Let the Music Room play on its special open day

The Landmarks Trust has rescued nearly 200 significant buildings which could have been lost forever, since forming in 1965.

The highlight of the weekend at the Sun Street premises will be a Golden Moment at 3pm on Saturday when Dot Crotchet and the Raging Harmonies, a local acapella community choir, will perform.

The Dots, as they are known, will join local musicians across the country who will simultaneously perform a piece of music at 25 buildings being opened to mark the occasion.

The specially-commissioned piece entitled ‘Lines Loops Bones and Stones: An Anthem For Landmark’ has been created by Kerry Andrew, winner of two 2014 British Composer Awards in the Education and Community and Stage Works categories for two of her recent operas.

The Music Room, on Sun Street in the centre of Lancaster, is a garden pavilion from about 1730 which became part of a stained-glass factory in the 19th century. It has been carefully restored after the trust found it in a terrible state, with broken windows and plasterwork. It is now available to people to stay in who visit Lancaster for short breaks.

The Dots are a group which has been meeting since 1997 and sings 
music from every genre, regularly welcoming new members.

Kerry said: “I am really excited to be creating a piece jointly with twenty-five community music ensembles around the country.

“I see the piece very much as a collaboration between me and the musicians and their buildings, being made up of lots of small fragments that can be ‘built’ into a piece to suit them. I can’t wait to hear the eventual pieces, which will undoubtedly be as different and beautiful as the buildings themselves are.”