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Free tickets to a showcase of "a snapshot of what is going on in contemporary music" at the South Bank Centre was too good a offer to miss.
I spent a happy summer's day 10th July 2017 on the South Bank listening to the third and last day of a weekend of contemporary music programmed by South Bank's music director Gillian Moore and featuring a broad range of music and new compositions by Simon Holt, Mark Simpson, Jennifer Walshe, Brian Irvine and Mica Levi
First session of #NMB17 was a Jazz composition workshop led by Peter Edwards (a musician unknown to me but a bandleader, composer and arranger whose work had been commissioned by Turner Sims). He had an admirably pragmatic approach to explaining how he went about creating music. Peter sat at the electronic keyboard with laptop perched on it, a whiteboard to the side and a projection screen over his shoulder.
The workshop highlighted a critical problem with the SBC adventuresome model of "free tickets on condition that you book your place ". This workshop (and a number of other concerts over the day) was advertised as "Sold Out" online whereas in fact when I finally arrived at it having been advised to "go along" there were many empty seat and only a handful of attendants. It seems that many people had "booked" but it being a sunny day not many were steely and determined enough to turn up. This meant that some prospective customers online were effectively turned away.
The other puzzling thing was I had assumed that the tickets were "free" to all the days' events but we would be asked to "Pay what you think it was worth" on exit.....but this was not the case (so large willing audiences in the main auditorium (for the Mica Levi and the Simon Holt gig) were not even asked for a contribution. The wonderful PRS Foundation had paid for it all ...and what a joy and oh for such an initiative in Cornwall! But one wonders how sustainable this is as a model however delightful an unexpected a bonus it was. Maybe the takings could have paid for a new commission of the piano concerto Simon Holt mentioned during his interview.
First session of #NMB17 was a Jazz composition workshop led by Peter Edwards (a musician unknown to me but a bandleader, composer and arranger whose work had been commissioned by Turner Sims). He had an admirably pragmatic approach to explaining how he went about creating music. Peter sat at the electronic keyboard with laptop perched on it, a whiteboard to the side and a projection screen over his shoulder.
He simply started showing us how he went about composing his composition "A Journey with the Giants of Jazz" A 15 minute piece divided into seven sections in which he took 7 distinctive styles of jazz and latin composition: Ella, Thelonius Monk, Mongo Santamara, Buddy Rich, etc. I arrived at any early section where he showed how a chord sequence he had heard on a recording by 'Tadd' Dameron was simply transposed to a new key, and a melody he had been "nursing" found a home above this. Having picked the themes and chord sequence and melody out on the piano, we then heard the section from his recording as orchestrated and performed in the final work. And thus we proceeded through a sectional discussion of the idioms of jazz, illustrations of "pull ups" and "pull downs", ...how to score for percussion and leave room for improvisation using charts.
- listening to great advice about how he uses his CD collection as a reference point for thematic material and in particular as a style guide . He uses his IPhone to take down those melodies and riffs which occur to him on the train etc. Just great practical advice to the wannabe composer...yours truly....and delivered in a laconic, laid back, cool way....I wanted to hear his music! Perhaps book his band for Cornwall!
Final minor problem was......the workshop did not end in time for us to attend the first concert in the main hall...... Simon Holt's new Clarinet Concerto (reviewed separately) ...... so I never heard the denouement and finale that Peter had warned us about....I hope this is going to feature on BBC Radio 3's Hear and Now round up of the weekend! And actually you had to hotfoot it around the Hall if you wanted to catch all the performances going.
Footnote.....the Biennale used all manner of spaces around the Royal Festival Hall which I had never known were there....even though I have been going for 48 years. Peter's workshop took place in the Level 3 conference Room, which looked out the front of the building over the river....and as a audience traffic backwater it still retains the original carpetting design of the Festival of Britain - that very distinctive "maze" design in a restrained white on grey......boy they could do design back then! Other spaces included the Western Pavilion on the roof from where the Gay Pride rainbow flags and SBC flags were visible in the foreground and an extraordinary view of Westminster Abbey and the North Bank but also with an open air courtyard behind. And the Blue Room - a dingy but clubby atmospheric studio space which is buried in the bowels and involves walking past the windows into the "Gamelan Room" (oh what a box of delights under lock and key) and through an anonymous room where two uprights stood forlornly in an empty space with two chairs.
See further posts on Simon Holt's Basset Clarinet concerto, Red Note with Simon Irving and Jennifer Walshe from musicincornwall
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