The British Paraorchestra on the big screen

A short film featuring the Bristol-based British Paraorchestra performing with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, created by local filmmaker and arts producer Phoebe Holman, has just won an award for best short documentary at London International Short Film Festival.

The 18-minute documentary, titled Towards Harmony, A Musical Integration, follows members of the Paraorchestra ahead of a big performance at Symphony Hall Birmingham, in which disabled and non-disabled musicians play together. The Paraorchestra is the first of its kind in the world and is based at We The Curious on Anchor Road.

“Towards Harmony was a huge project because it was a full Paraorchestra project, integrated with one of the world’s best orchestras, up in Birmingham,” Phoebe says. “We were there for four days, with 25 musicians all with varying degrees of disability, plus carers and volunteers from We The Curious . It was one of the Paraorchestra’s biggest projects to date, bar the Olympics.

“I pitched the idea of making a documentary to producer Jonathan Harper and conductor Charles Hazlewood, and they were keen to go ahead with it, to document what we were doing and the story behind it.”

The documentary was made by filmmaker and arts producer Phoebe Holman

The short film delves into the deeply moving personal stories of members of the orchestra, within the arcing narrative of a big performance, and added to by interviews that offer gen genuine insight – including how Hazlewood successfully conducts musicians that cannot see him. The members of the orchestra come across remarkably naturally on camera, telling their stories in a way that is frank, genuine and endearing.

The star of the film is Lloyd Coleman, a hearing-impaired clarinetist and composer whose original compositions score the action beautifully. The concert brings him back into contact with his former clarinet teacher Joanna Patton, and the respect they have for each other personifies the themes of trust, pride and achievement – regardless of disability – that underpin the whoel documentary. As we see Coleman take to the stage to perform a solo, the audience framed behind him sit rapt, as if under the spell of this talented young man.

Deaf clarinetist and composer Lloyd Coleman stars in the documentary

“The film was selected to be screened at the London International Short Film Festival, which was brilliant,” Phoebe says. “I went up to London to watch it with some of my crew, and the next thing I know I’ve got an email saying it had won the best short documentary. Since then, it’s become a finalist at the Manhattan International Film Festival in New York: only ten films in the world that were chosen, and Towards Harmony is one of them.

“It’s going to be amazing to see something I’ve produced screened in another country, and to spread to word of the Paraorchestra to the USA. We’ve made a great documentary – everyone’s really proud of it and I had a small but fantastic team working with me to do it.”

Charles Hazlewood conducts the British Paraorchestra

For conductor and founder of the Paraorchestra, Charles Hazlewood, the film is an exciting step to seeing the musicians’ work recognised by many more people. “This international acclaim is phenomenally exciting, as this is potentially a whole new wide audience to become familiar with our work and hopefully be excited by our mission,” Charles says.

“Phoebe’s documentary brilliantly and sensitively captures the magic of what we are all trying to achieve. A fledgling initiative like this is always hungry for the oxygen of publicity. This film is so beautiful and so on point in reflecting the challenges facing the Paraorchestra and by extension all disabled musicians. It’s an utterly brilliant way of getting us the much-needed publicity we are looking for.”

Find out more about the British Paraorchestra by visiting www.paraorchestra.com and see more of Phoebe’s film work at www.phoebe-holman.com

Photographs by Paul Blakemore