Coope, Boyes & Simpson - In Flanders Fields (2014)

Peace has been a recurring theme of the powerful and distinctive singing and songwriting of the English acappella trio Barry Coope, Jim Boyes and Lester Simpson. It was the strength of their writing about the events of the First War that first led Piet Chielens, now Co-ordinator of the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres, to commission them to perform and compose music for the Flemish arts organisation, Peace Concerts Passendale in 1993. They eventually took part in five different Peace Concert productions in Belgium and England, performing on former battlefields like Hill 60, among the memorials at Tyne Cot and at the request of the town of Passendale for their eightieth anniversary commemoration of the battle of Passchendaele. These experiences then inspired their words and music production, In Flanders Fields, which combines their own writing with the biting humour of the Tommies' wartime observations and music. Songs like Jim Boyes, Flanders and Lester Simpson's, Standing in Line and Barry Coope's singing of Robin's Song were also the reason that the author Michael Morpurgo asked them to join him in concert performances of his novel Private Peaceful, with its message of the futility of war and later, in the adaptation of The Best Christmas Present in the World, his story about the Christmas Truce of 1914. In Flanders Fields is the culmination of this involvement, bringing together newly written songs, existing and first time recordings of songs from Peace Concerts Passendale and songs and music of the War to end all Wars.