Hidden Stories - Sunderland Music Hub, Seventeen Nineteen

Between January and December 2022, Sunderland Music Hub, Seventeen Nineteen and MishMash Productions delivered Phase One of the Hidden Stories project, a creative arts and music project that worked with communities to uncover and share stories of the history and heritage of the area.

The project followed three years of partnership working between Sunderland Music Hub and MishMash Productions where music-led theatre, produced by MishMash Productions, was toured to schools and community venues in the Sunderland area. With the intention of ultimately creating a new piece of music-led theatre for Sunderland and its communities, they approached Seventeen Nineteen, a new cultural venue situated in the heart of Old Sunderland, to partner on the project.
Working together, the three partners aimed to tell the stories of three hundred years of Old Sunderland through the eyes of Seventeen Nineteen. Having just undergone a major renovation, the building was spilling with found treasures including historical artefacts found during the building work, objects held in storage waiting to be reunited with the venue and the stories within the walls and architecture of the building itself. The key to the project was to ensure that the communities served by Seventeen Nineteen and Sunderland Music Hub were at the heart of the work, with their stories, memories and voices woven with the narrative of the building.

The project was split into two phases, with Phase One focussing primarily on working meaningfully with communities in the area surrounding Old Sunderland, leading to the development of a piece of music-led theatre in Phase Two. This second phase of the project would be dependent on the outcome of Phase One and rely on further fundraising. Phase One of the project was funded by Arts Council England’s Project Grants programme. The overarching aim of the project was to
develop a culture of access, inclusion, and pride amongst local audiences. The intended outcomes were to:

The partner organisations were particularly interested in working with participant groups who don’t normally engage with local heritage or cultural provision and the pre-project questionnaires showed that over the course of the project:172 participants took part

• 73% had not visited the venue 1719 before
• 91% had never worked with a professional artist before
• 82% had not seen live classical music before

Of the school groups participating in the project:
The project had four parts to it: an introduction to the building and Creative Guides; the Creative Challenge; an exhibition; and fi nally a commissioned installation inspired by the work of the community groups. This was then followed by a period of research and development to guide the organisations’ next steps for the project.

• The Community Groups were...
• The Creative Guides were...
• Barbara Priestman Academy
• Grangetown Primary School
• Hudson Road Primary School
• Valley Road Academy
• Sunderland College
• Creative Age - Sunderland Culture
• Heritage Group - Seventeen Nineteen
• Sunderland Mind Drama Group
• Sunderland Youth & Community Orchestra
• Ruth Johnson – Writer/Director
• Verity Quinn – Set & Costume Designer
• Emma Mapplebeck – Musician
• David Smith- Musician
• Lily Daniels – Craft Practitioner
• 172 participants took part
• 73% had not visited the venue 1719 before
• 91% had never worked with a professional artist before
• 82% had not seen live classical music before
• Less than 10% of the children had visited Seventeen Nineteen before
• Less than 40% had worked with a professional artist before
• Less than 40% had seen live classical music before