The Great Toccata: Daniel Moult plays Bach on the Schnitger organ of the Martinikerk, Groningen as part of the Royal College of Organists' Play the Organ campaign

There is a nationwide decline in organists and to try and stem this the Royal College of Organists (RCO) is devoting 2025 to its Play the Organ campaign, aiming not just to increase the number of people learning to play the organ, but also the number enjoying live and recorded organ music.

As part of this, Will Fraser's Fugue State Films has filmed organist Daniel Moult playing Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 565 on the Arp Schnitger organ of the Martinikerk, Groningen.  

The Schnitger organ of the Martinikerk is one of the largest Baroque organs in Northern Europe and it tooks its present form in the late 17th and early 18th centuries as Arp Schnitger and his son expanded and developed an existing organ. During the later 20th century it was restored back to its 1740 state.

Despite being one of Bach's most famous organ works, little is known of the origins of the Toccata and Fugue in D minor. There is no autograph score and the piece is known from a manuscript created by Johannes Ringk in the period 1730 to 1760. Ringk, a renowned organist and composer, had studied with one of Bach's pupils,  Johann Peter Kellner and it is possible that Ringk's copy of the Toccata and Fugue came from Kellner's collection.

As part of Play the Organ, the RCO has launched a new streaming service, in collaboration with Fugue State Films, devoted to the organ. The first film is a documentary made about the Toccata and Fugue; a 100-minute documentary followed by more than two hours of filmed performances and presentations. Full details from the RCO website.

Foxtrot: Shostakovich’s Jazz Suite No.1, arranged by Paul Campbell performed by mass orchestra (featuring over 200 young musicians) at Benedetti Foundation's London Sessions with Wynton Marsalis

Following an inspiring weekend at the Southbank Centre for the Benedetti Foundation's London Sessions, the mass orchestra (featuring over 200 young musicians) performed a new arrangement by Paul Campbell of Shostakovich’s Jazz Suite No.1, including an improvised solo from Wynton Marsalis! This performance was the culmination of the weekend’s work.

Led by violinist Nicola Benedetti, the London Sessions bring together young musicians and teachers for high-energy, high-inspiration workshops that explore everything from storytelling and improvisation to sound production and musical expression. This year’s guests included jazz trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis, and saxophonist and presenter Jess Gillam.

Further details from the Benedetti Foundation website.

Celebrating an icon: Argentinian bandoneonist Dino Saluzzi celebrates his 90th birthday with a new single on ECM Records

Yesterday (20 May 2025), Argentinian bandoneonist Dino Saluzzi celebrated his 90th birthday. A long time collaborator with ECM records [his discography is here], the label has released the first track from his upcoming album El Viejo Caminante (album release 11 July). 'El Viejo Caminante' translates as ‘The Old Wanderer’, and Dino Saluzzi is joined by his son José María Saluzzi (who first recorded with his father, at the age of thirteen, as drummer on Mojotoro) on classical guitar and Norwegian jazz guitarist Jacob Young,

The track is Quiet March, available via ECM's link tree. 

A key figure in contemporary South American music. Born in the small village of Campo Santo in northern Argentina in 1935, Dino Saluzzi began playing professionally while studying in Buenos Aires, where he met Astor Piazzolla, who was then in the process of shaping the Tango Nuevo idiom. In 1956, Saluzzi returned to the rural district of Salta to concentrate on his compositions, now consciously incorporating folk music elements.

He says of his background,  "My father worked on a sugar plantation, and, in his free time, he played the bandoneon and studied lead sheets of tango and folkloric music. There weren't books, or schools, or radio — nothing. Nevertheless, my father was able to transmit a musical education to me; music that, later, when I was studying, I realised that I already knew—not from the point of view of reason or rationality, but rather in a different way, a strange way, the way that is produced by oral transmission". 

That notion of centrality of the oral transmission of culture is one that has remained strong in Saluzzi’s musical identity ever since. His long collaboration with ECM Records, which began in 1982 with the solo album Kultrum - and was followed by a second album entitled Kultrum in 1988, a collaboration with the Rosamunde Quartet.

Celebrating what would have been Sondheim's 95th birthday: Imelda Staunton in 'Losing my Mind' live from the National Theatre

Stephen Sondheim would have been 95 today and in celebration here's a little gem. Imelda Staunton performs 'Losing my mind' from Follies, recorded live at the National Theatre in 2017 in the production directed by Dominic Cooke, featuring an orchestra of 21. On YouTube.

