A lesson in Panpipe making…

Last month, the London Sinfonietta performed as part of Glasgow’s Minimal Extreme festival.  One of the works, Louis Andriessen’s Hoketus called for some rather unusual panpipes. Eliza Marshall explains…

On receiving a copy of the panpipe parts for Louis Andriessen’s Hoketus, it was quite apparent that we would need to customise our pipes to suit the desired pitches. Whilst both Dave Cuthbert and I play on Romanian-made pipes, they were not specific enough for what we needed.

Eliza's panpipe making kit

Buying other makes would have been expensive, and we would have had to break them up to add/take away notes that we needed/didn’t need. The geography of the notes when playing the panpipes is very important, so having any unwanted notes in the way was unhelpful for a fast moving piece like Hoketus.

We decided that the best optionwas to make our own.

3 metres of black conduit tubing, a tube cutting instrument,  some champagne corks and several hours later we had the exact notes required! David worked out rough measurements for each pitch, and cut the tubing accordingly

Panpipe making in progress

This was reasonably quick. Cutting the cork so that it was the right size was a little more time consuming, but very important to fully block the end of the tube, whilst also being movable so as to allow for tuning the pipes. Then some strong carpet tape and we were ready to go!

Our first rehearsal with Bang On A Can and the guys seemed quite impressed with our home creations. Mark Stewart commented on the fact that he has many instruments that he makes for different occasions and Louis Andriessen also seemed very happy with the instruments.

Eliza, with the finished panpipes

Hoketus is a great piece to play on panpipes, and I will now be adding my black tube creations to my ever-growing bag of ethnic flutes and random instruments.

Eliza Marshall, Panpipe player

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.

London Sinfonietta on Tour: Reflections by John Constable

During November we visited both the Wien Modern Festival in Vienna, and the Melos-Ethos Festioval in Bratislava.   London Sinfonietta Principal pianist John Constable kept a diary, and shared some of his reflections with us…

Sunday 30 October, Vienna

The Mozart Saal, Konzerthaus, Vienna

I had been looking forward to revisiting Vienna and going to Bratislava for a long time.  It is always a very special occasion to play in Vienna, partly because you are treading the same streets trodden by the world’s greatest composers and also because of the many marvellous experiences I have had there.  I first went to Vienna in 1969 at three hours notice to assist Sir Georg Solti in a Decca recording of The Magic Flute.  In the cast were two of my singer friends from Covent Garden, Yvonne Minton and Stuart Burrows who I later accompanied in the Brahms Saal of the Musikverein many times. The Musikverein has one of the most important collections of original scores in the world and on several occasions I was allowed to see manuscripts of Mozart piano concertos, the Eroica Symphony, Schubert’s Ninth Symphony, Brahms’ Four Serious Songs and on one occasion a Beethoven song that I had performed the night before.

But enough of the past!  We arrived at our hotel, which was near the Belvedere Garden which Mahler walked round at lunchtime,  in good time to have dinner at an atmospheric beer house set in the Belvedere itself.  After dinner my colleagues went back to the hotel but I had plenty of energy left to walk round the floodlit centre, past the opera to the Hofburg and round the Musikverein.

Monday 1 November, Vienna

It was a ten minute walk to the Konzerthaus in warm sun for our 11 o’clock rehearsal.  I remembered as I walked in that it was here that the London Sinfonietta gave it’s first concert outside the UK with Luciano Berio, followed by concerts around Europe with Pierre Boulez and David Atherton. (Click here to view the programme for this first concert).  This time we were not in the main hall where we gave a Steve Reich concert a few years ago but were in the very lovely Mozart Saal. Vienna has what, apart from the Wigmore Hall, I believe we don’t have in London, halls which not only have a rich and warm acoustic but also are beautiful and have an atmosphere that positively demands music.  All this without lighting effects or an auditorium so dark that you can’t read the programme!

After lunch overlooking the Burggarten there was time to see the Gustav Klimt exhibition in the Belvedere and an afternoon sleep before the concert.   We played an all British programme including works by Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Simon Holt, George Benjamin and Thomas Adès which we had (or most of us had ) played many times before, and the programme was very warmly received. At a reception after the concert Cathy Graham, our previous Cheif Executive, said it was a programme of “London Sinfonietta Greatest Hits”.  She also said how lovely the magical chords near the end of Adès  Living Toys sounded. We were all very excited that Christian Barraclough, our young trumpeter deputising for London Sinfonietta Principal Alistair Mackie, had played so superlatively well in both the Benjamin and the Adès.  After the concert we all went to the beer house near the hotel taking up two large tables, hoping to play at the Wien Modern festival again soon.

