Seeds of Peace 2002 and 2004

'Seeds of Peace' - Peace Concerts Tenth Anniversary Concert, 24 August 2002

Tyne Cott Cemetery, Passendale, Flanders, Belgium.

with ; - June Tabor, Coope Boyes & Simpson, Willem Vermandere, Une Anche Passe, Koen De Cauter, Patrick Riguel, Bram Vermeulen, Thomas Friz

On the 24th August, Seeds of Peace, a suite created specially for the Tenth Anniversary of the founding of Peace Concerts Passendale received its first performance at Tyne Cot Cemetery on the site of the battle of Passchendaele. Written and arranged by Laurent Audomard of the French band, Une Anche Passe to a scenario devised by Piet Chielens, the suite was a commemoration of the fact that Flanders has been the battlefield of choice for wars in Western Europe for the past five hundred years.

The music ranged over the centuries, from children’s songs of the renaissance Prince of Orange, to works by Jacques Brel and material specially commissioned for Peace Concerts today. Appropriately, Piet Chielens, the founder of Peace Concerts, had drawn together a remarkable talent of twenty-one singers and musicians from across Western Europe to perform it. June Tabor – who sang at the first Peace Concert - was joined by fellow English singers Coope Boyes and Simpson and an international cast, including Willem Vermandere, Koen de Cauter and Patrick Riguel from Flanders , Thomas Friz from Germany , Bram Vermeulen from The Netherlands and Une Anche Passe from Southern France . Together, they created a memorable and deeply moving musical event which was a fitting tribute to Peace Concerts’ first ten years.

Seeds of Peace offered a compelling evocation of the pain and futility of war. For the whole of its two hour length, an audience of more than five thousand people sat spellbound among the lines of white memorials to the young men who died at Passchendaele to hear its challenge to individuals and nations to work together for peace.

Seeds of Peace – 2004

In August 2004, an even larger group came together to perform "Seeds of Peace": Passchendaele Suite II at Folk Festival Dranouter in Flanders . A mammoth work, involving twenty-four singers and musicians directed by Laurant Audomard of the French band, Une Anche Passe, the performance included Coope Boyes & Simpson in a quartet with June Tabor singing Lester Simpson’s "Standing in Line" and “Shule Agra”. Entirely new songs and music, as well as highlights from earlier Peace Concerts like Jim Boyes’ "Tyne Cott at Night" were also woven into a Suite that followed the history of conflict in Europe from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century. June Tabor contributed some incredible songs to the performance, including a heartbreaking duet, 'Das Brief', with the German singer, Thomas Fritz. The following day, the musicians went to Brussels to start work on recording a double album of the concert for release on the Peace Concerts label.

"Seeds of Peace": Passchendaele Suite II was also the last recording made by Netherlands ’ singer, musician and writer Bram Vermeulen. The finished work will be a tribute to his unique talent and personality.

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