Night through dreams tells the myths forgotten by the day: Le Sommeil's new EP, Semele reflects a new project

Le Sommeil, collective of musicians originally from the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, has released a new EP and two videos to herald their upcoming debut album, featuring works by George Frideric Handel, Marin Marais, and John Eccles, drawn from operas inspired by the myth of Semele,

Building on their previous programme, which delved into the relationships between dreams, myths, and archetypes inspired by Carl Jung's philosophy, Le Sommeil continues to bring a distinctive perspective to Baroque music. Their motto, "Night through dreams tells the myths forgotten by the day" (C. G. Jung), encapsulates their mission: to revive stories and emotions that resonate universally yet remain hidden beneath the surface.

The performances feature Margarita Slepakova - mezzo-soprano, Elena Abbati and Soko Yoshida - violins, Giulio Padoin - cello, Pablo FitzGerald - archlute, Cristiano Gaudio - harpsichord. The videos were filmed by award-winning cinematographer Wawrzyniec Skoczylas and produced by Slepakova, in an abandoned Alsatian synagogue, now a vibrant art centre called le ventre. Founded by artists Mimi von Moos and Willem Mes, this historic venue bridges tradition and contemporary art.

The video above, O Sleep is available on YouTube,  and you can also catch their video, No, no I'll take no less on YouTube. The Semele EP is available from BandCamp.

Visionaries: a multi-sensory experience

Back in June 2024 Vache Baroque staged six multi-sensory concert experiences of Handel’s L’Allegro Part I (setting a text based on Milton) in collaboration with BitterSuite (a group that creates music experiences that take inspiration from and draw on expertise in both arts and wellbeing), Milton’s Cottage (a museum based in a house in Chalftont St Giles near The Vache where Milton once lived) and Bucks Council’s Integrated SEND Service (MSI Specialist Team).

This project has been awarded Best Collaboration 2024 by Bucks Culture as part of their inaugural Bucks Spark Awards.

Dancer Guides from BitterSuite led audience members through a blindfolded, immersive journey designed to heighten awareness of how sound and the senses unite. The performance features sopranos Sarah Gilford & Victoria Oruwari, alto Sarah Denbee, tenor Frederick Jones, baritone Malachy Frame, musical director Jonathan Darbourne. This short film created by videographer Hannah Lovell brings out the highlights of the project.

See the film on YouTube 

A journey through layers and roots in the pursuit of a revelatory vision: Simon Thacker's Songs of the Roma

Described as "a journey through layers and roots in the pursuit of a revelatory vision", classical guitarist Simon Thacker's new disc, Songs of the Roma, (released this week on Slap the Moon Records) draws on his immersion in the rich musical legacy of the Balkan and Romanian Romany, their origins on the Indian subcontinent. The album features Simon Thacker on classical guitar and Justyna Jablonska on cello, alongside special guests from Poland and Hungary, Lublin based singer-violinist Masha Natanson, cimbalom virtuoso Gyula "Julius" Csik and double bassist Gyula Lázár, both from Budapest.

The album features new creative versions of songs that originated from Roma writers and also existed as folksongs before being transformed by the Roma (often best known in their Roma form). The album features eight tracks including two new pieces one of which, Phirado is the video featured above. Simon Thacker says of this, "I think that every album (of mine) should contain at least one track that opens a portal to another world for future exploration. Both Jolta and Phirado, especially, appear to offer this possibility."

Phirado is a Romani word of many meanings: nomad, vagrant, wanderer, provocative, the past participle of phirel 'walk', and courted or wooed. Multiple meanings, many layers.

Further details from Simon Thacker's website.

The Light of Paradise: Paul Mealor's new choral opera inspired by medieval mystic Margery Kempe

The mediaeval mystic, Margery Kempe (ca.1373-1448) is a fascinating figure. She freed herself from the restraint of marriage and embarked on pilgrimages to sacred sites in Europe and the Middle East, dressed usually in white. Kempe considered her travels as a series of divine trials and whilst nowadays she can be seen a suffering the symptoms of various mental illnesses, she distilled them into The Booke, a spiritual autobiography that she began in 1430, despite being illiterate.

