Interview with Netia Jones, Projection Designer

We are delighted to be working with Netia Jones, designer of projections for our performance on Saturday 21 April as part of Impossible Brilliance: the music of Conlon Nancarrow. We caught up with Netia to find out what’s involved in producing and  designing her projections.

Can you tell us a little about your background?  How did you end up working as a projection designer?

I currentlywork as an director/designer in opera and concerts always using projection and film. I studied music and visual art simultaneously and introducing technology was a natural progression. Along the way I have worked in editing, installation and interactive media to forage for techniques that can best be applied to dealing with live music in performance, which has its own very specific demands and negotiations.

How do you go about designing projections to accompany existing works?

On any given project I will spend an earnest amount of time in preparation, both listening and reading up. Some projects have a greater narrative content and some, as this one, are just about creating a supporting layer to enhance the listening experience. There is always a visual language that emerges after this period of research, which can only really come out of total immersion.

 And how do you go about realising them?

I film and collate all the visual material, and edit to sound or to scores depending on the project. Then there is an extended period of programming to enable it all to be played live. The fundamental idea is that the film and projection follows the live performance, rather than the other way around. For me visual technology is a fantastic toolbox for responding to sound worlds in a way that enriches the experience of participating in live music. Projection can be as simple as integrated projected text, or it can encompass interactive triggers, sound, live cameras, film, or any combination of these.

Here’s a video of some of Netia’s previous work:

Who, or what, inspires you?

I am completely inspired by quiet geniuses, the kind of creative innovators who are impelled along a certain path whether anyone is listening or not. I’m afraid I am also slightly obsessed with mechanisation, machines, mathematics, science, technology and projected light.

If you could pick a favourite project or personal career highlight to date, what would it be?

Projecting 30 metres high onto Sizewell Nuclear Power station while performing Ligeti, Scelsi, Ockeghem and Mazulis. I can’t believe I was allowed to. Possibly I dreamt it.

Can you tell us about the projections in Impossible Brilliance: the music of Conlon Nancarrow?

Unlike other projects that are more narrative or concept-driven, I see projection in this concert to be a way of supporting this amazing and exhilarating programme, and perhaps suggesting, or allowing, some ideas about the composer to emerge. We have some really wonderful images of Nancarrow, and the tools of his fairly unique trade are so beautiful that I think some reliance on stills, and possibly text, can bring together these startlingly brilliant pieces and create some kind of picture of the man behind them. I am very interested in this quote from Nancarrow: “My essential concern, whether you can analyze it or not, is emotional; there’s an impact that I try to achieve by these means”. I have been slightly in love with Nancarrow for quite a while and it is a pure joy to be working on this project.

 And finally, what is the most played piece of music on your mp3 player right now?

Conlon Nancarrow String Quartet No.1, Oliver Knussen Upon One Note, György Kurtag Jatekok.

Music for 18 Musicians in Glasgow & Birmingham

Serge Vuille was our percussionist at the very first London Sinfonietta Academy in July 2009, and since then he’s graduated and regularly joins the ensemble for our landmark events and touring projects.  This weekend, he performs master minimalist Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians for the first time, and told us a bit about how rehearsals are going…

Wednesday 9th February

The good thing about Henry Wood Hall (a rehearsal space in Borough) is that they serve a brilliant cooked breakfast within the building. So on Wednesday morning, once all the instruments were in the right place, I went down to the ‘crypt’ in the basement and ordered a double egg on toast with tea to make sure I would have plenty of energy for the rehearsal. I have never played Music for 18 Musicians, but I know the piece and know that energy will be required.

I am the only one in the piano-percussion section who has never played this piece, and when the rehearsal starts I still don’t know exactly which part I am going to play. Although there is a music part on each stand in the room, this piece is rehearsed following more of an ‘oral tradition’. The players change from one instrument to the other (including pianists playing marimba, singers and percussionists playing piano), and share the music. So David Hockings (Principal percussion) and Micaela Haslam (director of Synergy Vocals) introduce the piece to me with much expertise and enthusiasm as we go along. I like this way of working, where experience is the main source of information, and printed music acts more like a reminder.

It takes a few moments for me to find the right feel to the music: relaxed but right on top of the beat. It feels safe anyway to be surrounded by great musicians who know exactly what they are doing. I am fortunately familiar with Steve Reich’s music, and after a little while it starts to feel comfortable. I can then concentrate on communicating with the other players, and enjoy the waves and turns of the music.

