Morgan Stanley is returning to Chelsea Flower Show for a third consecutive year with ‘The Morgan Stanley Garden’ designed by Chris Beardshaw. The garden creates an exciting opportunity for young musicians from the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (NYO) to work with Chris to compose and perform a unique piece of music inspired by the garden design.
As with Morgan Stanley’s previous Show Gardens, this garden reflects the Firm’s longstanding commitment to children’s health and education. Focusing this year on education, Morgan Stanley and Chris Beardshaw are working together with NYO, the world’s greatest orchestra of teenagers, to explore how the emotional responses created by the garden can be expressed in music, to provide an engaging multi-sensory experience.
The Morgan Stanley Garden design features three distinct areas, celebrating the opposing environments that can be experienced in British gardens. Unusually for Chelsea, the public will be able to view the garden from three sides. Each perspective will provide a contrasting planting style which can be viewed either in isolation or as a stunning cohesive whole.
The first of the planting areas is a verdant naturalistic woodland, which features a collection of specimen native Acer campestre and soft unclipped Taxus baccata and Buxus sempervirens which provoke a sense of enclosure and create pockets of light and shade. The trees are underplanted with an array of woodland perennial species, providing a lush blend of foliage textures.
The second garden space at the front of the garden provides a complete contrast, with a bright, open, and temperate sun-soaked terrace. The area is richly planted with abundant jewel coloured perennials and filled with scent. Some of the woodland trees and shrub species are repeated here, but in more formal guises, including clipped Taxus baccata specimens and a statuesque Pinus sylvestris tree.
A sinuous and informal limestone path, makes the transition through the whole garden passing through the third central space, which features a dramatic oak and limestone performance pavilion, which has been designed by Chris and inspired by his study of fractal geometry as found in nature and the structures of nature.
As with Morgan Stanley’s previous Chelsea Flower Show Gardens - The Healthy Cities Garden in 2015 and The Morgan Stanley Garden for Great Ormond Street in 2016 - the 2017 Show Garden will go on to have a sustainable life after Chelsea. The garden is being donated in its entirety to Groundwork, a community charity who will redesign and repurpose the garden, through several different educational community schemes in East London. Consistent with Morgan Stanley’s support for education , Groundwork offers young people training, apprenticeships, job opportunities and experiences that will last a lifetime.
Speaking about this year’s design Chris Beardshaw said, “I am delighted to be working with Morgan Stanley once again on such an exciting design concept. Gardens and music connect with everyone at some point in their lives and that is really what we are trying to celebrate here. We are working with the talented musicians from NYO to try to illustrate how the music and garden might find some sort of parallel to create garden and music as one. I don’t believe there has ever been a garden at Chelsea that has been inspired by music, and the music inspired by the garden. We are trying to use the music to perhaps paint an audible picture, which describes the beauty of the garden and what the garden represents.“
CEO of Morgan Stanley International Robert Rooney said, “We are delighted to return to RHS Chelsea Flower Show for a third consecutive year. Morgan Stanley has a long history of supporting young people in our communities, so we are particularly excited that our 2017 show garden celebrates and gives opportunity to talented young people. We are also delighted to partner again with Chris Beardshaw, who has a proven track record of designing gardens that not only look beautiful but also have a positive impact on the community.”
Chris and the musicians from NYO are currently working together on the project and more information about the musical composition and its development will be released in coming months.
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For media enquiries for Chris Beardshaw please contact: Jane Southcott pr, jane@janesouthcottpr.co.uk, T: 01275 852026 m: 07787 527430
For media enquiries for Morgan Stanley, please contact Hugh Fraser or Nicola Murray at Morgan Stanley. Hugh.fraser@morganstanley.com, T: 020 7425 3923 or Nicola.Murray@morganstanley.com, T:+44 20 7425-6259
For media enquiries for NYO, please contact Claire Willis at ElevenTenths. claire.willis@eleventenths.co.uk, T: 07951 600362
Notes to editors:
Renowned plantsman, designer and broadcaster Chris Beardshaw is involved with a wide range of horticultural projects and educational initiatives. His broadcasting career spans over 18 years and he can currently be heard as a regular panellist on Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time and seen on BBC’s weekly Beechgrove Garden from April-October. For further details on all of Chris’ latest projects, please visit: www.chrisbeardshaw.com, www.facebook.com/ChrisBeardshawGardenDesign Twitter: @chrisbeardshaw
Morgan Stanley is a leading global financial services firm providing investment banking, securities, wealth management and investment management services. With offices in more than 42 countries, the Firm's employees serve clients worldwide including corporations, governments, institutions and individuals. For further information about Morgan Stanley, please visit www.morganstanley.com.
Since its founding, Morgan Stanley has been committed to making a positive impact on the health and education of the children and young people in our communities globally. Working with registered charities that increase access to healthcare and educational opportunities for young people, Morgan Stanley supports programmes that create healthier starts in life and address academic achievement and employability skills, inspiring talented but underserved young people.
National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain
The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (NYO) is the world’s greatest orchestra of teenagers. The Orchestra’s outstanding contribution to British musical life was acknowledged when it received The Queen’s Medal for Music in 2012. Upon receiving the Ensemble Award at the 2016 Royal Philharmonic Awards – the highest recognition for live classical music-making in the UK – NYO was described as ‘a beacon of excellence for decades’.
Founded in 1948, NYO provides orchestral performance opportunities for the brightest and most committed musicians aged between 13 and 19. Many of the UK’s leading musicians are NYO alumni including Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Mark Elder, Judith Weir, Thomas Adès and Alison Balsom. Drawing its 164 musicians from every background and part of the United Kingdom, NYO comes together three times a year and works alongside leading international conductors, tutors and soloists.
NYO exists to give breakthrough experiences of orchestral music to teenage musicians and audiences of all backgrounds. To increase the reach and impact of its activity, NYO has launched two strands of activity, NYO Inspire and NYO Open which target committed young musicians who lack opportunities to advance their playing.