Hackney Song Works will continue
under new leadership from 13 September 2022 with the wonderful Kate Elander!
Same venue: St Paul’s Church Hall 182, Stoke Newington Rd, N16 7UE
https://hackneysongworkschoir.wordpress.com/
Please contact Kate for enquiries: kateelander@gmail.com
It has a been a wonderful 9 years!
I shall miss all of you lovely Hackney Song Works Singers!
Working with community choirs
Martina is an associated member of NVPN, Natural Voice Practitioners’ Network, and believes that singing is everybody’s birthright. One of her songs, “The Evening Light”, features in their recent compilation This Room Sings. Martina’s choral compositions have also been performed at festivals such as The Totally Thames Festival (Sing for Water) and The Big Data Sing (UCL), in performances at RADA, the London Bubble Theatre and the new factory of the eccentric actor.
She has been a regular at Unicorn voice camp for over a decade where she leads singing and the circle dance band. She has led bands and singing groups in theatre/dance and community projects, including Hackney Song Works which she led for nine years. She has also been leading the Stapleton Hall Singers and the over 65 Palace Club singers at Chat’s palace. Martina also leads residential singing workshops such as The Wonderful Beast Singers, an enthusiastic amateur choir, culminating in a performance at the Old Walpole Chapel in Suffolk.
Past live events – Listen to us on Youtube!
- Remembrance Day, 14th November, at Abney Park Cemetery
Hackney Song Works joined forces with Hackney Voices singing peace songs from different traditions - We were singing the change at “Music declares Emergency“, as part of a mass choir singing “What a Wonderful World” in Russel Square on 30th October 2021
- Music@Clissold Hackney Song Works at the Old Church on 10th/11 July 2021
Songs about seasons, songs about trees.
Songs about love, freedom, and peace
From as far as Lapland and the Black Sea
to Africa, France, and Germany
Songs for the heart, songs for the soul
Instrumentals and solos
you can rock, you can roll!
“MEMORIAL” The Barbican, 2018
Alice Oswald’s poem “Memorial: An Excavation of the Iliad” adapted for the stage by Australian company Brink Productions and featuring a score by Jocelyn Pook. Read more about Martina Schwarz’ and Hackney Song Works’ involvement: The Citizen
“What a privilege and a joy that was.Martina was pure magic… “(participant’s comment)
Below: Hackney Song Works performing in Abney Park Cemetery
Sing for Water at the Scoop, 2016. Hackney Song Works – Mara Song (small group):
In 2017 Hackney Song Works Choir was again part of Sing for Water, Totally Thames Festival and Martina’s composition “l’eau de l’eau” featured in the performance.
Martina’s choir arrangement of the Russian song ‘Vozle-Ryetshki’, sung by over 500 singers in 2016:
Donations were given to North London Action for the Homeless
BIG DATA SING / UCL Culture – Music by Martina Schwarz
Martina was commissioned by UCL to write a cycle of songs for this interactive and innovative event, conceived by Helen Pike and Dean Veall as part of the UCL Grand Challenges programme: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/grand-challenges. Her songs were performed by a scratch choir at the Grant museum, including ‘Big Data’, ‘Love Bytes’ and ‘Stored up in a cloud’:
The Big Data Scratch choir consisted of Helen Pike, Jo Howcroft, Joanna Foster, Jane Wymark, Marie Lawrence, Heather Coomb, Ruby Wright, Emma Parsons, Beatrice Pemberton, Maria Ragan, and Stephen D Fletcher, conducted by Martina Schwarz.