Publish date: 28 November 2024
Members of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic performed live for Ashworth Life Rooms service users this week. Continuing a long partnership with the Trust, the musicians played pieces by famous composers – and stunning new works by patients – accompanied by poetry and words written by Life Rooms users.
In this latest round of partnership with the UK’s oldest professional symphony orchestra, they have been supporting regular sessions over the last eight weeks. Musicians have been helping patients with composition and transcribing patient’s own scores for different instruments.
Life Rooms leads described the final performance day as “a shared experience in which trust, respect, individuality and creativity are celebrated through music, words and new compositions”.
The sharing session was called ‘A Journey through Gigues’. It offered a moving selection of pieces to guests including Steve Newton and members of the divisional SLT. And after the beauty of works by Debussy, Bach and Chopin, everyone took part in a final singalong to ‘California Dreaming’ (with slightly less virtuoso ability).
Divisional Director Steve Newton says: “A big thanks to all the Life Rooms team – the therapeutic value they add was really on show at this concert. We heard some really stunning pieces and moving poetry and we also had a laugh as well. Thank you to the musicians from the Phil whose work with us over several years is welcome and really positive.”
This week we also heard that Life Rooms has been commended by the prestigious Koestler Trust who have been working with offenders for over 50 years. Ashworth Hospital is now a Koestler Award Winning Establishment for excellence in the arts. This achievement came for works, including digital art, created by patients in the Life Rooms since it opened behind the wall last year.