Following our very successful event in 2023, we held another one this year on Saturday November 11 in St Richard’s Hall. The concert featured Ukrainian and local musicians. Full details will be available soon.
Some pictures from the concert
If you were unable to attend the concert but would like to make a donation to help people displaced or suffering conflict here are the ways to do this.
- Cash or cheque
Please deliver to CCRA Treasurer, Jane, at 22 Sundorne Road. Please put cash or cheque in an envelope and write Name/Ukraine Concert on front.
- Online
Send money to CCRA and we will pass on in a lump sum to DEC.
CCRA’s bank details are:
Bank: Lloyds Bank
A/C Name: Charlton Central Residents’ Association
A/C Sort Code: 30-90-90
A/C Number: 44720768
Amount paying
Important – Please put your surname /Benefit Concert
Money raised will go to DEC (Disasters Emergency Committee). The DEC brings together 15 leading UK aid charities to raise funds quickly and efficiently at times of crisis overseas.
In these times of crisis, people in life-and-death situations need our help and our mission is to save, protect and rebuild lives through effective humanitarian response.
Pooling our resources to work as one, we are pivotal in co-ordinating the UK public’s response to overseas disasters. In collaboration with our Rapid Response Network of national media and corporate partners, we raise the alarm to the UK public and set up easy ways to donate.
And we have immediate impact, getting aid to people who need it, fast.
For more information see https://www.dec.org.uk
SOME PICTURES FROM THE 2022 CONCERT
Our concert in 2022 raised £1421 for the Disasters Emergency Committee Ukraine Humanitarian Relief Fund.
INTERVIEWS
During the concert, Joy Ogden from Grapevine talked to some of the performers:
Ukrainian sisters, Katya and Liza Rajhans, harpists who were born in Kyiv in 2003, joined local musicians in playing to an enthralled audience with their separate performances of harp solos. The nineteen-year old twin sisters started learning to play the harp aged five to ten years old at the Kyiv Music School. That was followed by five years in Moscow, where they participated in many international competitions with distinction. This year they became students at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in Greenwich, under the guidance of Professor Gabriella Dall’Olio Head of Harp Studies.
Gabriella Dall’Olio, who grew up in Italy, in Bologna, has lived all round Europe, has lived in London since 1995 and latterly in Charlton, says: “I started playing the harp for all the wrong reasons. My mum wanted me to learn the piano but there weren’t any spaces in the class, so it was totally by accident. I studied for ten years, from the age of 11 to about 21.” She says she was at a mainstream school, studying five A levels at the same time as learning the harp at the Conservatoire, which in Italy is all free of charge. Without the free tuition her parents wouldn’t have been able to afford to send her there. She moved to France, “fell in love with a harp friend who was 93 years old, master of the harp, who was absolutely inspiring, incredible, creative and knowledgeable and changed my life. I fell in love with the instrument 10 years later, because before that I couldn’t care less. “I’ve travelled the world, I’m going to Thailand for Christmas to play a concert, I’ve recorded CDs, solo, chamber music and pop, I play with London Orchestras, Sadler’s Wells, Covent Garden and with the LSO and I’m Head of Harp Studies at Trinity Laban Conservatoire in Greenwich. I adore the community, and Greenwich and Charlton are so beautiful.” Recently she has been doing a lot of education work with people affected by dementia and
she says: “Music is now also very much an outreach programme about getting music into the community and healing. Musicians are magicians! My dad died last year and even when he was so unwell he kept saying ‘Because music is something you hear it’s something that gets through you and heals you.’ And it’s so true. We should all play music – not go to war.”
Clare Hoffman is a violinist with the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique, has also played with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and was invited to Ukraine as a guest soloist, playing Sir Arthur Bliss’s Violin Concerto with the Odessa Philharmonic. She says: I work with Gabriella and we train together, so I play with her and to help Ukraine, which I’ve always wanted to do. Instead of playing in theatre tonight, I thought I’d just say ‘No’ and do this because it’s so awful what’s happened in Ukraine. Growing up in Manchester, from the age of 11 to 18, she went to Cheetham’s Music School and they said they had a job in Salzburg with a violinist, so she went to work with him and lived in Salzburg for five years. She toured with the Chamber Orchestra there then came
home and started playing with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Philharmonia, got her job in the English Chamber Orchestra then met her husband, who was a violinist, but now concentrates on playing the piano and harpsichord.
Owen Morgan is a songwriter, who wrote the two songs he sang at the concert. He has lived in Charlton for about five years and recently started a placement as an ordinant – a trainee priest with the parish, so works with the Reverend Liz Newman at St Luke’s Church. He also runs an Instagram group account for people who like ‘A bizarre combination of songwriting, church, music, theology and food pics!’
Hope Augustus started singing from the age of six. Her father was a big jazz fan and also in the Salvation Army so she used to take part in the brass band. She worked mainly in musical theatre from 1987 to 2007, playing lead roles in ‘The Lion King,’ ‘The Goodbye Girl,’ ‘When Marilyn Met Ella’ and many others. But she had to stop to look after her mother when she became terminally ill. Then when she died her father became ill and she says: “Everything just stopped. I decided to try and get my joy back. So I haven’t done any singing for ten years, not even in the church.” She now says: “In the 20 years I was doing it I lost my enjoyment, my passion – you’re dealing with accountants – it’s a business, whether it’s visual arts or performance arts, at the end of the day it’s a business. “On the upside, I did a degree in events management, then trained as a teacher, so I’m a special needs teacher now, so I’m not so phased by the business at the end of the day.” When she was approached to get together with Chris Harrison for a community event, she says she was reluctant, but went out and sang and says: “I realised I still had something – and I’m actually enjoying it!” She adds: “Chris is an absolutely fabulous person, he’s always so respectful, listens to me, respects my acumen, so I’m much happier now. I was very honoured when he asked me take part in this concert.”