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2024 – Sound Links celebrates the past, present and future of Townsend street
Sound Links was a community-informed project by the Ulster Orchestra, Townsend Street Enterprise Park and Zeppo Arts which aimed to celebrate the rich history of Townsend Street, Belfast, the Orchestra’s home since 2022, and to imagine the future of the area.
Members of the public were invited to share their memories and stories of Townsend Street and hopes for the future of the area, which were turned into three new pieces of specially commissioned music by local composers. These pieces were premiered by the Ulster Orchestra on the same day as we held a community street party to celebrate the area and its people.
The project was part of Belfast 2024, a year-long celebration supported by Belfast City Council that saw over 1,000 cultural and creative events take place across the city.
Townsend Street
Townsend Street has a rich history. It is one of only two points in Belfast where one can see the Farset River, the river that gave the city its name, and once also housed the Soho Foundry, a powerhouse of Victorian industry and innovation.
It also houses Townsend Enterprise Park and the former Townsend Church, now home to the Ulster Orchestra. Over the years, the history of the street and its surroundings were buried by the degradation of the area and the legacy of Troubles-era interface gates.
Sound Links aimed to build on work begun by Townsend Enterprise Park and others to promote and celebrate the area’s heritage, placing it back in the consciousness of the city.
Sound Links was the Ulster Orchestra’s first place-based heritage project, and an exciting opportunity for us to discover and celebrate the rich history and heritage of our new home on Townsend Street. We were incredibly fortunate to partner with our neighbours at Townsend Enterprise Park, which since its inception as a cross-community initiative in 1987 has been instrumental in fostering businesses and jobs in the local area, acting as a vital force for regeneration, peace and reconciliation.
Sound Links
Beginning in January 2024, we held several consultation workshops in the local area where members of the public had the opportunity to share their memories and stories of Townsend Street and offer their hopes and aspirations for the future.
Our facilitators – writers Natasha Geary, Emily DeDakis, Fionnuala Kennedy, Maria McManus and the Ulster Orchestra’s Jonathan Simmance and Stephanie Elliott – also visited local schools, care homes, day centres and community groups, where they worked with pupils, residents and attendees over several weeks to talk about their memories and ideas.
These sessions produced a wealth of material, by turns surprising, moving, uplifting and hilarious. Thank you to everyone who came along and shared their memories, hopes and dreams and welcomed us warmly into their spaces: Bradley Manor Care Home, City Way Day Centre, Glenwood Primary School, Francis Higgins, Rev. Jack Lamb, Robert McClenaghan, New Life City Church, Ruth Petticrew, Raidió Fáilte, Shankill Area Social History Group, St Comgall’s, St Mary’s Primary School, St Stephen’s & St Michael’s Young @ Heart Group, Townsend Enterprise Park businesses, Townsend Social Outreach Centre youth group and everyone in the community members and residents who took time to attend one of our drop-in sessions.
Three local composers, Úna Monaghan, Rory Friers and Jamie Thompson were commissioned to write three new pieces of music for the project, using the material from the consultation workshops as inspiration, which would be performed by the Ulster Orchestra in the Foyle Foundation Hall, formerly Townsend Street Church.
Block Party
The project culminated in the Sound Links Block Party on 21 September 2024, International Peace Day. The Block Party turned the whole of Townsend Street into a bustling and colourful hive of live music, street performance, food and craft markets, kids’ activities and more.
The Block Party featured live performances by Winnie Ama, Boom Strutt Brass and members of Diamontes Dance and Drama School and St Louise’s Dance group. There was also a cross-community céilí, street art and visual art workshops, and history tours. Over 2,500 people visited the street across the day for the celebrations.
The day concluded with the premiere of the three works inspired by local people and children, performed by the Ulster Orchestra in the Foyle Foundation Hall. The pieces focused on the past, present and future of Townsend Street, with specially-created visuals by Stephen Hackett projected during the performance, creating an atmospheric, immersive experience.
Past, Present and Future
Úna Monaghan’s piece, ‘Townsend Street’ focuses on the history of the area. “It is impossible to capture a street and a community in one type of representation,” wrote Úna in her programme note accompanying the concert, “But my approach was to try and convey a sense of what I had understood about Townsend Street, after hearing the conversations and descriptions from the workshops and seeing photographs.”
Úna incorporated the kinds of sounds that would have been heard on the street in years past, such as boat and factory horns. “Towards the end the orchestra pass around a single note accompaniment and melody between them – a community and a life is made up of countless individual contributions and happenings. I see the piece as an amalgamation of many elements, sometimes understood, sometimes obscure, with moments of definite clarity; much like the street, and our lives.”
‘101 False Starts’ by Jamie Thompson deals with present day Townsend Street, the title reflecting the area being somewhat forgotten about in recent years. The small Romanian church by the Orchestra’s new home provided inspiration for the music: Jamie said that he “decided to base the tonality of the piece on a major Romanian scale in C, which to my ears contains a beautiful major/minor tension, conferring a melodic slipperiness.”
As befits a piece about the present, the music ends with a sense of a story unfinished. “Like many of the recollections from the area, the piece ends in a place of hesitancy and apprehension. There is a sense of incompleteness. It is unsure, slightly wounded.”
The future is the theme of Rory Friers’ piece, ‘When the Westlink Goes.’ Inspiration for the work came out of the ideas local schoolchildren gave for what the future of the area might look like. “Their ideas were full of colour, hope, and imagination,” said Rory.
The piece is structured in three sections. “The first reflects the peace and calm the children felt was so important in creating a brighter future,” said Rory, “a quiet space that makes everything else possible. The second section dives into their excitement about progress and development, picturing a city alive with new ideas, innovation and energy. And the final section reflects hope and optimism, imagining a future full of connection, joy, and endless possibilities.”
An amazing project bringing arts, communities, businesses and heritage together.
To hear all three [musicial] pieces on International Peace Day in a location that still remains a no-man’s land in many ways was a powerful reminder and incentive to work harder for reconciliation.
