Super happy to be bringing Pythagoras’ Toolkit to Turner Sims for the UK premiere performances. There will be three performances – one family ticketed event on Sunday 30 March and then two schools performances on Monday 31 March.
Really excited about the exciting group of musicians involved, and of course the amazing puppeteers directed by my co-creator Rachel Warr.
Had an amazing time playing with Declare Sextet at Turner Sims a few weeks. My Uncle, Markus Kinch, captured some brilliant pictures. Was awesome to work with these amazing musicians: Nick Willsher, Tamar Osborn, Francesca Ter-Berg, George Balmont and Jake Long, with a very special guest slot from Liz Gre. Looking forward to editing together the recordings to share with the world and to hearing how the Yangon crew play the same music at their gig in November! Thanks again to British Council for funding.
Had an amazing few days putting together The Driver for the premiere featuring Luke Wright and the Hartley Loop Orchestra. We got some nice coverage from the University.
Big plans on way to record the piece at end of April to produce a vinyl!
The Driver narrates his life from behind the wheel, taking in the ring roads, flyovers, service stations, leisure parks, motels and lay-bys of England. As he drives, he keeps an eye on the past through the rear-view mirror.
Luke Wright‘s words are set to music by compose
r Benjamin Oliver and their work is performed by the Hartley Loop Orchestra in this world premiere performance. The music combines orchestral sonorities, at times referencing English medieval polyphony and music by Purcell and Parry, with the familiar sounds heard within the environment of a car.
Wright’s narrative is both a travelogue of England’s least glamorous places and the story of a break-up, a love poem to being away and our ability to keep on going. It’s sad, celebratory and caustic with all the squalor and romance the road has to offer.
I’ve been on research leave from University over the last few months. I’ve written a sax and percussion duo Shuffle (more on that soon I hope) and nearly finished the editing of a new 45-minute poetry-music piece with the wonderful poet Luke Wright called The Driver. We will premiere this piece in February with an orchestra of students at Turner Sims in Southampton. The gig is free (details in Events)!
The piece narrates the life of a driver from behind the wheel, taking in the ring roads, flyovers, service stations, leisure parks, motels and lay-bys of England. It’s both a travelogue of England’s least glamorous places and the story of a break-up, a love poem to being away and our ability to keep on going. It’s sad, celebratory and caustic with all the squalor and romance the road has to offer.
The music I’ve written sometimes underscores Luke’s poetry, and sometimes comes to the fore. It draws on a range of music from England including some medieval polyphony shared with me by my ace colleague Amy Williamson as well as music by Purcell (linked up to me by Andrew Pinnock) and Parry. There’s also recordings from inside a car, including recordings I took driving up to Fleet Services with a posh microphone in the passenger seat back in 2019!!
It’s been great working on this project with Luke and been a long time coming as we started it before the pandemic. I’m grateful to the Department of Music for helping make this happen and super excited to share The Driver with the world!
‘British soul sensation’ Hannah Williams joins forces with a new music superstar Riot Ensemble quartet to premiere Benjamin Oliver’s song cycle LOVE LETTERS. The work includes melancholic, absurd and dramatic expressions of love made with LovelaceGPT, a new AI text generation model developed by University of Southampton researchers.
AI music and text generation, as well as sound processing, feature in five distinctive works by leading young composers : Rob Laidlow, Zakiya Leeming, Anna Appleby, Oliver Sellwood and Megan Steinberg. The ‘startingly gifted’ Colombian-American soprano Stephanie Lamprea guests for three vocal pieces.
The LOVE LETTERS [WITH AI] project is supported by the University of Southampton Web Science Institute & Department of Music.
Super excited about the upcoming premiere performances of my new song cycle, Love Letters, for Hannah Williams and Riot Ensemble. The texts for the songs have been created by a new AI language model – LovelactGPT. You can hear it at Turner Sims (17 July) and Kings Place (19 July). Come!
You must be logged in to post a comment.