“I have worked many times with Jamaican performers as well as bringing over my own orchestra, The Shirley Thompson Ensemble, to perform at The Ward; the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra organised by Dr Nigel Clarke; and my opera most recently, Sacred Mountain: Incidents in the Life of Queen Nanny of the Maroons. My Jamaican colleagues have spoken many times of my impact on orchestral music-making and opera in Jamaica. I have pioneered and demonstrated over several decades how it’s possible to combine Jamaican cultural aesthetics with classical orchestral/operatic traditions. Many artists are now following these examples.

For Jamaica 60, I am releasing the CD, Women of the Windrush, for singer and orchestra, and touring nationally and internationally, Sacred Mountain: Incidents in the Life of Queen Nanny of the Maroons”.

— Professor Shirley J Thompson OBE

Professor Shirley Thompson is a busy woman. She does, after all, wear many hats: composer, conductor and violinist. When we do catch up, however, it’s as soothing and as spectacular as her arrangements. The daughter of Jamaicans Hyacinth and Samuel Thompson who was raised in a household of three girls and three boys, regales us with tales of her father (now deceased) who would each week buy the latest records from his homeland as well as those of the North American greats. It’s not difficult to close one’s eyes and imagine the music emanating from the family’s East End home.

Little wonder that she still calls the East End home and that she chose to attend the University of Liverpool (a city many would christen the birthplace of British music), a choice that would, unbeknownst to her, put her in good stead years later for the offer of a lifetime.

Style Observer (SO) shares the exclusive, incredible story of how Thompson reimagined a Beatles classic.

“To begin this story,” she relates, “about three years ago I was invited to be a campaign ambassador for the proposed new building of the Yoko Ono Lennon Centre along with four other luminaries that had Liverpool connections. I am an alumna of Liverpool University. It’s where I took my first degree. The project was at the fund-raising stage and needed to raise several millions of pounds to make the vision a reality.

“In the autumn of 2021 The Tung Auditorium, Yoko Ono Lennon Centre building was halfway built and the directors were looking ahead to officially open the building in March 2022. I was invited to compose a new orchestral and choral piece to launch the opening of the centre by Ms Yoko Ono Lennon/Sean Ono Lennon.

I was thrilled by the invitation as it’s a great honour. After some consideration of what I would compose, I could not stop thinking about making an arrangement of Imagine, a reimagination that I would create for orchestra and choir. I thought it would make a wonderful homage to the legacy of John Lennon and Yoko Ono Lennon bringing the ethos of innovation, peace, love, humanity and joy that the Lennon family represents. This new version of the song would need the permission of the John Lennon estate and these are rarely, if at all, given for any iconic (or other works). However, The Yoko Ono Lennon Centre directors contacted Yoko Ono Lennon and Sean Ono Lennon in this regard and they gave their enthusiastic consent. I was again thrilled because this was a massive endorsement and huge honour to achieve!

“The rest is history, I reworked Imagine, originally composed for singer and piano that John Lennon sang and played on piano, for a much larger entity: Choir, Orchestra and 2 Pianos.

I entitled the new work I created One World. After the performance, Sean Ono Lennon said, ‘I was deeply moved by One World … you’ve brought great gravitas and more layers to my father’s piece [ Imagine] that I didn’t know were there … it was celestial…The sentiments of peace, love and joy shone through with a wonderful radiance’. I was absolutely over the moon with these comments, coming from a Lennon!”

Sean Ono Lennon was not the only one thrilled, she informs. “John Lennon’s sister was at the performance and several other relatives were there and they loved the new version, too. Overall, I was very happy with the response to my new work, One World, that was described by audience members as ‘stunning’, ‘deeply moving’ and ‘powerful’.”

The work had another performance at the Yoko Ono Lennon Centre on Friday, 1 April 2022.