The manuscript was copied, probably shortly before 1450, by someone who signed himself Salthows; this scribe has been shown to be the Norwich monk Richard Salthouse. However after the 16th century Kempe's book was essentially lost; the only surviving manuscript was found again in 1934 the private library of the Butler-Bowdon family, and this is now in the British Library.

The Light of Paradise is a new work by Paul Mealor which was commissioned by the Zurich Chamber Singers. An hour long work for choir and saxophone quartet, Mealor describes it as a choral opera. Its fourteen movements, devotions Mealor calls them, are loosely based on the fourteen stations of the Way of the Cross, using words by Kempe to create a narrative arc, presenting the story of her pilgrimage as well as unfolding her religious universe. 

The result is neither opera nor oratorio, and mixes choral writing with solos and music for the saxophone quartet. Mealor creates a distinctive sound world all of his own. Whilst Mealor's musical style is a long way from that of Arvo Pärt, listening to The Light of Paradise you cannot help but think about the way Pärt reinvented the Lutheran passion in his own image. 

British composers have rather shied away from the more ecstatic, mystical side to Catholicism. You have to remember that Elgar's Dream of Gerontius was regarded as rather too Catholic for the Three Choirs Festival (even as late as the 1930s, the Dean of Peterborough banned the work from the cathedral). So it is intriguing, and heartening, to find Mealor treating religious mysticism so directly and in  work that makes it approachable.

Paul Mealor's The Light of Paradise was premiered by the Zurich Chamber Singers and Sonic Art Saxophone Quartet, conductor Christian Erny in January 2024 [see details], and is released on the Berlin Classics label - https://BC.lnk.to/lightofparadiseID

Farinelli's Violin

Later this month violinist Jorge Jiménez and his ensemble Tercia Realidad are releasing their disc, Farinelli's Violin on Pan Classics. 

The disc features arias writtens for the castrato Farinelli in new versions where it is Jimenez' violin that astonishes. To give you a taster of the delights to expect, here is a video of Jorge Jiménez and Tercia Realidad performing live at the Festival de Musica Antigua de Ubeda y Baeza. They are performing Jiménez' arrangement of the aria 'Nell' Attendere Mio Bene' from the opera Polifemo by Nicola Popora, who also happened to be Farinelli's teacher.

The disc presents arias from Hasse's Artaserse, Broschi's Idaspe, Handel's Rinaldo, and Porpora's Polifemo.

Further details from Jimenez' website.

Nothing less than astonishing: Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 from Graham Ross and the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge

In April this year, Graham Ross directed the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge in a performance of Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 at Smith Square Hall (formerly St John's Smith Square). The performance featured the English Cornett & Sackbutt Ensemble, plus Margaret Faultless, violin, Jonathan Manson, bass violin, William Hunt, violone, Elizabeth Kenny, theorbo and Silas Wollston, organ, alongside instrumentalists from Cambridge University. Nicholas Mulroy did the heavy lifting as soloist alongside other soloists from the choir.

The result was filmed, beautifully, by Andrew Staples for Studio 2359, with recorded sound by John Rutter. The film has now been released and is available the Choir of Clare College's YouTube channel. The results are nothing less than astonishing and extremely engaging. Despite using a college choir, this is a relatively intimate performance and I have great admiration for the way a series of soloists step out from the choir and perform all those solos with terrific aplomb. 

I could listen to Nicholas Mulroy for ever in this style of music and his performance remains a treasure. But credit music go to the women who do all those concertos, going way beyond the technical and giving each appearance real character. Then there are the two baritone soloists in the Magnificat going high into the upper reaches with real aplomb. But I think the palm must go to a series of tenors, especially those who duet with Nicholas Mulroy, so that for instance in Duo Seraphim the second and third tenors match Mulroy ornament for ornament. 

The full performances is available on YouTube. As it is free of charge, please do consider making a donation to the college's music if you are enjoying the performance.

Substantial and satisfying listening: Stuart Hancock's score for the new film, Kensuke's Kingdom

Michael Morpurgo's 1999 book Kensuke's Kingdom might have very modern concerns with its bringing issues about care for the environment and the natural world into what is a traditional adventure story, but the new animated film based on the book which was released last month has a refreshingly traditional approach to the genre. The film, directed by Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry with Peter Dodd as animation director and Michael Shorten as art director, features traditional hand drawn animation along with a fine symphonic score by British composer Stuart Hancock.

