Wemba's Dream: Join the Journey, Wembley Park

Adults are advised never to perform with children or animals as they risk being upstaged; and for all that the grown-up performers did their jobs impeccably in Wemba’s Dream: Join the Journey, it was the child performers, such as the baby cello pictured top, who inevitably caught the eye.

More on that in a moment. On a glorious late summer Sunday afternoon, many people milled around the wide avenues and lush green areas of Wembley Park, with its refreshing ponds and fountains, some just enjoying the pleasant surroundings, others with a spring in their step, as they made their way to the assembly area where the performance was about to begin.

The show was entitled Wemba’s Dream: Join the Journey, and was inspired by the legend of Wemba, a voyager from long ago who crossed the world and finally settled on a hill named Wemba's Lea (say it out loud), which would become Wembley.

Wemba’s Dream celebrates the power of community, specifically the many diverse people who have built their lives in the borough of Brent, now also including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO), whose new home is in the borough.

Members of the RPO brass section got proceedings under way with the rousing Fanfare for Humanity by the American composer Libby Larsen, and then the assembled spectators were led in a slow procession to the main stage by a group from Mahogany Carnival Arts, all kitted out as giant musical instruments.

The main stage was, in fact, the ample coach-parking area, where on match days fans are disgorged to access Wembley Stadium. As was pointed out to me, ‘it’s the first time a fully fledged classical orchestra performs in a coach parking area.’

Under Patrick Bailey’s baton, the RPO gave an exuberant rendition of a piece by Richard Rodney Bennett, after which two members of Word Up recited words on the themes of journey, memory, hope and home.

The Sujata Banerjee Dance Company came next.

Sujata Banerjee Dance Company in Seasonal Flight. Wemba's Dream: Join the Journey. Photo: Chris Winter/Wembley Park
To a specially commissioned piece by British composer Dani Howard, the company performed Seasonal Flight, a charming dance that fused elements of South Indian Kathak with more fluid movement inspired by migrating birds and the shapes their flocks make against the sky.

The show ended in the Caribbean, with the RPO joined by the Jamaican musician Trevor Brown on guitar to perform Brown’s own calypso-inspired piece Journeying Home alongside the St Michael and All Angels Steel Orchestra. And here again the show was stolen by a very young person.

St Michael and All Angels Steel Orchestra in Journeying Home. Wemba's Dream: Join the Journey. Photo: Chris Winter/Wembley Park
How old could he be? Six? Seven? And yet his performance on that bongo drum was so assured it was absolutely mesmerising.

Wemba’s Dream: Join the Journey was the second iteration of a colourful celebration of multiculturalism, which first took to the streets of Wembley Park two years ago. And given its success, it’s unlikely to be the last.