On Friday, 1st September, Emma Brown will sing at the guest soloist at the International Military Tattoo in Gouda, the Netherlands. She will sing the finale with six international bands in an exciting event, complete with acrobatics and fireworks. Tickets are available via this link.
To mark one hundred years to the minute since the start of the Battle of Passchendaele, at 05:50 am CET on 31st July, 2017, a World War One cannon will be fired from the spot where the battle begun in Langemark, Belgium.
There will be a ceremony of remembrance beginning at 05:20. Emma will sing “Going Home,” “Danny Boy,” and the German song “The Good Comrade” (“Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden”). “The Good Comrade” was composed in 1809 and is traditionally sung during burial ceremonies of the German Armed Forces.
The ceremony includes music, poetry, readings from war diaries, and the Last Post ceremony. Also providing music are violinist Tracey McRory, Field Marshal Haig’s Own Pipes and Drums, folk singer Davy Holt, and the North Wales Rugby Choir.
The service is open to everyone and the public are invited to volunteer to read. The spirit is of remembrance “by the people for the people.” The organization aims to make the service to be as inclusive as possible and to remember all the fallen, regardless of the side on which they fought.
Assemble 05:00 for 05:20 ceremony, Welsh National Memorial Park, Langemark.
On Sunday, 30th July, Emma will sing during a ceremony at Artillery Wood, Belgium, for the Welsh Guards Pilgrimage. Members and former members of the Welsh Guards have travelled to Passchendaele to visit the graves and memorials of their fallen comrades. This marks one hundred years since the Battle of Passchendaele. The ceremony will be live-streamed to those who could not travel to Belgium, and a parallel service of remembrance is being held in Wales.
As part of their broadcasting of the Passchendaele centenary commemorations, BBC Radio Nottingham’s Verity Cowley will interview Emma live at Tyne Cot cemetery on Sunday morning. Tune in at 08:50 UK time on BBC Radio Nottingham.
The Menin Gate, Ypres, Belgium.
On 24th July, Emma will sing on behalf of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to mark the ninetieth anniversary of the unveiling of the Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium. She will be accompanied by the Royal Symphonic Band of the Belgian Air Force. The ceremony begins at 11:00 and is free and open to the public.
The Menin Gate is a large memorial honouring the missing from the Battles of Ypres between 1914 and 1917. On it are listed the names of over 54,000 Commonwealth soldiers whose bodies were never found or identified. Even though the Menin Gate is over thirty-six metres long and over twenty metres wide, there is not enough room to list all of the missing solders. Those who disappeared after 15th August, 1917, are listed at Tyne Cot Cemetery. New Zealand and Newfoundland soldiers are not listed on the Menin Gate: they have separate memorials.
Please find more information about the ceremony here.
At the Thiepval Memorial
On 1st July, Emma Brown sang during the Royal British Legion’s Remembrance Ceremony at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Thiepval Memorial and the Somme Association’s Remembrance Ceremony at the Ulster Tower to commemorate the Battle of the Somme.
In the early hours of 1st July, 1916, mines exploded under German trenches and British, Commonwealth, and French soldiers charged. Many were gunned down the moment they emerged from their trenches. The offensive lasted four months and there were over a million casualties. It was calculated that there was one casualty every 4.4 seconds during the Battle of the Somme: therefore, during a 45-minute remembrance ceremony there would have been over six-hundred casualties.
The official British historian said of the conditions in the Somme: “Our vocabulary is not adapted to describe such an existence, because it is outside experience for which words are normally necessary.” (Source: Royal British Legion CD “Forever: The Official Album of the World War One Commemorations,” 2014)
CWGC Thiepval Memorial
Thiepval Memorial is the biggest monument to missing British soldiers in the world. Completed in 1932, it stands almost fifty metres high: comparable to a cathedral. On the memorial are inscribed the names of the 72,244 missing British men and officers who perished in the Somme between July, 1915, and February, 1918. To one side of the memorial is an Anglo-French cemetery, the resting place of 300 French and 300 British Commonwealth soldiers, many of whose identities are known only to God.
The Royal British Legion’s service began with an address by the Right Honourable Lord Edward Llewellyn, OBE PC, Her Majesty’s Ambassador to France. The service was led by the Reverend Stephen Hancock CF and Deacon Jean-Pierre Cardon. The Band of Liberation played the hymns and national anthems. Before the service, Emma sang Eriskay Love Lilt and Blow the Wind Southerly.
Wreath-laying at the Ulster Tower
The Ulster Tower commemorates the men of the 36th Ulster Division and all those from Northern Ireland who have served in war. On the first day of the battle of the Somme alone, the 36th Ulster Division suffered over 5,000 casualties.
The service at the Ulster Tower was led by Dame Patricia Hawkins-Windsor MBE. Wreaths were laid by soldiers and civilians from Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Great Britain, and France.
In 2014, when the road between the Thiepval Memorial and the Ulster Tower was widened, two bodies were recovered. One was an Fusilier from Inniskilling, Sergeant David Harkness Blakey, who was reported missing when he was twenty-six. He was identified from his metal identity tag. His name was removed the the list of the missing at Thiepval Memorial and the Somme Association arranged for him to be buried in the Connaught Cemetery. For more information, see here.
Ilse Weber (1903-1944)
On Friday, 30th June, Emma sang as a guest soloist with pianist Anton Doornhein in the farewell service of Minister Ad Alblas. Ad Alblas has worked as a minister in Leiden for over thirty years. To mark his farewell, a concert was held in the Hooglandse Kerk, Leiden’s twelfth-century Gothic cathedral. Emma appeared alongside internationally-acclaimed singers Denise Jannah and Ken Gould. Two local Leiden choirs, the Leidse Cantorij and Vox Humana.
The concert reflected different aspects of Mr. Alblas’s ministry. He asked Emma to sing three songs from Ilse Weber, a nurse who worked at Theresienstadt, to reflect his connection to the Jewish communities.
Ilse Weber (1903-1944) worked as a nurse with children in Theresienstadt. Her oldest son travelled with the Kindertransport and found exile in Sweden. Her youngest son was also imprisoned in Theresienstadt. When she heard her husband and the children in her care were to be transported, she volunteered to accompany them. On arrival in Auschwitz, she and her son were sent immediately to the gas chamber.
You can watch an amateur video of the concert here.