AS PASSENGERS panicked and lifeboats were lowered, Titanic’s musicians played on.

Their tune mingled with the ominous creaking of the sinking ship and the screams of people running for their lives, yet the eight bandsmen held their ground on deck and persisted in their final performance.

They are remembered by their names etched on a plaque inside Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall.

But now their bravery and Titanic’s ill-fated maiden voyage is the subject of a new commissioned piece of music being premiered at the Hope street venue next month.

Some 200 young musicians and singers from across Merseyside will join professionals to perform the work by composer David Bedford. Commissioned by the Liverpool Music Support Service and its two sister services in Lancashire and Cumbria, the music uses genuine testimony from survivors to create a dramatic soundscape.

“We go all the way through Titanic’s story from the beginning, with percussionists hitting scaffolding as the construction of the ship,” says Bedford, who first learned of the disaster when watching the 1958 film, A Night to Remember.

Survivors’ testimonials recorded in newspapers at the time of the tragedy in 1912 are sung by the chorus and soloists.