Composition update

I'm currently in the process of composing the music for my show Ditto which will be on in January next year. Following an exciting development week with my four musicians a couple of weeks ago I felt powered and energised about going into the composition process.Having five days with my creative team was really great because I learned about all the players' strengths in performance. I'm not going to say I learned about their weaknesses, but I did learn where some were more comfortable than others. For example, two of my musicians are very used to improvising, whereas the other two are more used to note-learning. This is a really interesting mix and will hopefully lead to quite an exciting balance of styles in the final performance.

I am inspired by many things when I'm composing this music. At the forefront of my mind is an interview I read with the British composer Rebecca Saunders. She, like myself, is very interested in silence and she talks of teasing threads of sound from the silence when starting a new piece.She looks at the blank manuscript paper and doesn't think she necessarily has to start at the top, rather she can allow the sound to organically evolve from out of the white blankness. I think this is a really poetic way of working and it's something I've been experimenting with myself.

I'm also really interested in blending various styles of music together and this is having a profound impact on the soundworld of Ditto. I had a niggling idea ages ago that there should be some Renaissance music in Ditto. I have no idea where this idea came from but I couldn't shift it so I'm just running with it! In a way I feel that it will be a great contrast to the stark, rhythmic soundworld of the rest of the piece. I also presented some Renaissance music to a group of children when they came to see some work during the November development on the piece. The children really liked the quality.

I'm inspired by contemporary composers who blur boundaries between various styles of music. Works like Asyla by Thomas Ades - with its rave-influenced heavy beats and repetitive melodies, and Ayre by Osvaldo Golijov - with its frantic switching between operatic and pop vocal styles are really exciting. I'd quite like for Ditto to take the audience by surprise - to lull them into a false sense of security with its blankent of bleak silence, only to jolt them with loud outbreaks of noise and rhythm.

Here is a link to the third movement of Thomas Ades's Asyla:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRQr33PdyiQ

Here is a link to a piece by Rebecca Saunders called Traces:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QMzcHuNmbc

And here is a link to a song from Osvaldo Golijov's Ayre:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6SZ-KGVQvI

Anmut

Take Off

Last week I attended the Take Off children's theatre festival in Darlington. The festival is the largest showcase of children's work in England so it was great to be able to attend, see some work and make new connections. The festival was only two days long but I still managed to pack in 8 shows, some discussions and plenty of networking opportunities.
In terms of shows there were two highlights for me. First was Sunflowers and Sheds by M6 Theatre Company - a really lovely tale of friendship set on an allotment. Frank is an older gentleman who has just lost his friend. He enjoys sitting in the sun at his allotment reading postcards from his daughter and grandson in Australia. A new owner of the allotment next door, Russian lady Isabella, disrupts Frank's peace however. Eventually these two strike up an unlikely friendship. I thought there was a real charm about the piece with some lovely performances and lots to think about for a young audience: friendship, apologising for mistakes, loneliness, and growing your own veg!

My second highlight was getting to see the wonderful White by Catherine Wheels once again. The show has become such a hot ticket since I saw it on its original run at the fringe. So much so that the venue was overfull and people were having to stand. The show has really matured since I saw it. The performances by Andy Manley and Ian Cameron are really slick and their chemistry has developed. The two are so funny to watch and the children in the audience were chuckling with delight. I urge anyone with wee ones to try to catch this show on tour or when it lands at macrobert for the run up to Christmas.

Ditto development week

Last week I was working in North Edinburgh Arts Centre with my creative team on Ditto. This is the show I am creating with support from Imaginate, to be staged in January next year. Myself and the four musicians (Katy Barry - voice, Fran Pybus - clarinet, Chris Barclay - trombone, and Roy Shearer - percussion) worked in studio 1 of the arts centre to explore the theme for the piece: the spaces between sounds. As you can imagine from such an abstract theme, we ended up creating some fairly wild material and worked really hard to explore possible options of how to translate the theme into sound, music and imagery. A lot of the process involved improvisation. Some of the musicians were used to working in this way while some were less used to not having notes on a page in front of them. I was keen to do a lot of improvisation this week as I knew it would take us into directions I hadn't foreseen. Sometimes this approach didn't really work, but it usually wielded some interesting debate if not great material.

