Liverpool Cathedral has specially commissioned, ‘Hurry to Bethlehem’ a new musical interpretation of the traditional nativity story. Created by Stephen Manning Assistant Choral Director, its debut performance is on November 25th at 3 pm.
Stephen said: “This is the first time we’ve done anything like this. We’ve written everything from the score to producing a script and prop list from scratch. I came up with the idea after trying to pull together music from all different genres to fit our nativity production. It was a huge amount work going from one resource to another and we couldn’t find what we wanted. It just seemed easier to write our own. As far as I know we are the only cathedral to do this.”
Rehearsals are already underway and our Cathedral Junior Choir – pupils from schools right across the area aged 6 to 14 years, will take to the stage when the production gets its first public airing.
But ‘Hurry to Bethlehem’ is not only for the talent at our Cathedral to perform, Stephen has developed a full musical resource for schools and young peoples’ groups. The CD has already been recorded with Jon Lawton at Crosstown Studios and features the voices of members of the Cathedral Junior Choir. All the tracks were composed by Stephen. The resource pack will be available soon from the Cathedral Shop soon and proceeds from the purchase will go towards supporting the Cathedral’s work.
Stephen said: “It’s been a brilliant project to work on and it going to be so exciting to see other places take up the resources which will bring the traditional nativity story brought to life but in a way contemporary audiences can relate. It’s definitely got a modern twist.”
The first performance of ‘Hurry to Bethlehem’ is at Liverpool Cathedral at 3pm on November 25th . Both entrance and car parking is free.