Bunker concert marks Cold War anniversary

22 Oct 2012 Kevin Malone, Director of Composition at The University of Manchester, wrote two pieces which will be premièred at a once-secret bunker, where the country's top decision makers would have sheltered during a nuclear attack. Unmistakable Evidence combines a live sax quartet with video footage of the Kennedy speech broadcast on 22 October 1962, in which the President warns of the 'clear and present danger' of nuclear war. The Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker concert will begin with a new 9/11 piece Requiem77, which combines a solo sax with unedited recordings of the American air traffic controllers looking for American Airlines Flight 77 on September 11, 2001. Flight 77 was hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists who crashed it into the Pentagon near Washington D.C, killing all 59 passengers as well as 125 people on the ground at 9.37am. American-born Malone said: "Unmistakable Evidence is based on how Tchaikovsky structured his 1812 Overture, except his battle piece had cannons and my work deals with nuclear missiles. This is also the 200th anniversary of the battles of 1812, something which I didn't realise until I was well into composing the piece. "The music reflects ordinary people's anxiety and feeling of helplessness during two events which shaped modern history - the 9/11 attacks and the Cuban Missile Crisis.