TITANIC – BAND OF COURAGE is the dramatic and inspiring story of the eight musicians who continued to play on as the ship went down in a valiant effort to provide peace, calm and dignity to those facing certain death. Featuring 18 new recordings, many taken from the officially issued White Star Songbook, the program retells the story of the sinking of the giant ship via the courageous band.
The story of the musicians and their legendary bravery in the face of death made news around the world at the time and was well documented. As theLondon Daily Mirror reported on April 23, 1912: “In the whole history of the sea, there is little equal to the wonderful behavior of these humble players, who, in the last moments of the great ship’s doom, when all was plainly lost, when braver and hardier men might almost have been excused for doing practically anything to save themselves, stood responsive to their conductor’s baton.”
Titanic survivor Lawrence Beesley said of the band: “Many brave things were done that night, but none more brave than by those men playing minute after minute as the ship settled quietly lower and lower in the sea and the sea rose higher and higher to where they stood; the music they played serving alike as their own immortal requiem and their right to be recorded on the rolls of undying fame.”
A blend of overtures, waltzes, popular/ragtime and hymns, the songbook reflected the music of the day. In addition to the featured music and performance, the story is told with commentary and interviews from experts on the era, the ship and the night of the sinking, with insight into the musicians, where they were, what they did and why they played on the deck that night — supported by archival footage, photos, renderings, original location footage and dramatic footage of Titanic as it rests now on the ocean floor of the North Atlantic.
The Titanic has fascinated the world for over one hundred years — many of the stories we know — many stories are yet to be shared as the research and investigation into the people who sailed on her in April 1912 continue to be developed by the experts who are associated with this special.