A N Stencl

On Avrom Stencl and Whitechapel

Played out Whitechapel is a series of nine poems, one of a large number written/published over many years, and which Mr Stencl referred to as his ‘Whitechapel Lieder’ (ie songs/poems).

He loved the Land of Whitechapel dearly, sometimes referring to it as ‘Jerusalem’. He revelled in its vitality, and atmospheric qualities of intellectual and orthodox ferment. Indeed, he chaired an energetic weekly forum which attracted 200-300 people to each meeting.

When, perhaps inevitably, the costs of assimilation and integration resulted in the major emigrations east to Ilford/Redbridge, and north to Stamford Hill/Golders Green, it began to reflect noticeably in the dwindling numbers of those staying behind. Then the emotional realities and practicalities required adjustment (eg spiritual provision for the survivors).

Meanwhile, the next wave of immigrants were already discovering the joys of Whitechapel, re-interpreting its streets and passageways into their cultural norms, informed by their own roots. It would take a number of years until they, too, would feel it to be their ‘Mecca’. Yet they too in their turn, will feel the pain of change, of integration, and the loss of a way of life.

The special flavour of the poetic photographs by Stencl presents that overlap, that superimposing of one fading montage on a new tapestry hung upon the same wall. This, I believe, is the universalism which floats above all civilisations, and culture, and peoples in a dynamic world of change.

Chaim Neslen

Neyire Ashworth

Neyire studied clarinet at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, Rotterdam Conservatoire and in New York City.

She has pursued a career focused on solo and chamber music and small-scale theatre and contemporary music-theatre performance. With the Britten-Pears Ensemble she worked closely with Sir Richard Rodney Bennett and recorded several discs for ASV. With the clarinet quartet No Strings Attached she toured the Middle and Far East for the British Council and played in many UK prisons. They were winners of the Royal Overseas League Chamber Music prize and prize-winners in the Gaudeamus International Contemporary Music competition.

She currently plays with the New London Chamber Ensemble who regularly commission new works. They have recorded several albums – the wind music of Carl Nielsen and music by John Woolrich, Martin Butler, Lennox Berkeley and Philip Cashian. With the Zimro Trio she continues her interest in folk music and the stories of musical immigrants. Other recent performances include War Horse for the National Theatre in the West End and Little Red Riding Hood by Georges Aperghis at the Almeida Opera Festival. Neyire won Best Performer Award from the Buxton Fringe Festival for her performance piece Stolen Voices and continues to perform the instrumental theatre piece Stenclmusic, music by Rachel Stott. She also enjoys a freelance career with some of the UK’s finest orchestras.

Neyire is a dedicated teacher and coach. She can be found teaching clarinet on Saturdays at the Junior Guildhall School of Music and Drama and is the clarinet coach for the UK’s National Youth Chamber Orchestra.

Philip Parr

Philip is a director of theatre, opera and festivals. In addition he works widely as a creative producer with expert experience in programming and project management.
As a director, his productions have been seen around the world. He was founder and Artistic Director of Spitalfields Market Opera, a purpose built chamber opera house for London and the first opera house built in London for over 100 years, where he directed works by Mozart, Salieri, Gluck and Offenbach as well as the first performances of the first Australian Opera, Don John of Austria, in a new orchestration by Sir Charles Mackerras.

In the theatre Philip has made a particular reputation as a director of large scale community plays, chiefly working as Artistic Director of Parrabbola. This work has extended to encompass multi-lingual site specific Shakespeare productions of Pericles (2010) and The Winter’s Tale (2012) in Gdansk (Poland) and Ostrava (Czech Republic) and most recently Romeo and Juliet to celebrate Shakespeare 400 in Craiova (Romania) in April 2016.
Philip is currently co-director and programmer of the York International Shakespeare Festival, has directed the Swaledale Festival and Bath Shakespeare Festival, and planned the cultural festival for the Asian Games in Doha 2004. As part of Liverpool Capital of Culture 2008, he was Artistic Director for the Holocaust Memorial Day National Event held in the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. In 2015 Philip was the Artistic Director for Theatre and Dance for Kingston Welcomes Korea, a new festival celebrating all things Korean, hosted by The Rose Theatre in Kingston.

Philip is a founding council member and Secretary of the European Shakespeare Festivals network, has been a board member of BAFA (British Arts Festivals Association) and is a Trustee of Cardboard Citizens, the leading UK theatre company working with the homeless.

Rachel Stott

Rachel Stott lives and works in London, UK. She was educated at Wells Cathedral School and Churchill College, Cambridge, where she read music. She later studied as a post-graduate viola student of David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and has subsequently pursued a career as both violist and composer.
Her music has been performed at the London South Bank, Wigmore Hall, St John’s Smith Square, festivals across the UK, and in continental Europe, North America and Japan.

Works include three string quartets, several song cycles, many solo and chamber works for early instruments, orchestral works, and an opera for children, The Cuckoo Tree, based on the book by Joan Aiken. She has written a record-breaking work, Odysseus in Ogygia, for an ensemble of six viole d’amore, presented at the Innsbruck Viola d’amore Congress in 2012, and in the same year Several World, for massed saxophones, for the World Saxophone Congress in St Andrews, Scotland.

Aside from her professional work Rachel enjoys walking, swimming, reading and baking. She attends an adult education class in Ancient Greek and has recently learned how to pluck a goose.

Stephen Watts

Stephen Watts was born in London in 1952: his father’s family came from Stoke-on-Trent, his mother’s from the Swiss-Italian Alps and he has cultural roots there and in Scotland. In the early 70’s he lived on North Uist working as a shepherd and since 1976 has been in Whitechapel in the East End of London.

He has published three books of poetry—The Lava’s Curl (Grimaldi Press, 1990), Gramsci & Caruso (Periplum, 2003), The Blue Bag (Aark Arts, 2004) and edited several anthologies—Houses & Fish (a book of drawings with writing by 4 & 5 year olds, Parrot Press, 1991), Voices of Conscience (an international anthology of censored poets, Iron Press, 1995), Mother Tongues (a special issue of Modern Poetry in Translation, 2001), and Music While Drowning (an anthology of German Expressionist poems that accompanied an exhibition at the Tate Modern in London, Tate Publishing, 2003)