Notes from Shetland to Shanghai

Following her critically acclaimed run at the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival, Sophie Rocks’ programme, Notes from Shetland to Shanghai, fuses live harp music with pre-recorded poetry to explore the universally human experience that is migration.

Drawing from personal accounts, both of those who leave and those who stay, this show takes you on a journey, exploring the emotions connected with immigration - fear, anger, sorrow, resilience, freedom and hope. Spanning over five different continents, Sophie combines music and poetry that not only celebrates her traditional Shetland roots but illustrates her love of all kinds of music. Through the celebration of our cultural difference, we find our similarities and connections are more than we knew.

What was the inspiration behind Notes from Shetland to Shanghai?

Having grown up on the Shetland Islands, a small archipelago north of Scotland, I was part of a small, very close community. I was also fully aware of the extent to which migration played, and continues to play, a part on the islands - at present, more people of Shetland heritage live in Canada, Australia and New Zealand than in Shetland.

In 1969, Shetland Fiddler Tom Anderson composed a slow air, Da Slockit Light, which was inspired by people migrating from Shetland. As I play this piece regularly in recitals, it in turn, inspired me to consider migration across the globe, an ongoing global phenomenon of huge consequence.

With this in mind, I programmed a recital named ‘Notes Shetland to Shanghai’ which I performed at the 2018 Edinburgh International Fringe festival. The programme consisted of solo harp works from all over the world, commencing in Shetland and ending with a traditional Chinese song. However, , I wanted to explore ways in which to expand this programme, and widen the audience for the Harp. Through this, I developed a programme combining Solo Harp music from global locations with readings of poems and letters connected to migration from all over the world.

Notes from Shetland to Shanghai received 4 star reviews from both The Scotsman and ThreeWeeksEdinburgh, was performed at the Prague Fringe Festival and at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Canada in February 2020 - this performance can be viewed here