 2023
SYMPHONY 1 “WAR CHILD”
When I was composing this symphony the war in Afghanistan started. I was seeing lots of images of the horrible conflict and I really really wanted to help. I decided to compose my Symphony 1 for those children living in war and fleeing from it. To dedicate it to them and to make people think about them when they listen to it. After a few months, the Ukraine war started and I felt even more strongly that I needed to help and that, as I am a musician, my tool to do that was music. I organised fundraising concerts, created an orchestra and conducted in all of them an arrangement of the second movement of Symphony 1 War Child, composed for all these children who are suffering so much because of a conflict created by adults.
There are many children suffering at this moment, and we need to act. Every child must have the same rights to be alive and be free. I composed for all these children who should not have to be worrying about their safety and about war. I composed it for children like Timofy who is from Ukraine and lives with us, with my grandparents, and is a boy who like me just wants to smile and be safe but who wakes up at night screaming because of horrible memories of being in a bombarded town.
To me, music is a universal language because everyone can understand it regardless of where they are born and which language they speak. Music helps to make peace as it allows people to express, to relax, to build energy and to think. Music is my only way to express my deepest feelings and who I am, and with my symphony I want to share my feelings towards the conflicts that affect children and I wish that every person in the audience thinks about them while they listen to it.
Thank you
Apollo
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