 

Thursday 10^th February

The singers join us today, but the violinist is ill (he’ll catch up in the afternoon)… This means we can’t run the whole piece as he cues both the beginning and the end, but we can deal with it as this music never really starts or stops, it mainly evolves. There is no conductor and no bars to count, but there are cues and signs from one player to another. During rehearsals, when we take up from a certain place, there isn’t a ‘1-2-3-go’, but one of the players starts (probably a melodic part on the marimba) and the others just come in in no particular order. The two ‘cue masters’, showing the big changes between parts are the vibraphone (Tim Palmer) and first clarinet (Tim Lines).

My part consists mainly in playing repeated chords on all the beats uninterruptedly during chunks of about 10 minutes and changing chord for each section. I love it. It is the backbone of the music (shared between several musician through the piece), and maybe the best position to listen and enjoy the rest (but not too much, because the slightest drop in concentration results in a very subtle but noticeable wobble in time). Just opposite to me is Olly Lowe, playing upbeats, right between my downbeats. We studied together at the Royal College of Music and it is great to play with him again ‘in the real world’. It is the weirdest impression to have this constant pulse of quavers going between the two of us while it is very hard for the ear to distinguish what I am or he is playing. It is sometimes better not to listen too carefully.

I was in the audience for the London Sinfonietta’s last performance of Music for 18 Musicians at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall last year and loved it. One of the great things about a concert performance of this piece is that the listener can focus on many different layers and aspects of the music: the constant pulse, the melodies, the changes in texture, the waves, the visual aspects, the sounds coming from the ground, those flying just under the ceiling, the attack of the sticks on the marimba, or oppositely only the resonance. Steve Reich’s music can sound very simple, but it is extremely rich, and offers a very complete concert experience. I can’t wait to perform Music for 18 Musicians for the first time in Glasgow, and even more so with the London Sinfonietta.

Serge Vuille

Serge is one of the London Sinfonietta’s percussionists for the tour of  Adès’s In Seven Days alongside Reich’s iconic Music for 18 Musicians.

Click here to watch our short film about Music for 18 Musicians, which includes exclusive interview footage with Steve Reich.

A visit to Birtwistle’s house

UPDATE: The Birtwistle Podcast is now available to hear and download.
Click here for an insight into one of Britain’s greatest modern composers.

As the London Sinfonietta’s new Digital Projects Intern, I am responsible for creating the majority of new audio and video content for our website. This work often takes me to far-flung, exotic locations in order to capture the magic on film or tape. In yesterday’s case, it swept me off to the tropical paradise of Wiltshire to interview a composer with a very long and fascinating history working with the London Sinfonietta: Sir Harrison Birtwistle.

Christoph Trestler, one of our board of directors who kindly lends us very expensive equipment to record with, joined me for the trip, as did his wife Marion, who documented it with numerous photos. At 10am we set off for the long drive through west London, down the M3, away from the hustle and bustle of city life and into the countryside.

The trip was punctuated by some unpleasant weather, followed by a very enjoyable trip to Stonehenge (for professional purposes, of course!) where the sky finally cleared, so we took photos and video footage. As some of you may know, Stonehenge and the nearby Silbury Hill (an equally mysterious man-made mound) have both inspired Birtwistle’s compositions in the past including ‘Silbury Air’ and ‘Ritual Fragment’.

We arrived in the village in the early afternoon where we met the interviewer, Sara Mohr-Pietsch, and took a light lunch at a very quaint little tea room next to the clock tower in the village square. Then it was on to Sir Harry’s house and down to business. He lives in a beautiful converted building, with a fantastically well designed and kept garden which contained, among other things, many different flowers, a water feature complete with carp, and of course the shed at the bottom of the garden where he composes the majority of his work.

Birtwistle was very kind and accommodating throughout our time there, allowing Christoph and I to film not just an interview but also footage of him composing, walking through his house and garden and various other shots, despite the fact that he was probably a bit tired having had his birthday celebrations the night before! Both he and Sara Mohr-Pietsch, who has only just joined us as the new voice of our upcoming podcast series, were wonderful to work with, and the interview was fascinating: Christoph, Marion and I all agreed we could have listened to them talk for hours.

All in all, not a bad day at the office, and there will be plenty for followers of the London Sinfonietta to enjoy as a result: expect an audio podcast of the interview very soon, followed by a video feature on Sir Harry later in the year!

Ben Saxon