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.
‘Pythagoras’s Toolkit’ for puppet and ensemble, has been awarded funding for further Research and Development work from Arts Council England. The application was led by my theatre director collaborator Rachel Warr and includes funding towards creating an outreach project for the Hands on Humanities Festival at the University of Southampton.
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!
A few weeks ago I was delighted to work on the R&D work of ‘Flight of Hope’ with the Strike a Chord Theatre Company. I was in charge of the recorded and live electronics for this show which explores some of the issues asylum seekers face in the UK and was directed by Rachel Warr. Fingers crossed the company can get further funding and stage a full production soon.
I’ve composed some recorded music and will be improvising live for ‘Hidden lives and Unvisited Tombs‘ at St Pancras Churchcrypt next Saturday 5th December. Our performance, which is directed by Rachel Warr, is part of an exhibition and performances put on by Scary Little Girls and will kick off at 3.30.
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.
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