Alan Bush. A life - ACE128.4

Joan Horrocks making meal-time announcement about Summer School’s closing concert that evening, the main work being composed by Alan Bush, with words by his wife, Nancy. Particularly apt for Anti-Apartheid year. Alan and Nancy take a bow to much applause. Appluse for Bush at concert as he explains that in 1956 10,000 South African women marched on Government House in Pretoria. When asked who had sent them, every woman answered "Africa is My Name", the title of Bush’s work Op.85, 1976. Performance of Africa is My Name. Photo of WMA singers and banner in 1942. Joan Horrocks talking about wartime activities – very active with unique repertoire, fro example of resistance songs from a range of countries, which, in some cases, were broadcast to those countries. Photo of WMA singers on stage with trophy. Joan Horrocks talks about wartime rehearsals in WMA premises in Leicester Square, where most people stayed on even during air raids. Bush talks of his service in Royal Army Medical Corps as Chief Clerk in Millbank Military Hospital, and about how the BBC tried to ban him and others from broadcasts because he was a signatory to ‘The People’s Convention for a People’s Government’, issued January 12th, 1941. Bush’s composition Truth on the March on the soundtrack over the ‘Six Points of the People’s Convention’, and lists of signatories from Music, Theatre, Films, Authors & Playwrights. Bush explains that Churchill lifted the ban as the movement wasn’t against the war.