Skip to main content

Change of city - initial experiences in Durham

After our sojourn in Worcestershire, M and I have now relocated to Durham, north-east England. Still early days but I am slowly finding venues and event listings. The end of June saw us at Hill Island Microbrewery's mini festival at Alington House - fruit beers!! Shades of Ottawa, especially the raspberry.... The last week, along with summer (yay!) saw the opening Streets of Brass from this year's Brass: Durham International Festival. Walking in along Framwellgate Bridge on Saturday 6th we were greeted by the enthusiastic and entertaining performers from Brassy B, whom we could hear down in Fowlers Yard. Fowlers Yard had a 10th anniversary festival/open day; we tried the delights of Leonard's for lunch, plus a swift drink from the Hill Island folk. Our brief Brass experience continued with Oompah Brass in the Market Place. Fantastic playing and also very, very funny; treats included covers of Bonnie Tyler's 'Total Eclipse of the Heart', plus 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love' and 'Bohemian Rhapsody' from Queen.  


Stillaphone

On the experimental side, yesterday I headed off to Durham Cathedral for two of the Brass: Pitch events. First up was John Kefala Kerr's Book of Bells in the Monks' Dormitory Library. This meditative piece mixed digitally manipulated brass, bell and choral recordings with audience interaction. The effect was something like a minimal, occasionally discordant soundscape - entirely different to my perception of the original material as somewhat more 'traditional'. The addition of the interactive element - a book quiz with ringing of small bells - provided an immediate, random aspect to the piece, which had a distance to it. Really interesting and peaceful - recommended! 

After a stroll around the Cathedral, I then headed to The Music School next door for louie+jesse's project, Stillaphone. Simple brass household items - pans, kettles and so on - into which randomly timed water droplets fell. Simple but effective.    
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pigeon Funk

Notes on a very random purchase. Earlier today I acquired Venetian Snares 'Rossz Csillag Alatt Sz ü letett ' purely on the basis of the language and artwork. Its certainly something different - and most definitely not pop. After a bit of searching: Venetial Snares is, according to Wikipedia, the performing name of Aaron Funk, who seems to specialise in experimental tracks in odd time signatures. Article here . The sleeve notes for this album (whose title is Hungarian for 'Born under a bad star') poses the question: what if, for just a day, we could both be pigeons? Interessant. Apparently this concept (a day in the life of a Hungarian pigeon) is non-typical of Venetian Snares sound, but one could ask, does Mr Funk do 'typical'? On first listening, the sound of this CD mixes classical/traditional Hungarian sounds and breakbeats. but aside from that? Definitely a 'listen for yourself' artist; try the website , fan site or myspace .
4 comments
Read more

Lang Lang: a little bit of stardust in Southam Hall

Lang Lang with Anita Pari Like many National Arts Centre regulars, the idea of a Lang Lang concert sounded fantastic... except that for me the Gala tickets are rather too expensive. As a result the turnout for today's masterclass with young artists Anita Pari (Ottawa), Alexander Malikov (Calgary), and Tina Chong (Banff) in Southam Hall was pretty good. No surprises that there were photographers and a TV camera all over the stage... so much so that during Lang's analysis of Malikov's rendition of  Transcendental Étude No 8 'Wild Hunt' (Liszt), someone shouted at the cameraman to move. To my mind they seemed a little intrusive on the performances, but none of the artists seemed to take any notice. Lang Lang with Tina Chong Up first and for me the best performance was Anita Pari with the captivating Ballade No 1 by Chopin. In comparison, Malikov's performance did not have anywhere near as much projection. Final performer Tina Chong seemed
1 comment
Read more

Guitar week: Gitarrissima and Sean Shibe

Almost at the Christmas break and hectic as ever! This last week was a two-concerts week (with a Christmas party in the middle) and it was guitars all round. First up, on 11th December, were Gitarrissima of Vienna at Skipton Music . The quintet (reduced to a quartet on Tuesday due to illness) performed A Christmas Celebration - seasonal music and a very jolly evening all round. The group perform on a mixture of concert guitars, an octave guitar and an acoustic bass guitar and the sound is remarkably rounded, not necessarily to be expected for reductions of orchestral pieces. Each set of pieces was introduced by a different member of the group. In a lot of ways, Gitarrissima reminded me of Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain with their clever arrangements of well-known pieces as well as musical excellence. The programme included excerpts (arranged by the group) of Bizet's Carmen , Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, all of which were performed very well but som
Post a Comment
Read more