What's on Rachel Dawick

Rachel Dawick
When: Sunday 17th March 2024
Time: 7.30 pm
How much: $20 public | $10 members

Rachel Dawick

Rachel Dawick is a New Zealand folk artist whose previous album, ‘The Boundary Riders’, was finalist for the NZ Tui Award Folk Album 2015. She returns after living in London for the last four years with her new folk album and book ‘London Labour and the London Poor’, based on Henry Mayhew’s work from the mid 1850’s when he took to the streets to interview east Londoners, releasing these interviews as part of a series of articles in the Chronicle Paper and later as a three volume book. The songs focus on the voices of the people themselves – ranging from Jack Black, the Queen’s Rat Catcher, the teenage Mudlark, the Rhubarb and Spice Seller, The Acrobat, the Punch & Judy Man and many more - all to recreate a snapshot of life on the streets. This socio-political work by Mayhew is a fitting album for today’s times as the same issues arise, voices that seem to echo the past. This album will be released in New Zealand over March-May 2024 before being released in the UK at the end of 2024.

Dawick’s previous album & book ‘The Boundary Riders’ explored the ‘hidden voices’ of the working class women who left the UK to NZ in the 1800s. This three year research into local archives and hidden stories of NZ’s working class women was released on 19th September 2014 (NZ Women’s Vote Day 1893). The album took her on a musical journey from Tui Award finalist for best NZ Folk Album in 2015 to being selected as one of forty Musical Theatre at the BEAM festival in London on 8th & 9th March 2016 – a showcase of emerging British Musical Theatre Writing. Since 2017 she has been part of BML (Book Music Lyric) as a lyricist and composer in London developing her skills in Musical Theatre Writing, before finding herself in London during Covid teaching in schools. It has been here that she has developed her material and developed a picture of London past and present.

New Album

‘London Labour and the London Poor'

“The first attempt to publish the history of a people, from the lips of the people themselves – giving a literal description of their labour, their earnings, their trials, and their sufferings, in their own “unvarnished” language; and to portray the condition of their homes and their families by personal observation of the places, and direct communication with the individuals."

 (Mayhew’s Preface to ‘London Labour and the  London Poor’)

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EFTPOS available

 

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