Friday 11 and Saturday 12 November, Bratislava

We didn’t arrive at our hotel until after midnight so I went to bed straight away, however, we did have the next morning free so I explored the old town which most of us had not seen before.  It was brilliantly sunny but much colder than Vienna had been, there were no cars in the old town and very few people either. I happened to find an exhibition of Picasso drawings and etchings in a baroque palace after visiting the cathedral and wandering along deserted cobbled streets.  In the afternoon we presented a workshop of works by Slovakian composers plus Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s Silbury Air to a public audience.  It certainly enhances a visit when we can do something involving local composers as well as playing a concert.

In the evening we had to rehearse for our concert partly because we had a different first violin to the concert in Vienna, but also because we were playing a new work for wind quintet and piano which involved quite a lot of unusual techniques, by Slovakian composer Iris Szeghy.

Sunday 13 November, Bratislava

John Constable, London Sinfonietta Principal pianist

The coach took us over the Danube to the theatre where we were going to perform. It was immediately obvious that it was a typically dry theatre acoustic unlike the Konzerthaus.  After the rehearsal we all walked back over the bridge, and, after listening to the Police Band play outside the National Theatre and watching a busker who appeared to be sitting suspended in mid-air, a group of us had a good Italian lunch before a sleep and then the coach back to the theatre.  After the concert, there was a lovely reception with food, excellent Slovakian red wine and speeches as it was the end of the festival. Iris was delighted with the way her piece had been played, we all felt that it was the sort of music which has a lot of atmosphere and really comes off in performance. We met many interesting people, all of whom were very enthusiastic about the concert and we certainly hope we will be invited back very soon.

Monday 14 November, Bratislava

We drove to Vienna airport along country roads in, at times, quite thick fog, however, luckily we were not delayed very much and our last trip abroad in a very active 2011 was over.

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.

Guest Blogger: RAM Student Chris Petrie attends a rehearsal of Beat Furrer’s Nuun

Beat Furrer – composer, conductor and co-founder of Klangforum Wien – is hugely influential in Europe, yet his work has hardly been heard in the UK. Prior to tonight’s London Sinfonietta’s performance of three of his seminal works, including two UK premieres, we invited some  students from the Royal Academy of Music to attend a rehearsal and tell us what they thought. Here is Chris’s blog …

London Sinfonietta Rehearsal 17/01/11 – Beat Furrer: Nuun

Before last week I was not at all familiar with the music of Beat Furrer, which was also the case for most of my peers. Over this last week I have attended a variety of Furrer events and have come to admire his music and approach to composition on a number of levels. Furrer’s temperament, both on and off the podium, is quiet and thoughtful. These characteristics are apparent in his compositions where he has obviously taken much time to contemplate every detail, of which there are many.

I attended the rehearsal of Nuun which is one of his seminal larger-scaled works. I had previously heard a recording of this work (Klangforum Wien, conducted by Peter Eötvös) and had particularly enjoyed Furrer’s approach to colour and sound through complex textures. These textures are often teeming with extended techniques that are a common feature of his compositions, and are somewhat interrelated with his love of visual art. These dense textures that often cut back and forth between sparser scoring create large soundscapes that ebb and flow between background to foreground music over the course of entire compositions. These textures are then often punctuated by simple, yet effective, compositional ideas such as trumpet calls, clusters and scalic figurations in a composition such as Nuun.

Nuun is dominated by two pianos, one on either side of the stage that create a very effective ‘stereo’ sound. The pianos instigate the general textures and moods of the other two-dozen or so musicians who are placed in between the pianos.

The opening of Nuun starts with a previously mentioned densely complex ensemble before the trumpet calls provide the first feature that the ear can wholly embrace. These darkly urgent trumpet calls echo around the winds before dissipating into scalic gestures that in turn, melt into clusters. These compositional ideas are transformed over time towards a ‘climax’, after which two ‘silent’ pauses are heard. This signals the beginning of the end and from here the piece devolves towards the increasingly sparse ending.