The week was a steep learning curve for me and the team. I wanted to see how confidently they were prepared to move around the space (with and without instruments) and was pleased to see that they all enjoyed the freedom this gave them as musicians. I think we all learned very quickly how the team dynamic was going to work - this was really important as many of the team did not know each other. I also learned how important it is as a composer/director that, even when working with improvisation, it is important to set parameters. This will carry forward into the performance in January too. Whilst much of the music will be composed by myself, I think it's important that we also have some of the joyful spontaneity that can only come from improvisation as part of the performance too. It is therefore my role as the composer to set up how and when this can happen.

On Thursday we were lucky enough to be able to work in the theatre space. This is where the first performances of Ditto will take place so it was great for the team to be able to get used to this space. It's amazing how large it looked at first, but as soon as four musicians with music stands, instrument stands, instruments etc fill the space it became clear that the design for the show (by Kate Temple) will have to incorporate these elements - rather than hide these elements, they can become an important honest feature of the show. One early design thought Kate has had is to have lots of music stands in the space - almost like a forest, with some in their true form, others folded up in sculptural forms and some piled up at the back, as if in a music stand graveyard. I really like this idea as it seems to suggest a visual representation of the music I wish to create: this idea of sounds being created, manipulated, before being discarded for something new; an endless cycle in time and space.

We were also lucky to have some artists/colleagues attend a short sharing of material on the Thursday. This was a great opportunity to present some of the ideas for the piece. We quickly realised what could work (fights over music stands, Renaissance music as a sharp contrast to stark, abstract minimalism, music which aided each individual audience member to have their own imaginative thoughts/narratives in their head whilst listening), and what didn't work so well (an improvisation exercise with too few parameters - no parameters for duration, material which suggested character too early on as this lead the audience to believe these characters would be maintained throughout the sharing). We received some great feedback form the crowd and I hope all are excited to see how the piece progresses.

Finally on Friday we carried out another sharing, this time for a group of primary 5/6 from a local school. In this sharing we trimmed down our presented material. We also presented stuff that had definite question marks over them:

Would children understand the music stand game (where the musicians set up conflicting rules about some assembled music stands) if this was being carried out as they entered the space? Also would the children be able to settle if something active was going on?

- I was pleased that the children did settle quickly. In fact I think it helped them to get really excited about the upcoming performance. Also, the children (when later questioned) had understood what was happening. One girl said, "it's like they had fallen out and when they started playing the music they had to work together to become friends again."

The musicians then stood stationary without making sound for as long as possible. I had asked the teacher not to interfere with what the children did. This was fascinating. There were the inevitable giggles and chatting. But there were also a few shhhh's and some children looking on intently, eager to see what would happen. A few children moved about a lot, either restlessly or to get in a comfier position - it was as if they knew they were in this for the long haul so had to lie down to see how it would pan out! My favourite quote came from a wee boy as the musicians finally started to move: "I'm glad that's over so I know I'm not going crazy!" I indicated for the musicians to move on from this silence at 5" 08" - a pretty incredible time and one that pails John Cage's paltry 4' 33" into insignificance! Of course, in the performance I want to play with this prolonged silence but I think it will be a lot shorter and there will be suggestions of things to happen - small movements, isolated sounds/notes - just to keep the audience intrigued and inquisitive!

One final task that I wanted to carry out was to see whether children could be brought from the audience to conduct the musicians and whether this would still feel performative.

- This worked really well. The children were quick to learn the taught conducting moves (some children were practising in the audience). It was great as it helped to change the character of the music too. Quick stops and starts, louder and softer dynamics, and staccato (short) and legato (smooth) all helped to shape the slowly-becoming-familiar material into something new and unique each time. The great thing about all of this was that it also felt like part of the performance. I think this could be used as a unique tool to revive the audience in the inevitable period about two thirds of the way through the show when, even if it's the greatest thing they've ever seen, bums start to get a wee bit restless!

A great week and I can't wait to carry on with the composition. Roll on January!!