Twinning

For over 30 years Hackney has established friendship and twinning arrangements with a number of towns abroad.

In recent years the most active and vibrant relationships are with Haifa (Israel) and Grenada (West Indies) due to the twinning and staff swaps that exist between the Homerton Hospital and Rambam Medical Centre (Haifa, Israel) and St George's Hospital (Grenada).

Continuing the twinning tradition in Hackney, schools now make their own links and exchanges with countries that are relevant to their studies, such as Our Lady's and Hangzhou, South West China.

One of Hackney's choral groups, the St John of Jerusalem Festival Chorus, has partnered the choir of the Suresnes conservatoire for several years. The choirs have taken part together in three concerts, two in Suresnes and one here in Hackney. In their latest joint concert, in Suresnes that took place in May 2011, the choirs joined in singing Marc-Antoine Charpentier's Te Deum (part of which is the Eurovision signature tune), accompanied by the Suresnes conservatoire orchestra. The maire of Suresnes, M Christian Dupuy, supported the concert and spoke warmly of the musical links between the boroughs. Appropriately enough, given that the Te Deum was written for King Louis XIV, the choirs visited his park at Versailles on the day after the concert. Plans are in hand for the Suresnes choir to return to Hackney, possibly in 2013. Like other twinning activities, the choirs' exchange visits are not subsidised by Hackney Council.