Music for Fidel

The show was a success! Thanks and Audience Response

Catherine Tarrant — Tue, 21 Nov 2017 10:34:14 +0000

Thank you all!

On the 16th Nov ‘Fidel’ a musical showed at St Paul’s Church. Our first London performance. There are many people that deserve a mention… let’s just say a huge thank you to everyone. It was a great success.

We had some great audience feedback. Read on to know more.
Click on image to enlarge.

I’m thrilled by the show’s reception on Thursday. It was wonderful to see the actors bring the script to life and I’m so glad the wonderful songs written by the new songwriters got a chance to be heard. Now I’m just waiting for someone to step up and offer funds/support to take it to the next stage!

Cuban Voices

Denise Baden — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 13:35:19 +0000

This is a soundscape summarising 30+ interviews with Cubans about Fidel Castro. It’s about 5 minutes long.

Hasta La Victoria available to buy as download

Denise Baden — Thu, 21 Sep 2017 16:10:52 +0000

We have just released our top song from the musical – the spine-tingling live version of Hasta la Victoria written by Alfie Aukett and gut-wrenchingly sung by Ralph Skan. It’s available to buy from all online music sites (e.g. https://itunes.apple.com/album/id1247931885 ) for 99p and we are using any money to finance our November show https://iristheatre.com/event/fidel/

See first performance of ‘Fidel’ in Covent Garden this Nov

Denise Baden — Fri, 01 Sep 2017 07:48:14 +0000

The first performance of ‘Fidel’ – a 90 minute version is being staged at Iris Theatre, Covent Garden on 16th Nov 2017. This is funded by money raised from crowdfunding. We hope that everyone who has been part of the amazing and unique journey of the musical will come along to see it. But we are only putting on 2 performances so buy tickets early to avoid disappointment. Tickets are £15 adults, £10 <18s and check out website for school rates on https://iristheatre.com/event/fidel/

Prizes announced for song-writing competition

Denise Baden — Tue, 18 Jul 2017 12:42:14 +0000

Since our original competition to write songs for the musical ‘Fidel’, we have had other rounds and also opened up the competition to a broader range of songwriters. Crowd-funders whittled down the entries and our professional judges decided on the final winners for each category, based on the ratings from the public and their own ratings. We are delighted to announce that the prize for best song in the 16 and under age range goes to the song ‘Viva Cuba Libre’ by Lauren Barker and Beth Fermor from Cowplain School, Hampshire. The prize for the best song from a songwriter in the 17-21 age range is to Cosimo Romagnoli for ‘Time of Revolution’. The best song in the 22+ category goes to Kazzey for his lovely song ‘La Revolucion’.

BBC interview goes viral

Denise Baden — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 16:03:04 +0000

The bias apparent in my BBC interview about Fidel Castro was so appalling it reminded me again why I wanted to write the musical. Apparently many agree as it seems to have gone viral with 3 million views. I write about how an academic is driven to write a musical as the only way to put the story of Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolution in context in https://theconversation.com/our-musical-fidel-will-try-to-puncture-the-polarised-debate-about-castro-69508.

see our promo video and hear some of the songs here

Denise Baden — Tue, 13 Sep 2016 10:16:56 +0000

Click on the link for a taster of some of our songs https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCMHbvITJYibV4LG5Haj5_XRZB4WCOlfC

5 minute video

Denise Baden — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:37:39 +0000

This is a taster of Fidel: based on the showback of our workshop in July 2016 and other events. To hear some of the other songs click on https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCMHbvITJYibV4LG5Haj5_XRZB4WCOlfC

Next round of the competition (free to enter)

Denise Baden — Fri, 12 Aug 2016 13:07:19 +0000

We have launched another round of our competition to write new songs for Fidel the musical (deadline 3rd April 2016). The competition is free to enter. Check out the ‘Song Themes’ tab to see which songs we still need. We may extend the deadline till 24th July 2017 for selected song categories if we still need more songs.

Wow – What a night!

Timothy Worth — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 15:17:32 +0000

What a spectacular evening we had on Sunday! Many thanks to all those who participated or came along to watch. You can listen to the winning songs and see what the audience had to say about them here https://fidelthemusical.soton.ac.uk/gala-event/