Hancock's score has a strong dramatic sweep to it and the original motion picture soundtrack, on MovieScoreMedia, makes for substantial and satisfying listening. The film was produced by Lupus Films, and the soundtrack was recorded by the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra, conductor David Hernando Rico, and the Holst Singers, conductor Michael Waldron, and the score even has a solo for actor Ken Watanabe who plays Kensuke.

I enjoyed listening to the soundtrack immensely, the album has 31 tracks lasting 73 minutes, which is a lot of music for a film, from short cues to longer sequences. Hancock's music has a depth and complexity to it, which is reflected in the fact that the performers include the full Bratislava Symphony Orchestra and the Holst Singers. Even from just listening, there is a strong emotional range, and I can't help but hope Hancock has time, energy and impetus to create a concert suite from the music. 

Hancock says of the writing process, "Kensuke’s Kingdom has very little dialogue – a gift for a composer! The two lead characters cannot speak each other’s language, so the music has space to flourish and help tell their story. I composed initial character themes and sketches, working closely with the directors from the storyboard/animatic stage onwards. I honed the music as the animation gradually fell into place, culminating in fantastic recording sessions with full symphony orchestra, choir and solo musicians in late 2022. Personal highlights included recording Ken Watanabe’s singing (remotely from Tokyo) and having author Michael Morpurgo’s glowing seal of approval at regular intervals!"

Stuart Hancock's score for Kensuke's Kingdom is available via MovieScoreMedia and can be streamed on Spotify or YouTube. Full details of the film from the Kensuke's Kingdom website.

Julia Thomsen's 'Beauty' from Harmonies of WoMen

 

 

Harmonies of WoMen is an album that was released on International Women's Day 2024, featuring work from ten different female pianists, and released under the banner of the Piano And Nature label, which dedicates itself to environmental consciousness by planting a tree for each release.

The full album is available on Spotify, but we are featuring the newly released video created to to go with Julia Thomsen's Beauty.

The Ballad of the Nipple: Paul Alan Barker's seven melodramas for piano

Melodrama as a dramatic musical genre has a somewhat patchy history. Whilst Mozart would say of Georg Benda's melodramas 'I love these two works so much that I carry them with me', and indeed works like Benda's Medea [recorded in 2021 by Cappella Aquileia on Coviello Classics, see my review] influenced Mozart's use of speech with music. Melodrama as a tool in the opera composers armoury does pop up, but the exploration of simple speech with music is still relatively rare. The development of post-War music-theatre works has meant that contemporary composers shy away from it rather less. 

Paul Alan Barker is a composer of dance, theatre, musicals, opera and more with over 13 operas to his name. He is also a writer and his first novel, The Ferry Inn, was recently published. So it comes as no surprise to find him interested in the combination of speech and music. As far back as 1980 he wrote The Pied Piper of Hamelin for narrator and piano, and in 2015 came Of Zoe and the Woman I sing, described as 'A melodrama for actress Zoe Lister, her avatar and pianist'. 

Less overtly dramatic but rather intriguing is The Ballad of the Nipple 'Seven melodramas for Piano' which take Barker's own words and apply music to them, designed for a single pianist able to speak, they can also be performed as melodramas with an actor. The sequence begins with Lemon Scented Blues, 'A fairy tale with a moral' and ends with the title piece, The Ballad of the Nipple, originally written after a tabloid magazine published a clandestine photo of a Royal nipple!

The results are compact and amusing, with cabaret hints yet with claws. The good news is that Barker has recorded them himself, speaking and playing, and the results are available as a playlist on YouTube.

For David, on his birthday: Ben Vonberg-Clark & Nigel Foster in a taster for Out of the Shadows at Omnibus Theatre, Clapham

In June, we are presenting Out of the Shadows at Omnibus Theatre, Clapham as part of 96 Festival, its celebration of queerness and theatre. Out of the Shadows is an evening of my music, featuring two recent cantatas and a selection of my songs performed by tenor Ben Vonberg-Clark, baritone Jonathan Eyers and pianist Nigel Foster.

As a little taster, here are two songs from my song cycle, For David, on his Birthday performed by Ben Vonberg-Clark and Nigel Foster and recorded at Hinde Street Methodist Church in 2023 when Out of the Shadows was premiered. The recording engineer Christopher Braine. The video is available on YouTube.

