Townsend Street in Belfast has a rich history, and this year the Ulster Orchestra, Townsend Enterprise Park and Zeppo Arts have been working on Sound Links, a project exploring that history as part of Belfast 2024 – an ambitious cultural celebration that will see the city come to life with creative projects, events and civic initiatives taking place across Belfast throughout the year.
Townsend Street is one of only two points in Belfast where one can see the Farset River, the river that gave the city its name.
It also houses Townsend Enterprise Park and the former Townsend Presbyterian Church, which is now home to the Ulster Orchestra. In the past, the history of the street and its surroundings were buried by the degradation of the area and the legacy of Troubles-era interface gates.
For our Sound Links project, the Ulster Orchestra, Townsend Enterprise Park and Zeppo Arts have been working together with the local community, residents and the businesses of Townsend Enterprise Park so that the street will once again be firmly in the consciousness of the city.
What is Sound Links?
Sound Links is a community-informed project culminating in a community-led celebration of the street and its people on International Peace Day in September 2024. Here at the Ulster Orchestra we’re also looking forward to introducing ourselves to the area, in addition to telling the story of a forgotten part of Belfast’s history.
We want Sound Links to celebrate the heritage of the area. We have commissioned three new works as part of the project, by composers Úna Monaghan, Rory Friers and Jamie Thompson, which will be performed at Townsend Street Church.
(L-R) Composers Úna Monaghan, Rory Friers and Jamie Thompson
The story so far…
Over the past few months, we’ve held several consultation workshops in the local area where members of the public came to share their memories and stories of Townsend Street and offer their hopes and aspirations for the future.
We’ve also visited local schools, care homes, day centres and community groups, where our facilitators – writers Natasha Geary, Emily DeDakis, Fionnuala Kennedy and Maria McManus; and Ulster Orchestra Animateur Jonathan Simmance – worked with pupils, residents and attendees over several weeks to talk about their memories and ideas.
All of this material has been gathered together and given to our three composers to inform the music they are writing for the final event. We’ve been surprised and delighted by the variety of stories and ideas that have been shared with us during the workshops and can’t wait to see how they inspire the finished pieces.
We’d like to extend our deepest thanks to everyone who has participated so far and to the schools, groups and venues who have welcomed us so warmly into their spaces: St Comgall's - Ionad Eileen Howell, New Life City Church, Townsend Enterprise Park, Glenwood Primary School, St. Mary’s Primary School, City Way Day Centre, Bradley Manor Care Home, and Shankill Area Social History.
We'll be working with Zeppo Arts to capture your stories of Townsend Street. If you'd like to contribute, please email us at [email protected] in the first instance. As we're using email to collect your contact details we need to explain what we're doing to protect the information you send us. You can find out more about that on our Privacy Policy page.