The London Sinfonietta, with students from the Royal Academy of Music, expertly realise Furrer’s intentions in an intensely energetic fashion. Through working with the composer himself, the London Sinfonietta have provided me with a memorable first experience of this work which I will look forward to enjoying in concert with other compositions by Furrer and Naomi Pinnock.

Chris Petrie

Click here to find out more about the In Portrait: Beat Furrer concert at Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall tonight.

Vexations Marathon-Saturday 1 May-Part 6

Group 6- 21:00-00:00

Antoine Francoise, Lukas Filipczak, Matthew Lee Knowles, Alex Wilson, Philip Lawton

Not sure if I’ve ever prepared myself to prepare myself before. Hope I don’t sneeze, its about 9:10pm.

***

Not sure if I’ve ever read about someone not being prepared to be prepared to prepare themselves before- I’m sure they won’t sneeze though! It’s amazing how the music is easy enough that you can drift away, but tricky enough so you don’t fall asleep (just about!). I guess it’s the music equivalent of the lotus position for meditation- which is comfy enough so you can meditate, but not so much so you could fall asleep. Wish this piece was played more often. 

***

I don’t know the time- I am the first in my group to fully prepare, play and count. The waiting was interminable. The playing I forgot (though I know I made mistakes) and during the counting I developed a system of making a dot for each of B,H1,B and H2 in the shape of a tick as they went, then ‘making’ it on completion √.

***

Few comments:“Immobilities serieuses” is the worst way to prepare. It hurts, I’m starting to feel sick, you keep thinking that they’ll forget to cue you…Playing’s the best part. I try to keep it as unemotional as possible…but what do the other players think, I think so much when they play, do I change tempo, do I put unexpected accents? The first line always surprises me after playing the second, I don’t know why, my fingers don’t want to go there. Counting is easy, because you’re the only one who really know what’s going on? I draw silly faces in the boxes.

***

One stint down, one to go. It’s the most serious joke I know, fantastically hilarious and macabre. Satie wants you to get it wrong, but is perfectly happy when you get it right. I try not to get too enchanted when playing; I’m perhaps slightly more emotional than I want to be, I will try to put less of myself in it this next time. The trickiest past for me is the end of the theme, the repeated e- the gap inbetween can be very telling-I experiment with pedal. I was wondering if the same thing could work successfully with text-I might try it… [my ticks were a bit shaky]

***

23:15 Down to 3 in the audience, I think everyone has gone home to bed now. Even the snoring lady on the bean bag has gone. Never mind… I am sure plenty of audience will come for the end. I’ve finished playing now, shame. Could’ve carried on for longer. Once the trance sets in the time flies by. Gorgeous stuff, slightly awkward to keep smooth without too much pedal, did my best though. And as for keeping with the metronome! Someone else just came in and stole the beanbag I was going to claim, dammit! Goodnight all. Oh and thanks very much, was great fun!

***

Sorry Alex, it was me… the beanbag I mean. Forgot to say, I started playing with no soft pedal and suddenly realised I put it down in the middle, I don’t remember when…small fact. All day I thought, someone in London is playing Vexations. Every minute of the day. And now I’ll finish the piece in 40 mins…seems like no time. Audience=1 (he’s asleep and groaning in his dreams…)

