Titanic Festival of Creative Arts 2012

The Titanic Festival of Creative Arts 2012 is a “mini-festival” of new art commissioned with funds provided by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

The focus of the festival is Philip Hammond’s new “REQUIEM FOR THE LOST SOULS OF THE TITANIC”

The “Requiem for the Lost Souls of the Titanic” is the final event in this “mini-festival” series of new art.

The performance has been specially funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Tourist Board Events Fund and the PRS Fund for Music, with sponsorship from Harland & Wolff and Power NI.

The requiem will be premiered on the night of the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic and it commemorates the tragic loss of over 1,500 lives. Composer Dr Philip Hammond speaking about the requiem said,

“The requiem will involve several conductors, four choirs (Belfast Philharmonic Society, Cappella Caeciliana, ScholaCantorum of St.Peter’s Cathedral Belfast and the famous Dublin based choir Anuna), Belfast born  mezzo soprano Jacqueline Horner who sings with the internationally acclaimed Anonymous Four  based in America, all accompanied by the Downshire Brass Band from Belfast.

The Requiem will also feature readings specially commissioned from Glenn Patterson which will be complemented by a set of musical “meditations” which I have written for The Fidelio Trio. All in all, there will be almost two hundred musicians taking part in this performance.”

The Titanic Festival of Creative Arts also includes performances in other arts disciplines. “A Better Boy” is a newly commissioned one-man play from one of the leading Titanic experts,  James Wilson Foster. Formerly Professor of English in the University of British Columbia, Jack has in retirement moved back to his native Northern Ireland.  This play will be his first essay on stage and will be staged by Kabosh at the Belfast Barge, Belfast.

A newly commissioned play involving the Lyric Theatre and offering an opportunity for an outreach project for schools in Belfast has been written by playwright Rosemary Jenkinson.  “The White Star of the North” is based on the theme of emigration in the early nineteen hundreds- specifically 1912 - as the north of Ireland tries to maintain its political and social status quo.

A newly commissioned song cycle from Belfast composer David Byers will form the centrepiece of an evening of music from the Edwardian Era – which will also include numbers that would have been in the repertoire of the musicians on board the Titanic. Belfast born musician Una Hunt is designing and performing this programme with two young Irish singers.


The venue is the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, a new building in the Titanic Quarter, on Thursday 12th April. Before that recital, in the atrium of the new PRONI building, a specially written and devised series of tableaux based on the historical relationship between the docks and the shipyards of Belfast will be performed by Music Theatre 4 Youth in words, music and dance.

A special Titanic Toasts art exhibition will take place between 10 April and 11 May at the Golden Thread Gallery. Curated by Peter Richards, it will feature two artists living and working in Belfast – American born Sara Greavu and Omagh born Phil Hession.

Speaking at the launch of the festival Dick Mackenzie, chairman of Belfast Titanic Company said,

“This festival seeks to reflect the huge creative energy that drove the people of Belfast in the first decade of the twentieth century in industrial terms and which now continues to permeate the arts in this small part of the world. We have designed the programme to act as a commemoration for those who lost their lives in April 1912. ”

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