The Stables & MK Dons - Songs From The Cowshed

A Musical Celebration of the MKDons FC at half time, live in the stadium on Saturday 20th November 2010.

‘Songs From The Cowshed’ is a piece of music and a film specially created to celebrate the MK Dons Football Club and its supporters and has been created especially for performance at today's home game.

It is performed by a wonderful group of people brought together for this unique project, including local amateur musicians, professional musicians, young learners, members of two samba bands, a local brass band and those who before now might even have described themselves as "non musicians". The youngest is seven years old, the oldest seventy years young. They have been assembled from students from the Milton Keynes Music Service, the Milton Keynes City Orchestra, the Bloco Flogo Samba Band, the Lobo Tren Band and the Bedford Town Band, as well as community members from across the Milton Keynes area.

The music seeks to capture the energetic, spontaneous street-music of football that you would find here at the MK Stadium and at almost any club in the world on a match-day.

The film you will see (like the music) explores the rhythms and patterns of football as well as its inherent visual beauty and is taken from footage of last seasons exciting 2-1 victory over Norwich City.

The performers are made up of wind, brass and percussion instruments who declaim football rhythms, song fragments and the energising riffs of the crowd to create a kaleidoscope of conflicting sounds, spontaneous rhythms and textures. They have been working incredibly hard and rehearsing tirelessly for the last month across Milton Keynes to be able to present this music today.

The music has been commissioned and is performed as part of the Rendezvous Project. The Stables Theatre & the MK Dons F.C. are working in partnership and have been delivering this year long music project that puts live music into the football matchday experience.

So far it has presented in and around the stadium MK, artists from around the world including Bloco Flogo, Dulsori, The Dhol Foundation, Kinetika, Chris Jagger’s Atcha, 3 Sticks, Atongo Zimba & U’Zambezi. The project is funded by Arts Council England.

Fraser Trainer (Composer)

Fraser is a young British composer committed to working in a broad and responsive way. He already has four London Sinfonietta commissions to his name and has firmly established himself as a composer keen to communicate with both performers and audiences through a vivid and direct musical language.

Born in Chelmsford, Essex in 1967, he first studied composition at Huddersfield University where he was awarded the 1989 Composition Prize. He later attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama as a postgraduate student where he won the 1992 Lutoslawski Prize. www.frasertrainer.com

Songs From The Cowshed Creative Team

Dick Straker - Film Editor
Hugh Wilkinson - Percussion Section leader
Christian Forshaw - Brass Section Leader
Filipe Sousa - Percussion Section leader
Bruce Nockles - Brass Section Leader
Chris Caldwell - Brass Worksop Leader
Mark Johnson-Brown - Project Manager
Graeme Surtees - Stables Head of Education
Lee Scriven - MKDons AV Support & Advice