Professor Shirley Thompson OBE, prominent composer, Artistic Director and Professor of Music at the University of Westminster, composed and conducted the Tournament Anthem entitled Beautiful Game for the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022.
The UEFA Women’s EURO Tournament, a highly anticipated event in the world of sport, is taking place in the UK with 15 European countries between 6-31 July this year. The UEFA Women’s EURO Tournament is anticipated to reach 250 million people across Europe.
It is not only of interest to football fans, but also to music enthusiasts, and Westminster’s Professor Thompson, a composer, artistic director of opera and stage productions, conductor, violinist, educator and social/cultural activist, has made a major contribution to the cultural heritage of the UK as Composer-in-Residence of the UEFA Women’s EURO Tournament Anthem.
Beautiful Game for Orchestra and Community Choir was inspired by the words collated by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s education department, Resound, who sent out prompts to create the lyrics to the communities of the ten host stadiums. It was recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO), with choirs from all over the UK. Beautiful Game is performed at all the stadiums for the 31 matches of the tournament. Professor Thompson’s other piece, MOMENTUM: Concerto for Orchestra and Footballer/s is a football challenge of skills prompted by cues in the music and the first ever concerto for footballers and orchestra. MOMENTUM is available as a video game online to encourage the public to try out their football skills while performing to the orchestral music.
The two compositions are part of the arts and heritage programme, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Arts Council England and the Football Association, which for the first time showcases a group of female artists as part of a major UK football tournament. It is aimed to celebrate the history of women’s football, featuring untold stories and events of the games, while hoping to establish female role models through arts. It is expected that the programme will reach about 3 million people, encouraging them to take part in the world of football and the arts.
In addition to the compositions, Professor Thompson also assisted in education workshops around the ten cities of the tournament with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra education department between March - July 2022. During this period, she also presented at various sports and cultural forums giving insights about ways that sport and music intersect and offering methodologies to integrating sport and music alongside leading academics and world-leading female footballers.
Some of Professor Thompson’s most important previous works include New Nation Rising, A 21st Century Symphony, the concept for which the 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony was framed; the soundtrack of the BBC drama series South of the Border; a score for the film Dreaming Rivers; the opera, A Child of the Jago; and The Women Who Refused to Dance opera series, and the ballet PUSH that was performed in 40 major opera houses between 2005 and 2015. She has received many awards during her career, such as the Women of the Year Award nomination; South Bank Awards 2005; the Olivier Awards 2005; the University of the West Indies Luminary Award 2016; and the University of Westminster Chancellor’s Award 2016-7. She has been named by The Guardian as one of eight Change Makers.
Professor Thompson was awarded an OBE for her services to music at Queen’s New Year Honours Awards in 2019, and she has been named as one of the top most influential Black people in the UK on the Powerlist 2010 - 2022.
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