Steve Reich In Liverpool
On Thursday, Steve Reich attended a performance of his music at Edge Hill Station in Liverpool a few days before his eightieth birthday. It’s hard to imagine a better place to make a site specific performance of Reich’s inspired work ‘Different Trains’. The hosts of the evening METAL have been active in promoting contemporary art and events in Liverpool since 2002.
Reich’s music unwraps the 20th century and describes its language, beats, humanity and horrors; he is now doing the same in the 21st century. Hundreds queued and waited for hours before the performance began after 8pm. Reich soaks up his life experiences and assembles them decisively in his compositions. He has been touched by many events and influences: Bach, Coltrane and Stravinsky come to mind as well as his experiences as a cab driver when he recorded on tape the talk of his passengers.
Reich is a consummate collector of ideas and collaborators. For the performance he worked with Bill Morrison who provided imagery using archive footage. Uncannily it was as if the historic films had been shot specifically for the music. We have all read about the Holocaust and it’s resonated loudly into history, culture & politics. It is incomprehensible and yet with Reich’s music and Morrison’s merciless selection of film it’s as if we are taken into the heart of the abominable nightmare. The Nazis meticulously recorded their genocidal projects. It is impossible to get inside the mind set of the person holding the camera. There is one sequence where the camera appears to hover endlessly in front of a woman’s face and she seems to know we are looking at her over half a century later; her eyes speak through time and tell us to never to let this happen again. But it has happened again and it continues. Reich’s music is an uncompromising plea for humanity against war. Hopefully it will be heard until the end of time.
These photographs were taken on the night of the performance.
People queuing two hours before the performance.
Local residents were given free tickets to see Steve Reich
Edge Hill Station
Edge Hill Station
Edge Hill Station
One of the first arrivals for the performance
Edge Hill Station
Edge Hill Station
Edge Hill Station
Part of the audience shortly before the performance
Bill Morrison, Steve Reich & Jude Kelly on stage before the performance (photo Hazuan Hashim)
Guitarist Mats Bergstrom performing “Electric Counterpoint’
Guitarist Mats Bergstrom performing “Electric Counterpoint’
London Contemporary Orchestra
London Contemporary Orchestra
London Contemporary Orchestra
London Contemporary Orchestra
London Contemporary Orchestra
Steve Reich (left) shakes a musicians hand after the performance
Bill Morrison & Steve Reich on stage after the performance (photo Hazuan Hashim)
Steve Reich
You may also be interested in a short film with music by Lola Perrin (who has been described as “a feminine Steve Reich”:
East London Markets
I’ve always been drawn to photograph the markets of East London. They have changed over the years and they are under threat from gentrification but the vibrancy I found 35 years ago is still around.
Sunday market Cheshire Street 1990s
Fly pitch on Brick Lane, 2009
Man sleeping in Whitechapel Market, 1988
Cranes over Spitalfields market, 20002
Second hand clothes man, Cheshire Street c.1988
Man moving a market stall, Whitechapel 2008
Boy selling vegetables on Brick Lane, 1985
A woman looking through second hand books, Sclater Street market 2008
A man examining the condition of a LP. Sclater Street market, c.1986
Woman with her shopping, Watney Market 2008
Off The Street & Into The Pub
As a street photographer I have always regarded the pub as an extension of the street!
Brick Lane pub 1985
George pub, Liverpool 1979
Seven Stars pub, Brick Lane 1995
Window of the Indo Pub, Whitechapel 2004
Inside a pub in Kiveton Park (during the miner’s strike), 1984
Vincent Hayes behind the bar at the Lord Hood pub. London 1980s
Performance artist in the George Tavern, London 2008
Two men in a Lodge Lane pub. Liverpool 1980 (Bishopsgate Collection)
Pub, New York 2005
Rose in the Golden Heart pub, Spitalfields 2000
Pick Your Labour Party Leader!
Today is the conclusion of the Labour Party Conference. Pick your leader!
Niel Kinnock. London 1992
Niel Kinnock, London 1992
Niel Kinnock. London 1992
Tony Blair (photomontage)
Gordon Brown and Tony Blair on Brighton Pier, 2003
Tony Blair and John Prescott at a Labour Party conference, early 1990s
Tony Blair as Jesus. After Caravaggio 2003.
Photomontage with a message and Tony Blair. Demonstration against the war, London 2003
Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Gordon Brown 1994
Gordon Brown 1992
Owen Smith (aged 4) with his older best friend Tony Blair
Owen Smith (aged 4) with his pet cat ‘Nye’ (named after Nye Bevan)
Owen Smith during the Miners Strike
Jeremy Corbyn gives a live BBC interview before the Rally in Liverpool 2016
Jeremy Corbyn by the statue of Prince Albert shortly before he addressed a rally in Liverpool 2016
The winner!
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Child Poverty In The UK
Poverty affects one in four children in the UK today. When children grow up poor they miss out on the things most children take for granted: warm clothes, school trips, having friends over for tea. They do less well at school and earn less as adults.
The number of children in absolute poverty has increased by 0.5 million since 2010.
As a direct result of tax and benefit decisions made since 2010, the Institute for Fiscal Studies project that the number of children in relative poverty will have risen from 2.3 to 3.6 million by 2020.
There were 3.9 million children living in poverty in the UK in 2014-15. That’s 28 per cent of children, or 9 in a classroom of 30.
Work does not provide a guaranteed route out of poverty in the UK. Two-thirds (66 per cent) of children growing up in poverty live in a family where at least one member works.
Families experience poverty for many reasons, but its fundamental cause is not having enough money to cope with the circumstances in which they are living. A family might move into poverty because of a rise in living costs, a drop in earnings through job loss or benefit changes.
Housing benefit is under attack. This year brought new restrictions on backdating and temporary absence and further plans to cut expenditure. However, an estimated 4.6 billion pounds of housing benefit goes unclaimed by over one million households, particularly within the growing numbers of in-work claimants.
Families struggle with the costs of schooling: school dinners, school trips, cooking costs, equipment, uniforms and shoes.
Any family can fall on hard times and find it difficult to make ends meet. Poverty isn’t inevitable. With the right policies every child can have the opportunity to do well in life, and we all share the rewards of having a stronger economy and a healthier, fairer society.
Child poverty blights childhoods. Growing up in poverty means being cold, going hungry, not being able to join in activities with friends. For example, 60 per cent of families in the bottom income bracket would like, but cannot afford, to take their children on holiday for one week a year.
Child poverty imposes costs on broader society – estimated to be at least £29 billion a year. Governments forgo prospective revenues as well as commit themselves to providing services in the future if they fail to address child poverty in the here and now.
Source: The Child Poverty Action Group (Updated June 2016).
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