Combining Dance and Music

At the start of April, the London Sinfonietta Academy joined forces with Rambert Dance Company’s Participation and Learning team for a weekend in which London Sinfonietta Academy Alumni collaborated with young dancers to explore new ways of working and creating new work.  London Sinfonietta Academy Alumni flautist Chloe Vincent and dancer Lewis Wheeler blog about the weekend…

Lewis Wheeler writes:

During this weekend of workshops, which was led by Deborah Galloway (Dance Animateur) and Mark Bowden (Rambert Company’s Music Fellow), we wanted to experiment with what would happen when various groupings of dancers and musicians worked and improvised together.

Early in the weekend we worked in small groups of 2 or 3 and I found this most productive as our roles were obviously clearly defined and the short solo I created around ritual with Alice, a flautist, was selected for the end of workshop ‘sharing’.

We spent most of our devising time working on different ways to improvise with each other. We started with the music leading and me following the music, sometimes dancing with it and sometimes contrary to it, then we tried the same process but with Alice following my movement. It felt great when I would move my body and suddenly the sound would be echoing my movements. We decided that we wanted to create more of a conversation between the sound and the dance so we would incorporate elements of the music and the dance leading.  We would trust our instincts through the improvisation rather than set up a precise structure to follow. I think this worked well because it stopped any predictable patterns becoming evident to the audience, and it also meant that we could inject vigour and energy into each other’s work when we felt like the piece needed boosting. Other experiments included working in groups with more dancers than musicians, more musicians than dancers and even numbers of each.

I had a great time doing this workshop and have kept in touch with some of the people involved and hopefully will be working with them on creative projects in the future so attending the workshop was extremely worthwhile!

Lewis Wheeler, Dancer
(You can follow Lewis on Twitter @lewiswheeler)

 

Chloe Vincent writes:

London Sinfonietta Academy 2011

During April, I spent 2 days working with dancers and other musicians at Rambert Dance Company in Chiswick. This intensive weekend, a joint venture by London Sinfonietta and Rambert, was focused on collaboration and involved dancers and musicians composing and choreographing pieces under the leadership of composer Mark Bowden and choreographer Deborah Galloway.

Most of the musicians were more used to performing notated music and not all of the dancers were used to choreographing, especially creating larger works with lots of dancers. This allowed us to experiment with different ideas and composition methods as none of us had worked on a project like this before! It was amazing to have an insight into how another art form works and how their creative process differs from my own as a classical musician.

My favourite aspect of the weekend was creating a duo piece with a dancer where we improvised to develop material

with Debussy’s L’apres midi d’aune faune as our stimulus. As a flute player it was refreshing to look at the piece as a complete work as I often have to prepare the flute solo as an excerpt for auditions.

I came away from the weekend feeling inspired to learn more about dance and to try and include more collaborative work in my music making.

Chloe Vincent, London Sinfonietta Academy Flautist 2011
(You can follow Chloe on Twitter @Chloeflute)

 

 

From the technicolour fantasies of Disney to the anarchist trenches…

The London Sinfonietta’s Blue Touch Paper programme nurtures and promotes the next generation of composers and interdisciplinary collaborators by providing the context and space to develop new work. On Wednesday 16 May collaborative works currently being developed by 3 groups of composers and artists on the programme will be showcased in a works-in-progress preview event at Village Underground, Shoreditch.

Composer Steve Potter and writer/dramaturg Kélina Gotman have been working on 100 Combat Troupes, a music-theatre piece which stages the urgency and ambivalence of dreaming other possible worlds.  In the first of a series of blog posts ahead of the event Kélina gives us an update on the progress of 100 Combat Troupes…

Paul Klee's Angelus Novus, inspiration for 100 Combat Troupes

24 March. 5.18pm: The first thing to say is that it’s Saturday afternoon, and I’m sitting out back in the newly-refurbished Crystal Palace Tavern (CPT, for short- I always want to call it the Camden People’s Theatre, even though it’s not), and Steve is slaving away at home working on the Rivers of the World sequence – Adam’s scene, the most difficult one.

