JUBILEE!
Sarah composed original music for BBC Radio 3 Drama – Jubilee! A life-affirming true story of the Fisk Jubilee Singers—a choir of freed African Americans who sang before royalty, helped build a university, and introduced spirituals to the world.
Listen on BBC Sounds
I really love what you did, so atmospheric, such a cliched word but it really is. It captured something of the sadness, the haunting quality and yet something rather warm and nurturing.
Writer Garth Bardsley
London Voices recording session for Jubilee
Jubilee!
As the dust settles on the American Civil War, a group of young Black students in Nashville form an ensemble of formerly enslaved men and women to save their beleaguered university. They start an extraordinary journey, captivating audiences across America and Europe, performing before presidents and royalty, and introducing the world to the “secret songs” of the plantations.
Listen to some of the music
Credits
By Garth Bardsley and Ray Shell
Director by Andy Jordan
Original music composed by Sarah Llewellyn.
Choral Direction & Piano by Ben Parry.
Guitar performed by James Fox
Dialogue Editing by Andrew Taylor.
The Producer was Kurt Brookes. Executive Producer, Ashley Byrne.
a Made in Manchester Production for BBC Radio 3
Cast
Ella Sheppard: Sophia Nomvete
George White: Samuel West
Professor Adam Spence: Kerry Shale
Henry Ward Beecher: Simon Callow
Benjamin Holmes: Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong
Laura White: Fiona Christie
Isaac Dickerson: Iman Marson
Maggie Porter: Alana M Robinson
Lord Shaftesbury: Richard Clifford
Miss Wells: Lorelei King
Jennie Jackson: Gabrielle Friedman
The Duchess of Argyll: Catie Flye
Minnie Tate: Lola May
Garth Bardsley played the Male Guest and the Railroad Superintendent, and Ray Shell was Simon Sheppard.
The London Voices singers were:
Rachel Oyawale
Angela Caesar
Layla Ley
Christina Gill
Melanie Marshall
John Gyeantey
Ken Burton
Themba Mvula.