Summer Streets Festival returns this weekend (July 16/17) in Thompson Park, Southwick. It will be two packed days of exciting music, comedy and workshops. ALL FREE. Festival organisers Emma Horsman and Ross Millard talk about how it all began, this year's line up, and how to get involved.
Emma begins...
Everyone loves music don’t they? As a child of the 80’s I was definitely of the Peter Kay school of music consumption, recording the Radio One chart on a Sunday night on my tape recorder and trying to keep out the chatter by pausing then playing when the songs started.
I have many fond memories of school discos, clutching my Jennifer Rush, ‘Power of Love’ record in the hope that the DJ would put it on, ‘Bring your records the teachers said, so I did!’
Listening to music, as a child often included clutching a skipping rope that acted as my microphone and jumping all over the sofa, the living room was my venue and I was the star attraction, but we all did that… right?
Summer Streets is a unique event that brings 
together local musicians, both professional and amateur and celebrates music in all its forms. This is the third year that we have programmed Summer Streets in Thompson Park, Southwick. We started off in 2014, why? because the local community said they wanted something in Thompson Park, which they felt was an untapped resource, so we started as a one day event and it has grown into a two day celebration of music, which this year see’s Field Music headline our Saturday event, fresh after their performance at Asunder on Sunday. It’s a fantastic coup for us to see them on their home turf and were thrilled when they said yes to the gig.
On Sunday we are pleased to welcome the Royal Northern Sinfonia who will be performing Death and The Maiden (Schubert) and we have the world premiere performance of Putting the Band Back Together by Unfolding Theatre, which has been supported by The Cultural Spring through Research and Development investment and a regular workshop programme.
We are very lucky that Ross Millard is our Artistic Director for Summer Streets and he returns for the third year with a brilliant jam-packed programme.
I want to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to all who have been working so hard over the past few weeks rehearsing, creating and making for this event. Thank you!
And now over to Ross –
It’s important to me that everybody who comes down to Thompson Park over the course of this weekend really feels part of the proceedings and this year we have more ways than ever for people to directly get involved. Our street parade is going from strength to strength and with the support of the people of Southwick, and the primary school here, we’re making more connections with people and the word is spreading year after year. The workshops we have on-site are the most diverse we’ve ever had, with the chance for our audience (that’s you!) to have a go at playing some traditional instruments such as the penny whistle and the spoons, as well as more modern forms of expression such as beat-boxing and hip-hop.
There’s belly-dancing, too. You can even see a 78rpm record being cut, live, in one of our tepees. Bands and groups will drop in on the lathe revival sessions to record songs all day Saturday.
As usual, the premise of Summer Streets is to celebrate with you the great, diverse sounds that are being made by North-East-based artists in 2016, all across the genres, in one place for a full weekend. I think, as Sunderland enters a really bright, positive, interesting phase, highlighted by an ambitious and inspiring bid toward UK City of Culture in 2021, we can see from the line-up at Summer Streets that music in our City is in a healthy state.
We would like to end this blog post by saying thank you to all who attend the festival this weekend. Have a great time – get involved in a workshop if you can. Check out a band or artist you’ve never heard before. Come and say hello, and get involved. Most importantly, have fun.
Emma and Ross
13 July, 2016
