"Well, only a few days left before Hannah and I have to deliver “Bach’s stunning unaccompanied Cello Suites... as you've never heard them before!” Let me rewind a little and explain what I have been doing for the last few weeks in preparation.
In late August I received an email asking if I would be interested in taking part in a collaborative performance with a classical cellist in an unusual venue in Manchester as part of some sort of cultural festival. Oh, and the cellist would be playing some Bach. It was the mention of Bach which convinced me to say yes.
On 5 September I had an initial phone conversation with Hannah in which we got to know each other a little and discussed possibilities for the performance. I was excited by the fact that she was planning to play a couple of the Bach Cello Suites but also a little concerned that my contributions would compromise the integrity of Hannah’s performance so we agreed on a format in which I would frame the suites and we would have a short joint performance to end with.
I now had less that a month to develop something which was now starting to feel like quite a challenge!
When starting a new work I enter what I think of as the Hunting and Gathering stage. I go out and search for ‘stuff’ – a beautifully vague term to describe all the elements that contribute to a composition. Sounds. Ideas. Structures. Processes. Memories. Artifacts. Anything.
I start from the Macro and work towards the Micro. I already knew some of the structural (and spatial) dimensions of the work: three short pieces (average 6-7 minutes) which would frame two of the Bach suites presented in an intimate space normally used for community-based hacking and experimentation.
I needed a piece to help set the room as a ‘sounding space’ in preparation for Hannah’s first performance. Another to explore shared material (a little electroacoustic suite?) leading to Hannah’s second performance. Finally a short piece for Hannah and I to play together ‘live’ – with me transforming her playing on the fly using some sort of interface/instrument; a Nintendo Wii controller perhaps?
During the hunting/gathering stage I keep the Macro dimensions in mind but do not make any decisions about what will work or won’t – I just collect stuff. In no particular order this is some of the stuff I found: pre-war recordings of Pablo Casals playing the Bach Suites; recordings of St Thomas’s Church in Leipzig including one around Bach’s tomb; manuscript copies of the suites; some more transistor radios for my collection; Leipzig street sounds; a new way of controlling frequency-shifting in my programming environment of choice, Max/msp; a new object for working with a Wii controller; Church bell recorded in Leipzig; the list goes on…
I don’t know about you but when I was a child whenever I tried to paint with poster paints I always started with bright colours and ended up with a mucky brown mess. I have since realised that this is an essential part of my creative process and that I have to reach the ‘mucky brown’ stage before finding a way through. Today is when mucky brown started to give way to clarity and renewed colour - about time too. I will write more when I know more".
Concert details and how to book
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