Festival takes the plunge with water music

Handel’s Water Music – what else?

It has to be really, it is the only option for an orchestra playing in the middle of a swimming pool. Do not adjust your newspaper, you really did read that. At the end of July, as the I Love West Leeds Arts Festival comes to a close, the West Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra will stand in the middle of a swimming pool – Bramley Baths to be precise – and play Handel’s collection of movements known as Water Music.

The woman behind the festival who is turning this seemingly crazy notion into reality is artistic director Jane Earnshaw.

When she began planning this year’s festival, friend Jude Abbott, a trumpeter with the band Chumbawamba, offered to help.

“She’s one of those people who is always the first to offer when there are leaflets to be handed out or volunteers needed,” says Earnshaw.

“She’s also a member of the West Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra and said that she thought the orchestra would be up for doing something as part of the festival.”

A couple of years ago the festival put a band in Bramley Baths at the side of the pool and people swam while listening to music.

Looking at organising this year’s festival and wondering how to fit in the orchestra, Earnshaw was standing in the balcony of the Baths, with Jude Abbott, discussing ideas. “I said to Jude ‘wouldn’t it be great if they were actually in the pool?’. “We both looked at each other and started giggling,” says Earnshaw. A sort of tiny dynamo of energy, Earnshaw is not the sort to ignore a seemingly crazy idea once it has taken. She says: “That same day I bumped into a friend who works on staging events. I know she likes quirky ideas and so I mentioned it to her.”

Through sheer effort, lots of goodwill and an idea which has fired the imaginations of those who have heard it, around 20 members of the orchestra will stand on a stage in the middle of the swimming pool while members of the public swim around listening to the sounds of Handel fill the baths. “It’s a logistical challenge,” laughs Earnshaw. “We have to get the stage in and out on the same day. There are two teams – a dry team and a wet team. The dry team will clean down all the stage equipment outside, and then take it to the wet team who will be in the pool, building the stage. There will be a lifeguard in the pool the whole time.”

The event, Swimming with Handel, which closes the I Love West Leeds Festival on July 24, has proved immensely popular, with tickets for swimming and for watching the event from the balcony selling out within 48 hours.

With nobody getting paid, it is testament to the kind of enthusiasm that Earnshaw is able to work up that a second performance will be held later the same evening – with a very small number of tickets possibly still available.

The key to a festival like this, which receives funding from Leeds City Council, the Arts Council and various other sources – although none guaranteed from year to year – is inspiring groups and individuals with ideas.

This was the key to another musical strand of the festival, the Citizens Orchestra, Live at Pudsey Library. This is a performance by a band that was established as a one-off, temporary group, created specially for the festival two years ago. The band has met weekly ever since. It began when Chumbawamba musician Harry Hamer suggested finding local musicians, who were over the age of 60, and bringing them together.

Earnshaw says: “There are lots of choirs and orchestras for older people, but we were thinking about the fact that there must be lots of older people who were once in a band and would like to get together again.

“We ended up with a collection of people who played all kinds of instruments, to all kinds of standards. They kept meeting, every week, with Harry, and so we had to have them as part of this year’s festival.”

It appears to be not so much a festival with something for everyone, as simply a festival with everything.

Something for everyone – and their dog

Active Crossover: Sound Installation: Sound artist Simon Whetham has created an installation piece for Armley Mills, which will run through the festival.

Dogart: Photos for Canines: Rodley and Bramley will exhibit photographs for dogs to enjoy, on lampposts – at dog level.

No Grown Ups Allowed: Dancers Gerry Turvey and Sam Lawrence perfom with a live musician among the swings and slides of Bramley Park. July 22, 6pm, July 23, 12pm.

I Love West Leeds Festival, July 1-24. Info on www.ilovewestleeds.co.uk or 0787 058 1566.