An eclectic mix of musicians gathered at the Loughside Community Centre, on the Shore Road in North Belfast to entertain an audience of over 400 people with Music Unite’s night of culture. The event was the culmination of a yearlong project facilitated by the Centre for Democracy and Peace Building, project managed by Nigel Kells in association with Donal Scullion and band alongside Creative Director Leonie McDonagh of Ponydance productions.
The night of culture brought together people from different cultures and backgrounds from across Northern Ireland to celebrate our indigenous cultural traditions, the diversity of our society and the uniting power of music.
The evening started off with a variety of traditional bands from the iconic Blood & Thunder, to melody flute, then from accordion band to the melodic sound of fifes and drums and finishing the first half with the traditional solo Scottish piper much to the delight of the crowd.
We then moved to the collaboration stage of the performance and first up this year we brought together the flutes and Drums of North Belfast’s own, ‘Pride of the Shore Flute Band’ playing a few tunes of their own to warm the crowd up, then joining forces with Donal Scullion and his Rock band, to play the Beatles classic ‘Hey Jude’.
The combination of crisp Blood and Thunder marching band flute with the iconic Rock sound of electric guitar, subtlety accompanied by a combination of rock drum kit and marching side drum kicked the second half of the night off in spectacular fashion.
Following that, the far travelled Cormeen Rising Sons of William, all the way from Armagh, with 3 pieces of collaboration alongside Donal Scullion and his Rock band. They played Jonny Cash’s Ring of Fire, followed by Waltzing Matilda & to top it off, a unique medley of theme tunes from Movie classics, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones and Star Wars! All while Cormeen’s Colour Party performed a marching display for the crowd, which they had created with our Creative Director Leonie McDonagh at their hall in Armagh.
This event following on from last year’s project was another major success, celebrating diversity and using the power of music to unite. Described by one band member as ‘the best craic the band have had in years!’
Music Unite project received support from The Executive Office Good Relations Grant.