In the 1990s I came across two book of poems by the Black American poet Carl Cook, The Tranquil Lake of Love and postscripts. I used his poems for the chorales in my Passion setting, and set seven of them as annual birthday presents for my boyfriend (and now husband) David. Here we hear 'to see you happy' and 'perhaps', this latter was a finalist in the English Poetry and Song Society's Diamond Songs competition, organised to celebrate Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee. 

Out of the Shadows is at Omnibus Theatre, Clapham at 7pm on Sunday 16 June 2024, with tenor Ben Vonberg-Clark, baritone Jonathan Eyers, pianist Nigel Foster. Further information from the theatre website.

Bloom: Bill Laurance and The Untold Orchestra, from Snarky Puppy to music-making with 18-piece string orchestra. My spotlight:

Pianist/composer Bill Laurance is perhaps best known as a member of the band Snarky Puppy, but he recently joined forces with Manchester-based The Untold Orchestra to release a disc of his music combining the 18-piece string orchestra, conducted by Rory Storm and led by Simmy Singh of the Manchester Collective, with Laurance's keyboards. Whilst he played jazz and swing as a teenager, Laurance studied classical music, composition and performance at the University of Leeds.

The new disc, Bloom is released on the ACT label and features nine tracks recorded in Manchester. The disc's official video, Bloom has been released in advance for the full release on 26 April 2024. Full details from the ACT website.

New Directions: two new Digital Opera Shorts from Music Theatre Wales

Music Theatre Wales' New Directions programme is devoted to re-imagining opera and in an age when the funds for commissioning and presenting new opera live are getting harder to come by, the company has released a pair of Digital Opera Shorts. The idea is that these short, digital pieces bring together all the elements that make opera so powerful – a continuous musical arc that conveys the inner story; an impactful human message; image; performance; and the operatic voice.

This year, four artists were invited to collaborate in opera for the first time. None of them had previously met, but all were excited by the potential of this multidisciplinary artform, and by the prospect of creating something in which music, story and image work as a single entity. 

In March 2024, two Digital Opera Shorts were released.

GRIEF explores the physical and emotional impact of loss and features music by British Ghanaian-Nigerian composer, musician and actor Francesca Amewudah-Rivers and text by writer/performer Connor Allen, known for his tenure as the Children’s Laureate of Wales and his role as an associate artist at The Riverfront in Newport. The performance features baritone Byron Jackson, dance and choreography from Arnold Matsena with additional vocals from Francesca Amewudah-Rivers, plus musicians from Sinfonia Cymru including Simmy Singh (who wrote the music for interbeing).

interbeing explores humanity's bond with nature and features music by Simmy Singh, a co-founder of the Manchester Collective and Sinfonia Cymru's creative associate, and libretto and visuals by multi-disciplinary artist ASHA, with soprano Anna Dennis.

Coming up Music Theatre Wales will be presenting Bwystfilod Aflan, a new monodrama by Conor Mitchell and Jac Ifan Moore looking at the reaction to Prosser Rhys’s crown-winning poem ATGOF (Memory) at the 1924 Eisteddfod. The poem is extensively about sexual experience and includes a short section on gay experience which caused controversy at the time. The opera is a co-commission with the Eisteddfod and Aberystwyth Music Centre and produced in association with Sinfonia Cymru to be performed alongside a new work for movement and voice by Eddie Ladd, giving her own take on the original poem. 

Full details from Music Theatre Wales' website.

JAM's 2024 Music of Our Time concert

JAM's annual Music of Our Time concert took place last week, on 20 March 2024 at St Bride's Church, Fleet Street, London and featured music by Toh Yan Ee, Steve Richer, Marisse Cato, George W. Parris, Anselm McDonnell, Christopher Churcher  and Jonathan Woolgar, plus JAM's 2010 commission, Tarik O’Regan's The Night's Untruth and their 2024 commission, Isabelle Ryder's Illumination.

If you missed the concert, then JAM has produced a lovely little video on YouTube introducing it.

Norwegian tango: Håkon Skogstad's Astor Piazzolla-inspired album, 8 Concepts of Tango

Now this is rather fun, a disc of music inspired by the Argentine tango nuevo but created by a Norwegian pianist composer. 8 Concepts of Tango is this third of Håkon Skogstad's trilogy of tango-inspired discs, following on from Visions of Tango with the Trondheim Soloists which was awarded a Norwegian Grammy for best classical album 2021.

