On Saturday, Jersey celebrated the 64th anniversary of the island's liberation from five years of Nazi occupation during the Second World War. An international music festival, street parades, an outdoor service of thanksgiving and a enactment of the arrival of the British troops all commemorated the 9th May 1945 – the day when, as the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said, "our dear Channel Islands are also to be freed".
The Jersey Liberation Festival took centre stage over the weekend, hosting a number of world-class musicians at concerts and masterclasses.
The highlights included the Liberation Gala Concert at the Jersey Opera House. The Sitkovetsky Trio steered the audience through an intense musical line-up, played with great feeling and energy. The trio consists of violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky, pianist Qian Wu, and cellist Leonard Elschenbroich. The communication between the three was powerful; they played Smetana's haunting Piano Trio with thrilling intensity.
Guy Pratt struck a more lighthearted chord during his comedy gig "My Bass and Other Animals". Pratt, the former Pink Floyd bass guitarist turned stand-up comedian and "Betsy", his bass guitar, kept the audience laughing with his anecdotes about working with Madonna and sessions with an elusive Michael Jackson.
Musicians from Germany, China, Spain, Russia and Italy served to make the Jersey Liberation Festival a truly international event. The Italian-Thai opera singer Maya Sapone got the crowds swaying to the 1940s favourites "We'll Meet Again" and "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" at the street party in Liberation Square.
One thing that made the Jersey Liberation Festival special was the engagement with the local community. At the start of the festival's grand keynote event, the Liberation Gala Concert, the master of ceremonies read out poems from a recent children's poetry competition. Entitled "What Liberation Means to Me", the poems had been published in the local newspaper and gave the classical concert an injection of local colour. Schoolchildren's poems rarely feature at classical concerts, and in Jersey they made fantastic addition.
At the Coffee Concert in the Arts Centre the next morning, young Jersey musicians got the chance to perform on stage with pianists Wu Qian and Tessa Grobel. Grobel, who also directed the festival, said young musicians in Jersey really benefited from the concert, and not just for the chance to perform. "So many children came [to the masterclasses] from around the island. Everybody just raved about them, being able to watch performers rehearse, and being inspired by performers who are young enough that they could relate to." The musicians involved in the festival – no matter how acclaimed or well-known – made an effort to connect with the islanders.
The Liberation Day festivities and the Jersey Liberation Festival were both heartening and moving. Although upbeat, the celebrations reflected on a solemn historical occasion. The impassioned music of the musicians cast light on a dark chapter of Jersey's history.
Watch an exclusive interview with star pianist Wu Qian about the Jersey Liberation Festival, her favourite concert venues and why Chinese food is the best...
"You gotta hear this one song — it'll change your life; I swear."
I'm sure we all have songs, albums and soundtracks that spark a serious dose of wanderlust as soon as we hear them.
I started listening to the 2004 Garden State soundtrack again this morning after hearing one of the songs in Derric Wong's new travel video "Goodbye Turkey". Now all I can think about is packing my bags and heading off to Turkey too.
So I started looking around the web to find more lyrical travel inspiration and came across...
IndieTravelPodcast's Top 40 Songs: A soundtrack for your journey
Rolling Stone Magazine's 25 Best Road Trip Songs Ever
World Hum's Top 40 Travel Songs of All Time
What are the songs that give you instant itchy travel feet and where do they make you want to travel to?
Photo Credit: 'Atardecer en Uchisar' by lecu_lillas via Flickr (Creative Commons).
