WemsFest is delighted to present the Surtierra Touring Project - a collaboration with Anglo-Chilean band Quimantu alongside the newly-formed and expertly-directed WemsFest Choir, who have joined to learn, rehearse, and perform Mauricio Venegas-Astorga's Misa de los Mineros (Miners' Mass). Performing this powerful prayer will be Quimantu and the Alkyona Quartet, alongside 100 community singers.
The Chilean composer of the Misa and founder of Quimantu, Mauricio Venegas-Astorga, escaped five decades ago from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and made the United Kingdom his home. Today, the band seeks to break the stigmas associated with immigration caused by war, persecution, or poverty. In this context, music takes on a profound meaning: healing, uniting, rooting, and creating community. In this performance, music and home will meet in a celebration that unites cultures and voices.
The Surtierra Touring Project is a large-scale project, run by Quimantu and Musiko Musika (an artist-led music and cultural organisation). The project is working with five community choirs to tour performances of the Misa de los Mineros in Hampshire, West Sussex, and Dorset. The fantastic community cultural engine that is WemsFest has ignited the project in this area by bringing together over 60 local singers to join Quimantu on this tour, a full series of 10 concerts which will culminate in two finale performances in London as part of the celebrations for Refugee Week 2025. Leading the WemsFest Choir are the exceptional talents of local choir leaders Emily Barden and Laura Blake. Their work embodies the unifying power of singing, weaving spirits from diverse communities into a connection of music, roots, and hope.
As a Community Interest Company, WemsFest has a mandate to benefit the local community. We know that music has a powerful ability to bring people together. With the Surtierra Touring Project, as with our recent Black History Month School Workshops, we hope to take this a step further: to harness the power of music to promote community integration, anti-racism, the understanding of history, and the welcoming of those from other cultures, including refugees who are now living locally.