‘The ultimate bonding of music’ - How the Liberation Concert came together

As they made their way from Guernsey to southern Germany via the French port of St Malo earlier this month, the young members of the Biberach Youth Orchestra and their tutors were plying a route previously undertaken, unwillingly, by about 2,000 Channel Island deportees 83 years before. As they travelled, the smartphones they would have been entertaining themselves with for the 17-hour coach ride contained new entries amid their contacts – the phone numbers of their Guernsey counterparts, separated by 500 miles and a language barrier, but united by an ability to find their way around a French horn, violin or xylophone.

The ever-evolving relationship between Guernsey and Biberach was begun in 1942, when an enraged Adolf Hitler personally ordered the deportation of British citizens from occupied Guernsey, Sark and Jersey in retaliation for Britain’s deportation of Germans from captured Persia. The forced exodus – 10 islanders for every German removed from what we now call Iran – was so spiteful in nature, that even some of those German troops responsible for conducting the removal were reportedly apologetic as they carried out their orders.

How delicious would it be to be able to travel back in time and tell those soldiers, those deportees, and indeed that dictator, that a celebration of 80 years of freedom for the Channel Islands would feature youthful musicians from either end of this route of expulsion, playing together in literal and metaphorical harmony in a spirit of friendship and joy?

You can hear Rachel Wright speaking to Simon De La Rue about the Liberation Concert on the latest edition of the Guernsey Press Arts Podcast.

During the evening, Bailiff of Guernsey Sir Richard McMahon was called to the stage to address the audience. He was already on stage, as it happened, because – like his deputy, Jessica Roland – he was a member of the amalgamated 140-strong choir. So he didn’t have to walk far, which is probably a good thing considering he’d already spent the whole day traipsing round Sark with a princess.

He spoke about the burgeoning Guernsey-Biberach friendship and noted that its modern iteration had been initiated through cultural – and specifically musical – exchanges, before evolving into something more formal.

The signing of a friendship agreement between Guernsey and the town of Biberach the previous day was a significant event for both locations, undoubtedly. But hearing the Bailiff’s words in that hall, having been listening to the combined musical forces of the British island and the German town, it came home to me that the signing was just politics catching up with reality – a reality created enthusiastically but carefully by musicians.

A similar observation could be made about the Liberation Concert – it felt like a very official occasion and was attended by many dignitaries, but it came about because a musician got the bit between her teeth.

As the musical director of the Guernsey Choral and Orchestral Society, Rachel Wright took it upon herself to find out – 13 months ahead of time – what was being planned for the big 80th anniversary.

‘I went and sat down with Adrian Nicolle at the Bailiff’s Office and said “tell me about 2025 – what are the plans?”,’ Rachel recalls.

She suggested a concert and there followed ‘quite a lot of permutations of what could happen’, including an outdoor event on the North Beach.

‘I was instrumental in starting it all off and then taking the idea to the GCOS committee,’ she says, ‘and a team of people then put it together.’

Rachel quickly determined that other choirs should be invited to take part, either as a whole, or by providing individual singers. As a result, several singers from the Guernsey Chamber Choir and Bel Canto came on board, along with several other independent singers.

‘The GCOS numbers are generally about 60 or 70 and we had 140 singers – so we doubled in size for this,’ says Rachel.

The Biberach Youth Orchestra was also at the forefront of her thinking.

‘We knew that they were planning to come at some point this year, so we got in touch with them and said “really, come for Liberation Day!”.’

The prospect of having singers from several choirs joining with musicians from orchestras and ensembles based in two far-flung locations was certainly exciting, but also somewhat onerous, given the practicalities and the necessarily brief time they would have in which to rehearse together, but Rachel and her colleagues are used to this sort of challenge and they had a plan.

‘I rehearsed once a week with the choir – and we started on this repertoire in January – and we had a couple of rehearsals before Easter, when all the singers came together, then after Easter we had the singers and the orchestra,’ says Rachel.

‘But the first rehearsal with everybody – including the Biberach Youth Orchestra – was on Thursday 8 May.’

That rehearsal was only two days before the concert itself and was held at Les Varendes High School hall, as it was the only place big enough to accommodate all the performers.

There was a further rehearsal on the Saturday afternoon, before the concert itself got under way at 6pm.

‘It was quite intense,’ says Rachel, ‘but it came together well.’

The musicians who came over with the Biberach Youth Orchestra had been practising the same pieces back in Germany, so ‘they knew exactly what was going on,’ Rachel explains.

‘The issue was with translation, as I don’t speak German.’

This meant that a few instructions took a bit longer to deliver but it all still worked.

‘People were very patient and they realised that it was going to take a bit longer to fit all of the pieces of the jigsaw together.’

Rachel took on the responsibility of determining the programme and spent some time examining the music chosen for previous Liberation anniversary concerts and those held for the coronation.