***

This entry started with the last performer. I intend to write (slowly) for as long as he plays. I suspect it will get difficult. Already I am trying not to write too fast, simply to make is easier. I didn’t mean to, but had to take a break after my first go. But I came back and haven’t left since. The audience numbers seven or eight. The view from this corner is bad. What with a Stein in the way. I looked through the counting tables when I counted. Pages of ticks. The last page gets interesting; there is my dots method. Then people have started their own methods. Drawings. I left a message for the last counter. I didn’t think it was right for me to do something to the last box, but I hope Matt will end with something suitable. The different playing styles have irked me. Obviously one wouldn’t want it played by a disklavier or some such, but there is obviously a conscious, effort on the parts of some to phrase, dynamic and so on the short piece. I think such nuances should be accidental. A slight slip might cause a note to be louder for example. Matthew’s playing is like his composition. I admire it, but could not see my way ever trying to emulate it. My hand is cramping (I write left handedly, with a kind of claw).  There was the expectation that the room would fill towards the end (this bothered me, what’s the point in watching the last 10 mins of an 18 hour piece?) but my fears were groundless. The audience is minimal. I understand this book is to be transcribed.  I’ve only just remembered that. To the transcriber: Sorry for such a long entry-I hope it is not to unpleasant a task- I owe you a drink. The lights flickered (from outside) we must be nearing the end (?). I have made the decision to neither count (which is impossible without paying attention) nor watch from the hand signals we have been using to show 3,2, 1 to go. I regret making Matt smile with mine- I don’t know how seriously he was taking the immobility. Overall: the most difficult part: NOT playing, counting or waiting, but waiting to wait. The ‘rest’ periods. I listened, mostly. Some wandered around. I guess earlier in the day people could have gone and hung around upstairs with crowds. There must be a reception happening somewhere, staff in the audience have had wine glasses. A success? How does one judge? An achievement?-of course! I noticed several times that I was not bored listening to the piece. But I have been taking part, and only for a short time. No one has been here continuously from start to finish so no one can say. I must ask my friend how he felt when he peformed it solo at uni. Before my time otherwise I would have watched!  Hope I would anyway. I have written down which repetitions I played (715-278 + 785-798)- unremarkable numbers, but perhaps something can be done with them (I’m a composer, not a pianist, hence my mistakes during performance), I…

IT’S OVER. SILENCE BUT FOR THE CLICKING OF MY PEN ON PAPER.

Vexations Marathon- Saturday 1 May- Part 5

Group 5 18:00-21:00

Hannah Gill, Laonikos, Christine Stevenson, Temirzhan Yerzhanov, Anna Serra

Interesting to have to get to know the piano ‘en route’ before exploring its sonorities etc… Breaks between shifts means we can wander into the foyer to the amazing 6 marimbas. What a perfect venue for such events- audience on all levels and travelling on escalators as the sound wafts through the building.

***

I didn’t believe this music could put a performer in a state of meditation as it proved. Whether it is a joke or serious matter, Vexations makes a lot happening on your mind while playing. Interesting experience!

***

Great Experience! Thanks for the chance to take part on this project. It was a challenge for keeping the concentration.

Vexations Marathon-Saturday 1 May-Part 4

Group 4 15:00-18:00

John Constable, Claire Jones, Jennifer Carter, Jason Preece, Aglaia Tarantino

Extraordinary to walk in from 6 marimbas outside to this amazing calmness and prepare for a second 14 performances. 

***

Audience of 14-not including gently snoring lady on a beanbag.

***

 I also saw the sleeping woman on the beanbag, she awoke suddenly whiles I was counting, yawned, stretched and left. An absolutely fantastic experience, Thank you London Sinfonietta. Did anyone else get lost between the first and second Variation?……I did.

Vexations Marathon-Saturday 1 May- Part 3

Group 3 13:00-15:00

Fiona Harvey, Yoon Chung, Amanda Heish, Gabriela Georgieva, Alice Pinto

Worried about doing the same harmonisation twice in a row! Most of the audience currently have their eyes closed though so not sure anyone would mind…

***

12.00- The most different performance ever. Thank you very much for the adventure.

***

Cocoon like set up is rather therapeutic and comforting. I wan to be in my PJs

***

1.30-Initial apprehensions left as the music took over; ‘ambience in the room is encouraging, therapeutic and quite comforting.

***

V.363 I feel like the music is a ‘heartbeat’- it has been going on inside for ever…Quite possessive about it and reluctant to pass it on.It means a different thing every time: your heartbeat goes on yet you can be angry, sad, etc…The time playing feels about half that of the counting! I was so wrapped up playing I would have forgotten to count had the sheet and pen not been thrust at me! Glad I don’t have to count again!

***

All done (for me, at least). Just counted for Gabi, whose playing was arrestingly beautiful. Now, time for lunch!Audience: 12 highest number yet?

***

3.00pm? It’s only very rarely that one feels such timelessness, so with much gratitude to Papa Satie.

***

What an amazing experience and thank you London Sinfonietta for inviting us to take part in a unique performance. Alice, I loved your different interpretations- it made counting so so much quicker, thank you!

***

3.00pm The second time IS more tough! I don’t doubt this line (melody) will continue well past midnight, into eternity…?