olympics, paris, curious festival and more..

so the month of june was filled with rehearsals, writing and practicing for a silent movie performance and preparing my assessments for guildhall.. busy month! the silent film project was a fabulous one, directed by the great tim metherall from melbourne.. i'll be recording the music in the next month sometime, so i'll post it up as soon as it's done.

to end my first year at guildhall, the department had a festival at the 'people show' in london, during the first week of july. I was lucky enough to perform every night with a number of different groups, playing piano, vibraphone and singing even.. there's no photos from this just yet, but hopefully the powers that apparently be will send them through at some stage..

during that week, great friends of mine from minneapolis usa were visiting.. jared and julia.. jared miller, from the filter lab i met in 2006 whilst in residence at the banff centre in canada.. he's one of the best audio engineers i know on this planet (he didn't even pay me to say that)! i had the pleasure of working with him way back in 06, recording in the rolston recital hall, an improvised album with the composer/percussionist extraordinaire eugene skeef from south africa / uk.

for the first time in more than 6 years, jared, eugene and i were in the same room, nattering on as if no time had passed. and i'm pleased to say that our album (albeit overdue) is nearly ready! it's been remixed and mastered this year, using some images from the fabulous photographer brian goff, from tacoma washington, usa, also in residence in banff at the time. we spent much of the day reminiscing and putting the design together for its release. sunwrae fans will love this record!

here's jared and julia making there way home from world's end...
more news to come on the album 'heavy forest air'...

so with school over for the year, performances done, album organised, it was definitely rest time.. as well as catchup time on all the things i've put aside (hence my late blog post here!). and summer time! well, it's the wettest summer here in 90 years apparently, but occasionally the sun has shone through the clouds, with enough warmth to defrost my toes. finally!

managed to spare a couple of hours in the guildhall 'studio' (if that's what they call it!) to record a couple of tracks (including the original version of the machine, with vocals!) with italian singer nicoletta tiberini.. stay tuned to hear some of these sometime soon..

so at this stage, london was getting busier of course, with the lead up to the olympics. the local council here started putting up some quirky sculptures to make life a bit more enjoyable..

and the culture/entertainment kept on coming from the london cultural olympiad festival.. well, bt river of music festival was a hoot. i spent 21st/22nd july in greenwich at the oceania stage, the highlight being the wantok musik sing sing, directed by david bridie (not drowning waving, my friend the chocolate cake).. a fabulous collaborative performance by 24 (i think) artists, from different cultures in the australasian and oceanic region.. amazing! engineered by the master audio guru brett doig (who did the live sound for sunwrae's thornbury theatre show in '09), i was fortunate to get an artist pass and schmooze with the artists (thanks brett!). here's a couple of pics from the weekend:

 

phil wales on the left.. go phil!!

and here's brett hard at work..

on the sunday.. for the first time in, mmm, 5 years?! i saw natalia mann (the original harpist in sunwrae).. she was too far away on stage to get a clear pic with my phone, but the photo below is her performing harp with the maori/irish collaboration from new zealand (and a tap dancer, yay!). natalia has been living in turkey for some time and now spending time between there and new zealand..

and the artists afterparty.. wow jools holland was amazing! so many awesome players and guests on the stage, very memorable. and after the afterparty.. the sky was clear and i saw two stars!! the first time in london i've seen stars! yay!

then it's olympics time.. here, the cloudy old grey day was the opening day.. the view from my flat when the olympic flame travelled the thames to the olympic village...

ok. phew! it nearly takes me up to date.. except most recently (on the weekend) i decided to escape london and catch the eurostar to paris to soak up some days in the sun, sipping wine and tasting an array of their delicious foods.. no photos unfortunately (i was having too much fun!), but i'll be back there soon and will post some up... i did however see the wonderful national jazz orchestra performing for the paris jazz festival.. a tribute to astor piazolla.. fabulous arrangements!

over and out for now..

London Contemporary Dance School and a new piano!

so! i'm back. it's been quite crazy at guildhall. this month we're running a project called 'dialogue' for the 'Barbican Weekender'. the theme is Urban Stories. it's a big project working with storytellers, community groups, family groups, choirs, primary and secondary schools in nearby bethnall green, and current & post students of the guildhall. my part is running workshops with the schools and supporting the secondary band & choir, creating small performances that all piece together one after the other, creating a larger roving sort of concert, throughout the barbican. that's my understanding of it anyway.. the rest i improvise (but don't tell them i said that).

at the same time (and the most exciting thing for me), is starting a project with the London Contemporary Dance School...

it was a last minute invite from the composition department at guildhall, to compose a work for a dance project, in collaboration with a choreographer, Chris Scott. he's finishing his course at LCDS. so, the project is to create a work together from scratch. it's a pretty new concept for me (but oh so exciting), coz until now, any specific dance projects i've been involved with have usually been entirely improvised, or the work is choreographed to one of my existing compositions. this time however, as we're both creating from scratch, we're influenced as much as each other right throughout the process.

there'll be more news to come as the work unfolds, but here's a sneak peak at what came out of the first rehearsal. i mostly improvised or played some existing compositions on the piano, to get chris and the dancers familiar with my style. on this below clip, i left out the music (sorry!) so i wouldn't be influenced by it when watching it at a later date. i'm sure they'd say it's a bit rough, but it was waay exciting for me...

and the next thing... MY NEW PIANO!!!
today i experienced a most amazing and generous thing. someone donated a piano to me (edit: actually this didn't turn out in the end, but it made for a good story at the time!!!!). i've been needing to buy one for my flat (it's been driving me crazy to not have one at home believe me!) and i have been looking frantically for one that is suitable, affordable and course playable. i've had a number of trips to the countryside to play and bid on pianos. the train journeys have been great, but not so successful until today, yay! i initially put a hold on a very small second-hand yamaha upright from a shop, however had to call back, apologise and say no when i received a call following up my 'email of interest' from last week. a lovely lady and gentleman from orpington (countryside outside london), questioned me about my studies, wanting to know more and more. to cut a long story short, today i have walked away with an antique 'Dörner' upright piano, from stuttgart in germany. could be from the early 1900's.. it's quite old, but such a lovely open tone. the moving and shaking of course is yet to be done (my only costs are to move and tune it), but soon (hopefully next week?!), i'll have the piano in my flat. i'm hoping my neighbours won't mind.. i haven't even checked it with the official building peoples, but my flatmate likes the idea, so that's good enough for me until i get told off!


the best part about the story is that during our conversation over a lovely cup of english tea, i found out that the lady is the sister of a certain Isobel Rolston, who was the director at the banff centre in canada, whilst i was there in 2006 for my winter residency. what are the chances?! i gave them a gift of my cd 'never stops to wait'. it certainly doesn't balance the scales, but one day i'll thank them properly by inviting them to an amazing concert. it truly is a fabulous and generous gift.. and i am very grateful that it came at this time.. i can afford to eat for another couple of months now! yay!

ok (edit 29/02/2012): so the free one didn't work out.. they reneged! how's that?! offering then reneging. sheesh!! to cut a long story short: i called the piano shop back and mine was still there.. so it's being delivered today.. yay! just goes to show that it's waaay better just to pay someone to do the job, then you know it'll be done.

well, better run. work and sleep to be had.
back soon! :)