We had a great session this morning, looking back over the script, which I revised – finally – after procrastinating on it for a week or two. Steve had some comments, and we more or less solved (I think) the Messiah sequence, the last scene. It wasn’t really clear what it was about: what the mood was, or what the point, was, really, either. I think we’ve figured out that it’s a coda, silent (no language), but playful. The actors will be doing very little: sitting at a folding card table, which we need to acquire, or find. Pulling out foldable chairs. Talking like old friends, gesticulating. It’s going to be shorter than we had thought. One minute, rather than four. And end in an 8 second burst of Balkan gypsy music, then nothing. It makes sense, after Adam’s wild scene.

I could say more, but I have 100 to 400 words for this blog post, so will move on to the other thing we figured out this morning, lest I try my reader’s patience, and that’s the Disney sequence, which I think Steve has totally nailed.  We had a rehearsal (or a workshop) with the London Sinfonietta on Monday last week, and I was concerned that the soundscape was too disjointed. There were all kinds of things going on, and it was going to be disruptive, and felt random. Kirstin has a huge, intense, monologue – much of it is gibberish (intentionally so), a childish princess-like patter, a grown-up girl’s fetish dreams of infinite girldom, the disaster land of Disney, and the music was going to make the scene too messy. Confusing. But Steve has found the perfect soundscape: we’re still using the sped-up Swan Lake, as per a momentary flash of inspiration from many months ago, but it’s more audible now; it’s also halting. Like a little girl refusing to grow up, not getting anywhere; the tune blasts for a few seconds, then pause, then starts again, a zillion times. Start stop, it’s perfect as a counterpart to Kirstin’s rapid-fire babble about Aibo (the robot dog), Dorothy, and other things, which I won’t get into right now. Let’s just say that she gets suddenly pissed off, swears at the two other actors, who have hit her (accidentally) in the head with a projectile. The trick was to get the music to turn, but without having it be so violent a shift that we would need 100 more rehearsals to get the timing right. Here, our stopwatch structure will allow Kirstin to fire off her scene (in exactly 2’20’’), while the musicians watch her for their cue – Steve was suggesting we ask David Hockings, the London Sinfonietta’s Principal percussionist, to watch for the shift, and then the music turns – subtly, but definitely, darker.

Next on the to-do list for the day: fire off the revised script to Kaite O’Reilly, who has offered ridiculously useful mentoring so far.  See what she says about the changes.

 Kélina Gotman, writer/dramaturg, 100 Combat Troupes

Writing the Future: The Final Countdown

Next week sees our Writing the Future composers meet with London Sinfonietta Principal Players in their final workshop as part of the scheme.  Michael Duffy, who has been following the composers’ progress throughout the scheme, gives us a taste of what’s to come…

I last saw the Writing the Future composers in early August with, what were then, preliminary sketches and drafts of what are shaping up to be four fantastic quintets to be performed by some of the London Sinfonietta’s forces as part of our Pavilions: New Music Show 2 on 5 November.  Shiva Feshareki, Edmund Finnis, Tim Hodgkinson and Isambard Khroustaliov were asked to continue on the programme following the performance of their solo works at our Pavilions concert in May this year, where they were amazingly well received. Now, the composers are refining new ensemble works for flute, clarinet, horn, violin and cello (with a few familial deviations here and there!).

Tim Hodgkinson works with London Sinfonietta principal Michael Thompson

Next week they’ll be meeting the players again to workshop near-complete versions of these works. As always with these four composers I’m excited to hear how their work has developed and to listen in on the insight the players receive about what’s going on ‘behind the notes’. It’s also great to hear the feedback on the music from the players as well!

