THE ambitious musical project – A Symphony For Yorkshire – will be broadcast for the first time at 11am on Sunday in celebration of Yorkshire Day.
BBC Radio York, Leeds, Sheffield and Humberside will join forces to simultaneously broadcast the full 15-minute Symphony – which has taken five months to produce and involved more than 200 musicians from across the county.
Composed by Benjamin Till, the project involved open auditions, a competition to write the lyrics to a new Yorkshire anthem and filming at iconic places all over the county, including Huddersfield.
Benjamin said: “This has been the most difficult, complicated, ambitious project that I have ever done – incredibly hard work, but hugely rewarding.
“Yorkshire people have to be among the proudest people on the planet.
“It’s been an enormous thrill and a great honour to be able to write a piece of music which brings so many Yorkshire-based musicians from so many different musical traditions together and I really hope I have done the county proud.”
The winner of the lyrics competition was 98-year-old great- grandmother Doreen Brigham, from Harrogate, who is featured reading the last line in the film.
She said: “I am completely overcome. I love writing poetry and am absolutely thrilled that the words have been put to music.”
Sing a song of Yorkshire, from the Humber to the Tees
Of horses, wool and terriers, of pudding and of cheese
I know no other county where the land is quite so fine
England's lovely county. And I'm proud to call it mine
Where shining purple heather stretches far across the moor
And the lapwing's cry above me takes the place of traffic roar
And peace comes drifting gently, there's no place I'd rather be
Than this land of hills and valleys, from the Pennines to the sea
So when I've done my roaming, and when my step grows slow
When heart and mind assure me that the time has come to go
Then let me rest in Yorkshire, for its there I want to lie
'Neath sun and wind and heather ... and a gleaming Yorkshire sky
