Too many people to capture in one shot! Deej Williams, bass; Alex Corlett, guitar; Huw Evans, trombone; Michael Gibbs, horn; Matt Pauley, trumpet; Andrew Martin, flute; Will White, clarinets; Naomi Bailey, saxophones; James Golborn, drums & vibes; Matt Petrie, contrabassoon
Two more rehearsals before the performance in the Dora next Tuesday. The piece is really coming together. Below is the no-budget poster!
Yesterday we had our third rehearsal for Cocaine Nights. A couple of people were deputising, and for them it was the first time they’d seen their parts. Gareth Trott can just about be glimpsed in the grainy photo playing the French horn part on Euphonium, not the easiest task (out of shot are the bass, drums, trumpet and trombone). The other day he also covered the trombone part! Charlie Jackson helped out with conducting.
At the moment I’m working on a twenty minute chamber piece which is intended to be a musical portrait of the novel Cocaine Nights by J.G. Ballard. The idea is to extrapolate moods and themes from the book, and allow its narrative to influence the structure of the work. Although it is impossible to directly represent the content of a novel in a piece of instrumental music, it is nevertheless interesting to see how it can generate different ways of thinking about musical material, and lead to all sorts of abstract parallels. The piece will be performed on Tuesday the 12th of May at RWCMD. Further details to follow…
Alex Corlett 