I’ll be posting again after we’ve had the workshops to give a further update on these new pieces, but in the meantime, check out some of the Music Streams on the London Sinfonietta website for solo works from Tim, Edmund and Shiva. And don’t forget to book for the world premieres of these works at Pavilions: New Music Show 2 on Saturday 5 November at the Southbank Centre!

Michael Duffy

Assistant Producer, Creative Projects

London Sinfonietta Academy 2011: a participant’s view

The last week of July saw the return of our London Sinfonietta Academy course, an intensive five-day course of rehearsals, workshops and masterclasses which provides key experience and training in core contemporary repertoire, with coaching from London Sinfonietta Principal Players.  Academy student and pianist Alex Wilson shares his thoughts on his Academy experience.

The time: approximately 9:47AM.  Monday 25^th July.  I have battled through the rush hour traffic and arrived to negotiate with a surprisingly complicated coffee dispenser (or was that just me?), and meet the participants of the 2011 London Sinfonietta Academy.  After many weeks of slaving away in a sweltering windowless room at an increasingly out-of-tune piano it is time to discover if the endless metronome practice has paid off.  I feel closer to György Ligeti and Thomas Adès than ever, yet the possibility of disaster is weighing on my mind: will Maestro Valade throw out the carefully notated tempo markings in favour of a much faster speed selection?  Will the piano be facing in the right direction?  And don’t even get me started on the unique challenge of learning to play a harpsichord and harmonium from scratch in the space of five days.

London Sinfonietta Academy 2011 in rehearsal

As it turned out I needn’t have worried.  Pierre-Andre was a joy to work with, possessing a seemingly-endless knowledge of our repertoire and showing extreme patience and tolerance in the face of even the most basic of mistakes.  Contemporary music can’t be described as easy to decipher at times (a bar consisting of two triplet crotchet beats?  Cheers Mr. Adès…), yet Maestro Valade’s clear and concise conducting made it feel almost effortless to follow.

Playing such potentially difficult repertoire can be daunting no matter how many hours of headache-inducing practice has been carried out, but receiving advice from John Constable, London Sinfonietta piano extraordinaire, makes you feel as if you are performing with a huge safety net ready to catch you and solve any problem you may encounter.  Possibly the nicest musician I have ever met, what John doesn’t know about performing contemporary piano repertoire simply isn’t worth knowing, and he appeared keen to share all his years of experience with us all.  I have received tips that I will use for the rest of my life and feel I am a greatly improved musician as a result.  Thanks John!

The challenge of the orchestral pianist is a unique one; I am used to the solitary life of practicing and performing by myself, and watching someone waving their arms around to dictate how fast to play is clearly an alien concept to any pianist.  The concept of jumping between instruments is also a fairly new experience, and reasonably exclusive to contemporary music; the joy of playing a beautifully resonant piano chord before sprinting to the celeste in 3 beats for a delicate melody, then off to the harpsichord in 1.5 beats is a task many composers like to set, probably simply to test the fitness levels of the pianist…  I have learnt to overcome many obstacles during my time in the Academy, have made new contacts, become better acquainted with stalwarts of the contemporary repertoire, and will never forget how to play the harmonium pianissimo with a consistent sound whilst ensuring all notes sound simultaneously-  possibly the greatest challenge a pianist will ever face!

Alex Wilson will be performing, along with other members of the London Sinfonietta Academy 2011, in a BBC Proms Plus Portrait event on Wedneday 31 August.  In this event, Academy musicians will perform a selection of works by Graham Fitkin, and the composer, in conversation with Tom Service, will discuss his new Cello Concerto which will be premiered in the evening Prom concert.

The London Sinfonietta Academy 2011 is generously supported by the Esmée Fairburn Foundation, the Fenton Arts Trust, the Harold Hyam Wingate Foundation, Leo & Regina Hepner, and the Musicians Benevolent Fund.

Writing the Future: First Pieces (part 3)

Tim Hodgkinson is another of the six composers selected to take part in the London Sinfonietta’s new Writing the Future scheme, and has been working with the ensemble’s Principal horn Michael Thompson since the scheme’s launch in February.

