Forward: A Very Strange Choir

Hi

this might be of interest to anyone in the UK's South Yorks area. ( And not just there - I think Martin is interested in people writing for this set-up too)

Martin Archer is a veteran of the UK improvised music scene, responsible for a huge body of fascinating work and a person of great creative energy and enthusiasm…


michael


— On Sun, 3/21/10, Martin Archer wrote:





Apologies for cross postings - I've asked several friends already to send this round to their own lists. Please could I ask you to pass it on as well to anyone you think might be interested and ask them to get in touch with me at this email address?

Martin

Here’s some details of a new idea which we hope will be of interest to you all - I’m addressing this both to people who already play and to our local audience alike. I’ve been talking to Geoff Bright and Gillian Whiteley, and between us we’ve conceived the idea of setting up a creative music choir. We would like as many people as possible - not necessarily even people who think of themselves as being able to sing - to be involved. Ideally we would like a minimum of 25 voices, but really it could be any large number.



It probably goes without saying that we won’t be working with standard notated repertoire. Nor will it be “just” an improvising group, although there will be some elements of improvisation involved. We will certainly be using some fixed texts. Basically, the idea will be to work in organised / conducted blocks of sound, perhaps the closest analogy being the way Gated Community approaches some of its compositions, although we envisage perhaps a greater degree of complexity. Those of you familiar with Ligeti or Stockhausen’s use of multiple voices might have an idea what we’re after, or at least what I’m after. Gillian said to me:



the possibilities are endless…chanting…incantations…howling…wailing…speaking in tongues…interwoven with lines of other stuff…folksy, bluesy, gospelly, punky, funky, jazzy, plainsong, hymnals or whatever…? Its barking!



- which probably about sums it up as well as anything!



Anyway, first step is to find out who might be interested in taking part in an exploratory meeting. I do think there will be some interesting and dramatic (and fun) performance possibilities with this one



Martin Archer

[email protected]