Skogstad created 8 Concepts of Tango with seven hand-picked musicians, all experts in the intersection of Argentine tango with classical music: Håkon Skogstad – pianist, Andreas Rokseth – bandoneón, Åsbjørg Ryeng - bandoneón, Sveinung Lillebjerka - violin, Anders Larsen - violin, Bergmund Waal Skaslien - viola, Marit Aspaas - cello, Ole Schøyen Sjölin - double bass. The music takes inspiration from Astor Piazzolla’s Octeto Buenos Aires, so we have eight musicians and eight compositions.

The video is of the first track on the disc, Caserón Porteño which is Skogstad says is "dedicated to the hotel in Buenos Aires where we grew as young musicians through musical experiences, practice, lessons and dancing". Rather than simply producing yet another rewrite/rearrangement of Piazzolla classics, Skogstad's music takes the ideas of Piazzolla and runs with them, sometimes down and dirty, sometimes jazz-inspired but always vividly engaging and definitely a unique voice. Norwegian tango, you definitely need to hear it.

The disc is out on the Norwegian label Øra Fonogram, and can be streamed [linktree].

Shortlisted in two categories of next week's Royal Philharmonic Society Awards, Jasdeep Singh Degun has released a new single, Lament

Leeds-based sitarist and composer Jasdeep Singh Degun has been shortlisted in two categories of the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards (which are announced on 5 March), for Best Instrumentalist and Best Large-Scale Composition (for Orpheus his cross-genre Monteverdi piece with Opera North). Ahead of this, he has released a new single, Lament, a new arrangement of one of the pieces from Orpheus.

Originally sung by the chorus and orchestra lamenting the death of Eurydice, Lament is based on a the raag Sindhi Bhairavi - usually sung/played in a more semi-classical style such as thumri or ghazal - that deals "with topics of spiritual and romantic love and may be understood as a poetic expression of both the pain of loss, or separation from the beloved, and the beauty of love in spite of that pain."

For the new single, Jasdeep has stripped back Lament for chamber ensemble, featuring a new string arrangement by cellist Ian Burdge. Jasdeep is joined by Sally Herbert (violin), Simeon Walker (piano), Ian Burdge (cello), and Harkiret Bahra (tabla). Lament is available for streaming.

The accompanying video (director of photography: Adam Lyons) is available on YouTube.

Moon Landing: composer Helen Caddick and textile artist Margo Selby collaborate on an immersive cross-genre piece for Collect 2024

Margo Selby's Moon Landing hanging in the Stamp stairwell at Somerset House for Collect 2024

Last night (29 February 2024) we were at Collect, the Crafts Council's international fair for contemporary craft and design at Somerset House, currently celebrating its 20th anniversary. A visual and tactile feast, one work stood out for its cross-genre use of music. Moon Landing by textile artist and designer Margo Selby is a 16m long woven art-work (presented at Collect by Cynthia Corbett Gallery) that is presented hanging down the centre of the historic Stamp Staircase. The project is a cross-genre collaboration as Selby's weaving (her first site-specific installation) is inspired by a new piece by composer Helen Caddick on 29 February there were performances of Caddick's piece, with the composer conducting, beneath the art work.

Moon Landing: Helen Caddick & musicians
in the stairwell beneath Margo Selby's piece

Caddick and Selby worked together for over a year on the project, interlinking music and weaving, elements of the final woven textile being inspired both by the look of the notes on the page and the sound of the music, whilst Caddick's writing uses elements from weaving in its inspiration.

But the primal element in the whole work is the little known story of how women from the Navajo nation and women from other traditions used their traditional skills in intricate weaving to create the integrated circuits and memory cores used for the the Moon landing. It was Navajo women who wove the integrated circuits!

Caddick's piece is written for strings, two harps, two violins and two cellos. The use of strings and the number of instruments having a significance relating to the weaving, whilst the music itself with its repeated, quasi-minimalistic motifs and a series of steady rhythmic underpinnings, has an underlying regularity that evokes weaving. 

We were lucky to hear the work live, but throughout the fair (which runs from 1 to 3 March) there are headphones available so the visitors can get the full immersive experience. 

Helen Caddick's Moon Landing is also available via BandCamp.

Moon Landing_Process Film 2024 from Margo Selby on Vimeo.