The result of this collaboration is a Sinfonietta Short, as yet untitled, which will be premiered at a free pre-concert performance as part of Pavilions, the London Sinfonietta’s celebration of new British music on Sunday 29 May.

Tim tells us more about his new piece…

Tim Hodgkinson (L) and Michael Thompson meet at the Writing the Future launch, Feb 2011. Image (c) Briony Campbell

I am at the stage where there is a great deal of impetus coming from what already exists but there are still major decisions being made that require me to step back and think or not think about what I am doing.

I’m not sure about the flavour: ripe fruits with dark undertones of tobacco perhaps.

Just had (Monday) an excellent session with Michael in which we went through the first part working on details of playing and notation. This all went fine. I thought he might tell me the second part was unplayable – it has a lot of little notes in it – but he didn’t. It simply sounds more snakey than I was expecting, which is fine, as the material all derives from a complex wave form. Then we looked at sound ideas for the third part and he suggested using a microphone for the performance so we can use varied breath sounds and they won’t disappear in the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

The next step for me is to firm up the third part whilst keeping hold of how it reflects on what goes before it, as well as how it reflects on a possible fourth part. I think what really holds the piece together is the silences and I have to keep weighing these up. They are hard to fix because they don’t feel the same length if you count them, and the listener won’t be counting them.

Tim Hodgkinson

Book your tickets to hear the premiere of Tim’s new Sinfonietta Short at Pavilions at Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall on Sunday 29 May, 2011.

Click here to find out more about how the London Sinfonietta is creating new music with some of the finest emerging composers on Writing the Future.

Pavilions is generously supported by Arts Council England, the Holst Foundation, PRS for Music Foundation and the RVW Trust.

Writing the Future is generously supported by The Boltini Trust, The John S Cohen Foundation, Anthony Mackintosh and Michael & Patricia McLaren-Turner.

Writing the Future: First Pieces

Edmund Finnis is one of the six composers selected to take part in the London Sinfonietta’s new Writing the Future scheme, and has been working with the ensemble’s Principal viola Paul Silverthorne since the scheme’s launch in February.

The result of this collaboration is a Sinfonietta Short, titled Veneer, which will be premiered on Tuesday 5 April 2011 at the ensemble’s Chopped and Screwed – itself a collaboration between the London Sinfonietta and rising stars of the experimental pop scene Micachu and the Shapes.

Edmund tells us more about his piece…

Edmund Finnis begins his collaboration with LS Principal Paul Silverthorne at the Writing the Future Introduction Weekend, Feb 2011. Photo © Briony Campbell

I have been working on my piece for solo viola while on residency at the Banff Centre in Canada. For the piece, the viola’s lowest string is tuned down a tone to a Bb. I am interested in the way that this seemingly small adjustment to the instrument alters the nature of its resonance. In particular, when played loud, partials from the low string now set up sympathetic vibrations in the D string. The work makes use of the scordatura tuning by exploiting its concomitant range of natural harmonics. These harmonics are played loud and stridently, in a way that lets them continue to resonate beyond the moment the bow leaves the strings. To accentuate the kind of singing quality that I am after, I am looking at the possibility of using subtle, unobtrusive amplification along with a small amount of artificial reverb. I am very keen not to alienate the sound of the natural viola by connecting it to an amplification circuit, and only want to use reverb to emulate the kind of sound one might hear if the piece were played in a large reverberant space such as a chapel.

My work on this piece will doubtless inform aspects of my next large composition, to be scored for 2 viola d’amores and 14 modern strings.

Edmund Finnis

Book your tickets to hear the premiere of Veneer at Micachu and the Shapes with the London Sinfonietta: Chopped and Screwed at Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall on Tuesday 5 April, 2011.

Click here to find out more about how the London Sinfonietta is creating new music with some of the finest emerging composers on Writing the Future.

