HOPE OF A TREE is a brand new piece, consisting of original songs and text, to be premiered at Leeds Lit Fest this year. This piece is themed around the idea of trees, woods and forests, inspired by The Overstory, the Booker-nominated novel by Richard Powers.

Over Christmas 2019 Peter composed several new songs for this project and we’ve been working on them for two nearly months now - taking our musical cue from pieces we enjoy performing, such as READY CHAIR and DEAD IN THE COLD, this suite of songs and text is a bit more homogeneous than our usual eclectic fare. Jacqui has some new technology she’s been playing with and Richard has been playing a lot of Country music. We’re really looking forward to be playing in St. John the Evangelist’s, it promises to be a very special evening :)

Home Turf for Schwa after launching our recordings Now We Are Schwa and Threshold here, we come back twice a year - usually with a special guest or thirty. We may bring poets, we may bring guest musicians, we may bring a World Community Orchestra - best not miss it…

Dales Jam, the 30+ piece World Music Community Orchestra based in Skipton, North Yorkshire, meet Schwa in a head to head of cosmopolitan melodies, global rhythms and Edward Thomas.

Schwa will open the evening with an intimate set of songs from Threshold, Arrivals & Departures, and A Lark, before Dales Jam play a few of their hits. Then Peter and Jacqui will sing some of Schwa’s greatest hits, accompanied by the enormous Dales Jam, directed by Richard Ormrod.

This show is definitely not to be missed - it’s going to be smashing!

Schwa takes poems by a range of poets, dead and alive, and sets them to intelligent, emotive music. In this show, A Lark, the audience is invited on a musical meander to explore the natural world and the mystery of feathered creatures.