Just back from a brilliant week or so in Montreal conducting the premiere of my collaborative puppetry-music work made with Rachel Warr (Dotted Line Theatre). It was fantastic working with Rachel, the amazing musicians of Ensemble Paramirabo, and ridiculously talented puppeteers Gilbert Taylor and Edie Edmundson. The reception from both kids and adults was fantastic, and it was really great to be part of the Festival de Casteliers. Great to see lots of weird and wonderful puppetry in other shows too! Fingers crossed this production leads to further opportunities to do the piece. I’m hugely proud of what Rachel and I have created together and grateful to Jeff Stonehouse and all at Ensemble Paramirabo for believing in it and supporting the project.
Legend has it that one day Pythagoras was astonished by the sounds that blacksmiths made when they struck their pieces of metal: the sounds were rich, varied, sometimes harmonious, sometimes discordant. When he returned home, the Greek thinker hastened to explore sound and invent new instruments.
In this co-creation by Rachel Warr (Dotted Line Theatre) and Benjamin Oliver, performed by the musicians of Paramirabo, our hero, the modern-day Pythagore, invites children aged 3 to 12 (but also adults) to follow him in his surreal, amusing and even danceable experiments.
A Paramirabo production, co presented by Le Vivier, Bach Before Bedtime and Festival de Casteliers.
Legend has it that one day Pythagoras was astonished by the sounds that blacksmiths made when they struck their pieces of metal: the sounds were rich, varied, sometimes harmonious, sometimes discordant. When he returned home, the Greek thinker hastened to explore sound and invent new instruments.
In this co-creation by Rachel Warr (Dotted Line Theatre) and Benjamin Oliver, performed by the musicians of Paramirabo, our hero, the modern-day Pythagore, invites children aged 3 to 12 (but also adults) to follow him in his surreal, amusing and even danceable experiments.
A Paramirabo production, co presented by Le Vivier, Bach Before Bedtime and Festival de Casteliers.
Legend has it that one day Pythagoras was astonished by the sounds that blacksmiths made when they struck their pieces of metal: the sounds were rich, varied, sometimes harmonious, sometimes discordant. When he returned home, the Greek thinker hastened to explore sound and invent new instruments.
In this co-creation by Rachel Warr (Dotted Line Theatre) and Benjamin Oliver, performed by the musicians of Paramirabo, our hero, the modern-day Pythagore, invites children aged 3 to 12 (but also adults) to follow him in his surreal, amusing and even danceable experiments.
A Paramirabo production, co presented by Le Vivier, Bach Before Bedtime and Festival de Casteliers.
Legend has it that one day Pythagoras was astonished by the sounds that blacksmiths made when they struck their pieces of metal: the sounds were rich, varied, sometimes harmonious, sometimes discordant. When he returned home, the Greek thinker hastened to explore sound and invent new instruments.
In this co-creation by Rachel Warr (Dotted Line Theatre) and Benjamin Oliver, performed by the musicians of Paramirabo, our hero, the modern-day Pythagore, invites children aged 3 to 12 (but also adults) to follow him in his surreal, amusing and even danceable experiments.
A Paramirabo production, co presented by Le Vivier, Bach Before Bedtime and Festival de Casteliers.
Legend has it that one day Pythagoras was astonished by the sounds that blacksmiths made when they struck their pieces of metal: the sounds were rich, varied, sometimes harmonious, sometimes discordant. When he returned home, the Greek thinker hastened to explore sound and invent new instruments.
In this co-creation by Rachel Warr (Dotted Line Theatre) and Benjamin Oliver, performed by the musicians of Paramirabo, our hero, the modern-day Pythagore, invites children aged 3 to 12 (but also adults) to follow him in his surreal, amusing and even danceable experiments.
A Paramirabo production, co presented by Le Vivier, Bach Before Bedtime and Festival de Casteliers.
Legend has it that one day Pythagoras was astonished by the sounds that blacksmiths made when they struck their pieces of metal: the sounds were rich, varied, sometimes harmonious, sometimes discordant. When he returned home, the Greek thinker hastened to explore sound and invent new instruments.
In this co-creation by Rachel Warr (Dotted Line Theatre) and Benjamin Oliver, performed by the musicians of Paramirabo, our hero, the modern-day Pythagore, invites children aged 3 to 12 (but also adults) to follow him in his surreal, amusing and even danceable experiments.
A Paramirabo production, co presented by Le Vivier, Bach Before Bedtime and Festival de Casteliers.
I’ve spent the past few months busily revising and reworking, with my creative collaborator Rachel Warr of Dotted Line Theatre, the score of Pythagoras’ Toolkit (La Boîte à outils de Pythagore in French!) for ensemble and puppeteer. We are working towards the inaugural production of the show with the amazing Ensemble Paramirabo, which will take place in early March in Montreal. I’ve just sent off the production score and parts!
Rachel is brilliant to work with. Super talented of course but also so focused on ensuring the narrative of the show is totally honed. We started working on the piece back in 2019 and have had lots of (mostly pandemic induced) setbacks along the way so it’s really great to be finally heading towards showing this piece to the world.
Details of shows on my gigs page. We are filming and recording it too.
In November Rachel Warr and I did a cool outreach project around Pythagoras’ Tool Kit for the University of Southampton’s Hands on Humanities Day. You can watch the broadcast about the project and find out more at the special project Padlet.
I’m really delighted that Pythagoras’ Toolkit, led by Ensemble Paramirabo (Montreal) and involving me as co-creator, composer and conductor, has been awarded funding from the Canadian Council for the Arts.
In Pythagoras’ Toolkit Rachel Warr (co-creator/director, Dotted Line Theatre) and I will bring to life, through puppetry and live music, a modern-day Pythagoras who will explore sound, space (conceptual/sound/realworld), rhythm, harmony and dissonance (order and chaos), instrument making/design, dance, musical textures and ways of constructing music.
The production, currently planning for a tour in 2021, will feature musicians from Ensemble Paramirabo (Canada), Workers Union Ensemble (UK) and two musically literate puppeteers working with a specially created Pythagoras puppet.
Rachel and I are concocting ideas already… more soon!
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