Micachu and the Shapes with the London Sinfonietta: Chopped and Screwed is presented by Southbank Centre in association with the London Sinfonietta as part of Ether.

Writing the Future is generously supported by The Boltini Trust, The John S Cohen Foundation, Anthony Mackintosh and Michael & Patricia McLaren-Turner.

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.

KX Collective Sound Stations

The KX Collective made its debut at Sonic Explorations with a concert at 4.30pm on Saturday. A group of 8 (we were one-down due to swine flu) young people from the local King’s Cross area performed brand new electroacoustic music that they themselves had created.

The group worked with Duncan Chapman (composer, sound artist and general lover of all things technie that make unusual sounds) and LS players over 4 weeks to bring this music together. Three pieces featured:

g-longated depths;  compose <play>;  samples and chaos.

Vocals, instrumentals, electronics, laptops contributed to a one-off sound-world created by the group, including some more unusual instruments – monome, waterphone, organ pipe, cracklebox, twitching speaker and wine glasses!

Laptop screens and a set of instructions for the professional players (appearing as code) were projected onto the gorgeously massive Hall 2 screen, showing our audience the visual construct of compose <play> a piece generated by drawing, following a sequence devised by the group.

This concert was just the beginning for the KX Collective so watch this space!

Amy Majumdar, Participation and Learning Manager

Sonic Explorations launches today

So after:

• 20 rehearsals at 4 different locations
• 7 hours on the phone to couriers trying to get a contra alto flute from Holland to the office
• 1 case of almost swine flu for our concerts administrator
• 1 Chilean and 1 Brazilian composer to meet and greet with 8 more still to arrive
• 6 workshops for our KX Collective each involving at least 10 laptops
• 10 pages of schedules collated
• 8 surround sound channels
• 17 instrumentalists and 2 sound engineers
• And infinite amounts of chocolate fingers, cakes, and grapes (we try to be healthy) to keep everyone going

Sonic Explorations, our 3 day festival of electroacoustic music at Kings Place is finally here featuring 4 world premieres, 5 Uk premieres and 1 London premiere.

Keep an eye out for (we hope) a few blogs over the next few days giving you an inside view into the festival.

For more information about the concerts themselves go to our: Sonic Explorations page on the website.

Roz Surtees

London Sinfonietta Academy

It’s always exciting to be involved with something new and so I was thrilled to help with the planning and running of London Sinfonietta’s first ever Academy. From 2 – 4 July 2009, London Sinfonietta held an intensive three-day course of rehearsals and workshops for auditioned instrumentalists which culminated in a performance of Birtwistle’s Silbury Air and Takemitsu’s Rain Coming. The course was an opportunity for young musicians to gain key experience and training in core contemporary repertoire, with coaching from some of the London Sinfonietta’s Principal Players and renowned conductor Elgar Howarth. As the Graduate Trainee in the office, I helped out Judith, our project manager with the organisation of the three days.

Although our timing may not have been perfect, it came hot on the heels of student end of year exams and, as one of our principal players pointed out, it clashed with Wimbledon! –there was a real buzz in the office about this project and the response from everyone involved had been extremely enthusiastic.

After many weeks of planning, preparation, phone calls and emails it was fantastic to finally meet all the Academy students on the first of 3 days of rehearsals and workshops. Everyone was incredibly friendly and all were delighted to be working with Elgar Howarth and a number of London Sinfonietta principal players, who were constantly on hand to advise, answer questions and lead sectionals. A particular highlight for me was watching a percussion workshop led by LS Principal percussionist David Hockings – learning about the process of preparing for a concert as a percussionist was a real eye-opener!

 I looked forward to the culminating performance of Birtwistle’s Silbury Air and Takemitsu’s Rain Coming with much anticipation having watched the extraordinary work that had gone into rehearsals. I wasn’t disappointed – it was simply electrifying! The general feeling afterwards was that this had been a unique, valuable and unforgettable experience – we all just wish it had been longer…

Sarah Harvey