Past Projects
Horse and Bamboo Theatre.
As MD and performer/puppeteer I was involved in A Strange and Unexpected Event, The Dance of White Darkness
and the Westminster Abbey Dramatised Canticle for Good Friday 1996. The video is from a film by Hungarian film maker Peter Szoboszlay and is stitched together from rehearsals at the Calderstones Hospital and Westminster Abbey. Sadly there is no recording of the Leeds People's Choir who sang at the actual performance. The BBC were the only film crew allowed in the actual performance. This features my original music for the show.
Teatro Montemuro - A Velha Casa De Madeira
Working with Brazilian Director Jose Caldos, up in the Montemuro Mountains of Portugal, I created a pre-recorded score for the show, which included some live singing and programmable music boxes. Working with minimal kit- an accordion, flutes, mbira, crank handle music boxes, programmable music boxes, mini MIDI keyboard and Garageband on a very dated MacBook, , I worked in the rehearsal space responding to the actors and puppetry to create the music, recording and refining back at our little village house.
Tide Tables- by Christine Watkins and Honeysuckle Direction
working with writer Christine Watkins, musician Sianed Jones and the Beach Radio Quartet, I composed acapella close-harmony songs to illustrate key concepts in this original show about the menopause, commissioned by The Wellcome Trust
"The music managed to make the pituitary gland sound tuneful and work effectively as a lyric!" Audience member
About Face Theatre- Creation Stories
Inspired by the work I did with music boxes in Portugal, I used the same technique in this delightful show by About Theatre
The film is about the making of the show, and includes me talking about the process and the music, as well as Laura singing one of the songs.
Counter Culture- Arena Theatre Wolverhampton.
Working with children from two different schools in Wolverhampton and a team of artists, we researched the culture and history of counters - shops, libraries, markets etc in Wolverhampton. I wrote original songs for the children inspired by their research and stories they wanted to use in the show. The show itself was a highly complex, multi-media one- using lots of different locations around the theatre to create the various spaces the stories were set in.
Curlew Country
Working with award winning writer Karen, photographer Ben Osborne and sculptor Bill Sample, we worked towards and evening celebration event to honour the Curlew and raise awareness of it's decline in the Shropshire Hills, as well as more nationwide. The project was planned to coincide with Mary Colwell's Curlew Walk arriving in Shropshire, and we were delighted that she came and spoke to us at our choir rehearsal. I composed songs using texts provided by Karen Lloyd, as well as deconstructing the call of the curlew and using that as the melodic starting point. The "Curlew Choir" was formed especially for the project, uniting singers from many different community groups around Shropshire.
Heartland Shropshire Hills 2017
A Choral journey through the Shropshire Hills. Funded by The National Trust, The Shropshire Hills AONB, The Corndon Hill and Stiperstones Landscape Partnership and Arts Alive.
I created a series of unacommpanied choral songs inspired by four different and contrasting locations in the Shropshire Hills- Carding Mill Valley, the Top of the Long Mynd, Nipstone Rock and Mitchell's Fold Stone Circle.
Groups of singers joined me in exploring these landscapes and helped shape and inform the content of the songs. we recorded the songs in different village halls, usually after only one rehearsal, and different combinations of singers. We performed the songs in Varding Mill Valley as part of the finale of the project.
A recording of the song cycles journey was played on the Shuttle bus during that summer.
Below are three of the songs from the project;
Malevolent Milker tells the story behind the formation of Mitchells Fold Stone Circle and is sung by my daughter Biller and I at the circle- filmed on my phone by son Finley.
The lyrics for Whalesong are taken from a "thank you" email from one of the participants, after one of the workshop. She drove home looking at the landscape with different eyes and saw the shape of humpback whales in the Lawley and Caradoc hills...
Rushlight is inspired by the dark skies and rush pools on top of the Long Mynd with, lovely shadow animations by Martha Lulu King.
Pedlars Tales - The Fetch Theatre Company
"An intriguing, fun and interactive storyteller’s performance... featuring puppets, music and a mysterious traveller!
The storyteller weaves a magical spell and draws you into a fantastical world bringing past local events bursting into life in this fabulous show with music, featuring a host of beautiful puppets.
Bite-sized stories contained in a quirky cart have been inspired by fascinating historical documents and objects from Herefordshire Archives and the incredible Folk-Lore of Herefordshire gathered by Ella Mary Leather"
I used traditional folk tunes from the Herefordshire Archive to create new pre-recorded instrumental accompaniment to Andrew Purvin's beautiful puppetry. An unusual project for me, in that there were no vocals.