settling in to london...

ok. sorry for the delay. i've had an eventful 6 weeks or so, settling into london, world's end and guildhall. the 1st term of school is coming to an end though, so i can take some time over the next month to assess the first 3 months here and start planning for an eventful 2012.. yay!

the most exciting thing is yet to come.. on december 6th i fly to west africa, the gambia, for just over 2 weeks for a collaboration with local musicians.. i'll be immersed in their music culture & rhythms: drumming, singing and dancing.. i'll be taking plenty of photos and music clips so i'll definitely update this blog with lots of things to look at and hear!

recently, as you all know, the memorable day of 11/11/11 was upon us. it's the first time in 17 years (except for 2009 when i was in brazil!) that i have been absent from the buninyong rsl's annual commemorative service in regional victoria, australia, where i play the last post and reveille on the trumpet (ditto for anzac day too). this year, alongside my fellow masters companions, i was involved in a special project with inspiration from http://11elevenproject.com/   we created eleven, one minute compositions with 11 musicians, making a deadline for ourselves of recording each and collating them for upload to the 11eleven project. the first and last tracks were of 1 minute silence.. 6 others being composed in 11 minutes each, and the final 3 of them were made in 33 (11+11+11) minutes. thanks goes to detta, natasha, rené, evi, mirjam, liza, kat, cris, afla and chiel for making this happen... each track has a context and concept for/by all involved, which  proved challenging with the limitations of time for composing and recording. it was a great day, with loads of laughter.

on november 17 i was involved in another project i wrote briefly about last month.. i arranged an orchestral work based on julian nott's wallace & gromit theme (i've still got the tune running through my head!). it was performed at the roundhouse theatre in chalk farm, london, by the young person's concert foundation orchestra, who are pro muso's from around london. the foundation is a charity for kids... the musicians lead workshops and perform for children all around the united kingdom. for this particular concert, each work was arranged by a different composer/arranger and we had the option to conduct it.. of course i jumped upon this opportunity and absolutely loved it! after a crash course in orchestral conducting i managed to do pretty well (i think!). so my head is a-buzz with inspiration to write another orchestral work and conduct it myself... i'll keep you posted on my progress!!

mmm so i'm going to pause there so i can get back to some work.. i'll sort out some recordings this week from another group i've been playing with and upload some before i head off to the gambia.. happy ventures out there to all who read this! rae :)