This launch event of the East Midlands Cultural Olympiad, Ignite! project: Cargoes, profiles the work of Kathrine Sandys.

The event will start with a playing of Elgar's Memorial Chimes, on the world famous Loughborough Carillon, by Caroline Sharpe. A recording and reworking of the piece, both aural and visual, along with a score of bells throughout the town will be carried to awaiting canal boats, at the Loughborough canal basin. These pieces of cultural cargo will be sent on their 11 week relay journey, being transformed by artists Chrys Allen, Jo Fairfax, Jenny Pedley, Charles Monkhouse and Michael Fairfax, along the way. They will return to complete a final exhibition of their journey and the works created along the journey on 3rd July, as the Olympic Torch Relay proceeds through Loughborough.

Elgar composed Memorial Chimes in 1923, as the opening commission for the Loughborough Carillon. The tower of Belgian style is a war memorial commemorating the lives lost in the Great War and houses a 47 bell carillon, cast by the John Taylor Bell Foundry, in Loughborough. The original Elgar manuscript was recently rediscovered and will be celebrated as part of this event.