Christ’s Hospital and Horsham community offer fundraising Ukraine concert

It will take place on Saturday, April 2 at 7.30pm and is being organised by Christ’s Hospital history teacher Jacob Keet.

Tickets are available on https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/concert-for-ukraine-at-ch-tickets-294839110717“As a history teacher I thought it would be very remiss of me not to do something,” Jacob said.

“I’m a history teacher but have always loved music and a lot of the staff here at Christ’s Hospital are very musical. I normally put on concerts in different places during the holidays and I just thought it would be good to do one here. It will be on the last day of term. I think we will have about 15 to 20 performers. Some of them are from the Surrey Chamber Music Group and some from Horsham Symphony Orchestra as well as staff from the school.

“We will be doing a variety of things. We’re going to play the Bach Double Violin Concerto and also music by (Mykola Vitaliyovych) Lysenko, a Ukrainian composer (and also pianist, conductor and ethnomusicologist). We will also be doing some Ukrainian folk songs. It will be a concert of variety and we’ve got members of staff baking cakes for the interval as well. I think it will finish at about 9pm.

“I often organise concerts just because I quite like to keep my music up and have something to practise for, to aim towards. I’ve given concerts down in Rustington and also in Littlehampton where I’m from and where my family lives and really anywhere that will have me. I also play in the Horsham Symphony Orchestra.

“With the Russian invasion I think it is really important to try to bring people together for the cause. It is important to do something. Some people are giving their time and resources in terms of having refugees. I was wanting to raise some funds as my way to help.

“As a history teacher we’ve been talking about it in class the week that it was all happening and I have been amazed by the response from the pupils. From 11 years upwards they’ve all been taken by it and really interested and wanting to know. This is the Cuban Missile Crisis for them and their time. A group of my students had just finished studying Gorbachev, and this now feels like such an incredible turning point in history.

“On the last Sunday of half-term I was in London and I went to the Russian embassy and there were people protesting there. It was interesting to see the reasons that they were protesting and as I say it would just be very remiss of me as a history teacher not to be talking about it and not be doing something about it.

“It is impossible to predict the future but I do think the main danger for me is that this will become a forgotten war.

“With the Syrian civil war when it started it was in the news everyday but gradually it went out of fashion and there was a very positive response to the refugees at the start and then it became negative.

“I don’t think with this we’re looking at the nuclear escalation that some people fear but I do think there is a danger that we will start to forget about it and it’ll just become part of our everyday lives.”