At Sixes and Sevens – A Square Peg and a Round Hole

The word groundbreaking is often overused, but when it comes to the At Sixes and Sevens project it’s the only word that we can’t leave out of the story. It’s a story of two cities, the City of Derry and the City of London, a David and a Goliath, a square mile and a round one and a difficult 400 year history and relationship. It is also a story of creativity across these two cities expressed in a major new commission by world leading artists who created a cantata in movements which acted as a frame in which collaborative new works of music and poetry by young people were inserted as windows.

At Sixes and Sevens Background

The background to the story is a fascinating one. The City of London is only twinned with one city across the globe and it is the most unlikely location of the City of Derry or Londonderry in Northern Ireland. The name hints at a possible connection of course but doesn’t give away the long and deep history, nor its difficult relationship. Central to the beginning of this relationship is The Honourable The Irish Society which was established by royal charter in 1613 when, under compulsion from the Crown, the City of London and 55 of the London Livery companies were prevailed on to participate in the Plantation of Ulster.

As part of that Plantation, the Society built the walls of Derry~Londonderry which stand intact to this day, planned the street layout and buildings within that, and gave the city a new cathedral, St Columb’s, whose foundation stone bears the inscription:

“If stones could speak then London’s praise should sound
for those who built this church and city from the ground”

The Irish Society has remained closely linked with the “City and County of Londonderry”, so named by that charter, to this day, and helps build links between the County and London in a number of fields, such as education, business and culture.

The Anniversary Commission

On the 400th anniversary of the Charter, which coincided with the UK City of Culture in 2013 the new cantata and community engagement project was proposed. Composer Mark Anthony Turnage and poet Paul Muldoon were commissioned and the cultural collaboration between cultural organisations across the two cities was set up to engage with young people and produce a performance. The name for the project and the commission, At Sixes and Sevens, came from a famous story in the history of the major livery companies in the City of London. They all have numbers and the nearer to no. 1 that you are the more influence you had. At an early part in their history there was a dispute over which company was no. 6 and which company was no. 7. In a ruling by a judge it was decided that they would alternate year on year – which gave rise to them being referred to being ‘At Sixes and Sevens’. To many of us this described how the relationship was between the City of Derry and the City of London and was a powerful characterisation that opened up the space for creative interpretations.

Our role in the project was to lead the collaborative composing with young people in Derry/Londonderry and worked in partnership with Barbican Creative Learning, Verbal Arts Centre, City of London Festival, London Symphony Orchestra, Camerata Ireland, Mark Anthony Turnage, Paul Muldoon, Barry Douglas, the UK City of Culture 2013 and the Honourable the Irish Society.

At Sixes and Sevens Performance

The At Sixes and Sevens performance which happened simultaneously in the Guildhall Derry and the Guildhall in the City of London will live long in the memory and is not only credited with shifting the cultural relationship between the two cities, but in encouraging a meaningful transformation in the creative lives of those who took part and a contribution to new innovations in creative community engagement practice. You only have to listen to the thoughts and feelings of the young people and creative practitioners on the day of the performance to understand how much this meant.

It may be the case that a project such as this only comes round once in a generation but here at Wall2Wall Music there is no limit to our imagination. We are always on the lookout for a special, one-off and unique creative story that we can help bring to life through new music. To help bring your project to life contact Artistic Director, Sarah Murphy on sarah@wall2wallmusic.org