The a.P.A.t.T. Orchestra: Musical Settings Part I

On Sunday I played with the a.P.A.t.T Orchestra in a concert that included work by Cornelius Cardew, Liverpool composer, Richard Harding, and Argentinian composer, Alan Courtis. The concert was the first part of a series of events that will take in various unusual locations in and around Liverpool. This one was at the bandstand in Sefton Park.

The first piece was Alan Courtis' In-Formed Music for newspaper ensemble, which was much as described on the can: creating sounds and textures using newspapers, which had been supplied by the Echo newspaper. More interesting was the next piece, Richard Harding's Untitled, which, while tonal, used aleatoric and improvisational processes to create shifting clouds of sound. Finally came Cardew's piece, Paragraph 7 of The Great Learning. The work is for voices, and with the 23-strong ensemble sounded quite stunning, resounding in power and beauty in equal measure. Using guided improvisation, Cardew's piece starts with dense and dissonant harmonies, slowly evolving into a sparser harmonic field, though still retaining the power of the massed voices.


Here's a short article about the event.



There are also some photos of the concert taken by Michael Pace-Sigge.

Sound Relay

Last month I played in a project called Sound Relay, which was a collaboration between Ensemble 10/10 (the Liverpool Philharmonic's contemporary music ensemble), and the a.P.A.t.T. Orchestra. The project was part of the Liverpool Biennial's Long Night.

The musicians were split into groups starting at different locations. I was stationed initially at FACT. Starting at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, the first group of musicians walked to FACT, playing along the way; then we went to the Bluecoat, still playing; and made our final stop at Tate Liverpool, where we split up into different groups, each in a separate room in the gallery.

Here's a video with highlights of the whole event.