Then Michelle Nash got in touch with her about her uncle Len Collins. He was one of the hundreds of islanders deported from Guernsey to camps in Germany. Whereas most of them were deposited at Camp Lindele on the outskirts of Biberach, he was among those sent to the men-only camp at Laufen, where he composed some songs. Room was duly made in the programme.

Other local composers’ work was also included, with pieces by Lydia Sulllivan-Pugh, Chris Claxton and Martin Cordall – whose arrangement of Sarnia Cherie ended the performance.

It’s safe to say that the programme and its execution went down well with the sell-out audience.

‘The feedback I’ve been having has been incredible,’ says Rachel.

‘People have been stopping me in various places and telling me about how much they loved the concert and how great it was. I think it was really lovely to have a commemoration concert. Sometimes, on Liberation Day, it can all be about celebration, so sometimes it’s nice to have that commemoration. A lot of people were very moved by it. A few people said they were quite tearful, which is always nice to hear – as long as it’s for the right reasons!’

I can certainly vouch for the enthusiasm felt among the majority of the audience. Those seated around me were clearly enjoying themselves – although my 11-year-old managed to fit in a little nap towards the end, leaning on her mum.

The occasion had a dreamlike quality also for Rachel, albeit for a very different reason.

‘When I look back on it, a lot of it is a bit of a blur, because I was so in the zone, I couldn’t really take it all in.’

One surprise for her was the proximity of the cameras, which relayed the whole event via a live-stream, so that it could be viewed anywhere in the world.

‘It was a real shock to have the camera on me, meaning I couldn’t make my usual faces that I do at the choir,’ she says.

‘Fortunately, I’d worn a green skirt and every time I could see a flash of green in the corner of my eye, I would think “Ah, the camera’s on me, I’m going to smile now,” so that was quite fortunate.’

For their part, the Biberach musicians ranged around her wore their uniformly blue T-shirts. Rachel is particularly animated when she speaks about the role they played in the event, and the experiences they were able to enjoy during their visit.

‘They were thrilled to be here,’ she says, ‘and they had a fabulous time. They were asked to take part in the Liberation Day cavalcade – which they did – a small chamber group went and played in the tent at L’Eree, and they attended the beacon lighting on VE Day at Castle Cornet.’

Rachel recounts that when the students from Biberach walked into the Sir John Loveridge Hall at Beau Sejour – still decorated with dummy parachutists, huge lighting displays and giant screens from the previous night’s Hangar Ball – they could barely believe the scale of it, on such a small island.

‘They were a real credit to their town,’ she says, ‘they were friendly and they chatted to everybody.’

As well as being the director of GCOS, Rachel is also the head of vocal studies at the Guernsey Music Service. She was delighted to see the visiting German students mixing so freely with some of her own students during the Liberation weekend.

‘It’s always funny to see, because they eye each other up at first and then five minutes later, they’re all in a huddle and they’re swapping phone numbers and have WhatsApp groups set up, then they all met up on Liberation Day. It’s fantastic to see that element of it and to know that this relationship is going to flourish and carry on into the future, because the young people want it. They’re already talking about the next visit.’

Throughout the Liberation Concert, I remained very conscious of the presence there of Jill and Alan Chubb. Jill was sent to Biberach with her brother and parents at the age of three. After decades of choosing not to talk about the experience, she recently chose to open up about it. Since then, she has visited Biberach and has even become the chair of the Guernsey Deportees Association. Alan, by dint of supporting her so closely in her exploration of the events of her past, has become the association’s secretary. I met them when I interviewed them for our Freedom 80 series, which counted down the 80 days to the 80th anniversary of Guernsey’s liberation.

They arrived at the concert in smart attire, offering to reimburse me for the tickets I’d secured (no need, I explained – the whole thing was free) and I could sense a certain excitement as they took their seats.

But what did they make of it all? After a few days, I called Jill to ask.

‘It was incredible,’ she said. ‘I’ve never been to a concert like that. It was awe-inspiring – everything was perfect and so emotional.’

She highlighted the rendition of Felix Mendelssohn’s Hear My Prayer, with its familiar soprano refrain of ‘O For The Wings Of A Dove’ from Psalm 55, and also the inclusion during Chris Claxton’s Maynine of a reading of all the names on the Second World War section of Guernsey’s war memorial, so impeccably delivered on the night by James Hunt.

As for the amalgamation of Guernsey and German musicians for the occasion, Jill said she felt it was ‘really emotional – the ultimate bonding of music’.

The next event for many of the local musicians who performed at the Liberation Concert is the Guernsey Music Centre summer concert, which takes place at 7.30pm on Friday 20 June at St James. The GMC leavers concert will be held at the same time the following evening. Tickets are available online via stjames.gg or by calling 711361.