Poole musician creates charity string quartet collaboration

Poole musician, Will McNicol, has remotely collaborated with string quartet, Innotet, to create a song for Naomi House & Jacksplace. The song, ‘A Dozen Red Roses’ was inspired by a story Will read about the peppercorn rent of 12 red roses that the charity pays every year on Midsummer’s Day.

This tradition dates back to before Naomi House opened in 1997, when Mary Cornelius-Reid kindly allowed a hospice to be built on her land in the Sutton Manor Estate. This offer came with two conditions; that the hospice be named after her youngest daughter, Naomi, and that each and every Midsummer’s Day, the hospice pay a peppercorn rent of a dozen red roses. Although Mary passed away in 2014, staff still honour the tradition by presenting a bouquet of flowers to Naomi.

Scottish string quartet, Innotet, which is made up of Seonaid Aitken, Patsy Reid, Innes Watson and Alice Allen, was formed when Will and Innes discussed working together to create music for the 2017 Ullapool Guitar Festival. Will has supported Naomi House & Jacksplace since performing at a fundraising event in 2009, which was set up by his late friend Stella, a regular support of the charity.

When asked why he decided to create a piece of music around this story, Will said: “Naomi House & Jacksplace are simply a wonderful charity who are well known for their exceptional work in this area I'm lucky to call home. The story behind the red rose rent was so pure and lovely I felt it needed some music written around it to celebrate the wonderful generosity of everyone involved. I wrote it and thought it could make a lovely quartet arrangement, which was a great excuse for a remote collaboration with Innotet in these weird times, and a perfect opportunity to celebrate the work of this wonderful charity.”

Will and Innotet created a remote music video to the ‘A Dozen Red Roses’ song, which can be viewed at the top of this story. Will is hoping the local community will be inspired by the music video and leave a donation to Naomi House & Jacksplace in these difficult times.

Will has also supplied the guitar score and backing tracks to the song, for anyone that wants to learn and create their own version/video: 

• Guitar Score: https://www.willmcnicol.co.uk/scores

• Backing Tracks: https://www.willmcnicol.co.uk/backingtracks

To find out more about Will McNicol and Innotet, visit: https://www.willmcnicol.co.uk/innotet