25th January

Concert will begin at 01:00 hours GMT

Sutton's 'War Horse' from Wichita

Adrian Sutton's 'War Horse' is a work based on the epnymous original story by Michael Morpurgo. Morpurgo and his wife Clare moved to a small village in Devon, in the southwest of England, where they started an educational charity called “Farms for City Children.” Morpurgo tells the story of how he chatted with a local man in a pub one day, a man who had been in the First World War and was now in his eighties. Inspired by the real experiences of these men (Albert Weeks, Wilfred Ellis, and Captain Budgett), Morpurgo penned a simple and moving book for children ages 10 and up, which was published in 1982. Morpurgo’s story uses a horse – a neutral character with no comprehension of the world of human strife – to reveal the equivalence of human suffering on both sides of a national conflict.

Performers: Wichita Repertory Theater. Butler Community College Concert Choir. Wichita Symphony. Conductor: Daniel Hege.

Recorded 27 October 2024.