{"id":374,"date":"2014-10-09T10:15:38","date_gmt":"2014-10-09T10:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.risen.org.uk\/?p=374"},"modified":"2014-10-09T10:15:38","modified_gmt":"2014-10-09T10:15:38","slug":"blog-oct-9th-love-beyond-the-musical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/?p=374","title":{"rendered":"Blog Oct 9th \u201cLove Beyond- The Musical\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"LoveBeyond\"<\/p>\n

\u201cJesus Christ Superstar\u201d has been running off and on for 43 years; it has some fantastic songs such as the theme tune and the haunting\u201c I Don\u2019t Know How To Love Him.\u201d However it does not include the Resurrection of Jesus and not many would regard it as telling the story from a Christian perspective.\u00a0 The musical \u201cGodspell,\u201d \u00a0\u00a0although again missing a definitive resurrection, is much more Christian based – being mostly centred on the parables of Jesus as told in the Gospel of Matthew.\u00a0 \u201cGodspell\u201d also has had many different productions since 1971. One fantastic version I recently saw was produced by my good friend Paul Clements\u2019 theatrical company Vision Works visionworksmtc.co.uk.<\/a> There have also been numerous Passion plays such as the one staged in Southampton in 2011 by another friend, \u00a0Neil Maddock for \u00a0E- Quip Arts Community Project www.e-quiparts.org.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

However Christian musicals are very much few and far between.\u00a0 We are of course so excited that our very own \u201cRisen! – The Musical\u201d! is well on its way to having a completed double CD, with a written score in the pipeline and hopefully a full stage production ready for 2015. As I have previously said this is somewhat dependant on funds, hence my reference in recent blogs to our potential fund raiser \u201cCheerful Giver\u201d which we hope will be launched on Oct 26th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

Risen! focuses on one relatively small part of the Bible – namely the resurrection appearances of Jesus -a\u00a0 small \u00a0part of the Bible but one which most Christians would regard as the most important – after all St Paul says that if Christ is not raised then our preaching is useless and so is our \u00a0faith.<\/p>\n

The new musical \u201cLove Beyond\u201d \u00a0www.lovebeyondmusical<\/strong>.com <\/strong><\/a>\u00a0however features the theme of love using illustrations from the whole of the Bible -Genesis through to Revelation. \u00a0I had the privilege to see the show last week on the final night of a two day production at the Wembley Arena. The writer and Producer, \u00a0Richard Haley who I recently met\u00a0 (sorry I seem to be name dropping big time today!) told me that he had a dream to create a concept musical some 15 years ago inspired by his progressive music heroes Rick Wakeman and Jeff Wayne. He also had a vision whilst at the Wembley Arena with his son that this would be an ideal venue for dramatising his Christian faith in music. Part of the story behind \u201cLove Beyond\u201d involves Richard meeting with Tabitha Webb when she was currently singing the female lead in \u201cPhantom of the Opera\u201d. Tabitha collaborated with Richard in writing and arranging the music and was instrumental in bringing in many West End performers.<\/p>\n

The show richly deserved the accolades it has received – here is one typical of many posted on Facebook;<\/p>\n

This was a fantastic evening, splendid, thought-provoking, and richly layered. Awesome choreography, superb use of minimal props and staging, world class performances, and a thoroughly up-lifting and faithful presentation of the greatest love story ever told.<\/em><\/p>\n

So \u201cLove Beyond\u201d \u00a0has proved that a Christian musical can be produced in a top, top venue- can be totally professionally presented and be extremely well received – where \u201cLove Beyond – The Musical\u201d has gone – I hope and pray that \u201cRisen! -The Musical\u201d will follow.<\/p>\n

In the next few weeks Joffy is recording a string quartet for the Risen! \u00a0CD and backing tracks and Stuart Fowler is returning to add some additional trumpet so until then I am going to take a rest from blog writing and wait until there is more info to share such as the \u201cCheerful Giver\u201d\u00a0 fund raising launch.\u00a0 In the meantime we will post on this blog a Mustard Seed Song each week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Behind the Stone” featuring\u00a0 J Marie Cooper (Mary Magdalene) from “Love Beyond – The Concept CD” \u201cJesus Christ Superstar\u201d has been running off and on for 43 years; it has some fantastic songs such as the theme tune and the haunting\u201c I Don\u2019t Know How To Love Him.\u201d However it does not include the Resurrection […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ken-shearsmiths-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=374"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":378,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions\/378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}