On air. Workshop and concert with Musarc
Workshops: 4.00–8.30pm
Open rehearsal and concert: 8.30–9.30pm
Join Musarc, the choir of the Department of Architecture and Spatial Design, London Metropolitan University, for an afternoon of choral workshops and a concert with three contemporary composers in one of London’s great acoustic spaces. With Tom Chant, Neil Luck, Benjamin Oliver and Cathy Heller Jones
On air is for anyone interested in singing and making music. It is an opportunity to experiment with new approaches where the audience becomes part of the choir, the rehearsal becomes part of the performance and together those taking part define the resulting work. The workshops are open to all and no previous musical experience or expertise is required.
Workshops
Each of the three composers is given one hour to explain, develop and rehearse a new work with the audience. The given framework will differ from one workshop to the next and will involve elements of traditional choral singing, improvisation, working with speech, timing, real-time sound manipulation, working with graphic scores and an engagement with movement, performance and the effects the sounds create in the space.
The afternoon will start with a brief introduction and each workshop will begin with a short rhythm and singing lesson with Musarc’s conductor Cathy Heller Jones.
Open rehearsal and concert
The last hour of On air will be open to the public. Each of the works will be introduced by its composer, revisited in a short open rehearsal and performed for the audience.
On air
Thursday 1 July 2010
Choral workshops
4.30 – 8.30pm
Tickets: £15.00 (includes concert)
Open rehearsal and concert
8.30 – 9.30pm
Tickets: £5.00
St Stephen Walbrook
39 Walbrook
London EC4N 8BN
www.ststephenwalbrook.net
*
Musarc has designed this event to tie in with personal and professional development. Bring your studio or office colleagues and enjoy an alternative team-building exercise and networking event with one of the most cutting-edge creative research and music platforms in London.
Read more about the composers
Tom Chant is from London, was born in 1975, plays soprano and tenor saxophones, bass clarinet and piano and occasionally writes indeterminate music. Tom served his improvised music apprenticeship at Maggie Nicols’ Gathering sessions in London,… read more >
Neil Luck is a composer and performer based in London. His compositional practice focuses on various approaches to non-standard notations, in particular those which implicate either the composer’s own body in construction, or… read more >
Benjamin Oliver was born in 1981 and grew up in Chatham, Kent, in the UK. He left home for Yorkshire and in 2005 graduated from the University of Leeds with distinction in his MMus in Composition. Ben has just completed his DPhil… read more >
About the venue
St Stephen Walbrook marks one of the City’s most ancient sacred sites. In the second century A.D. a temple stood on the West bank of the River Walbrook, a stream running across London from the City Wall near Moorfields to the Thames. A Saxon church was built on the temple’s foundations in the seventh century and re-built in 1439 on the East side of the river which is today culverted beneath. The 15th century church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London and re-built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1672–80.
St Stephen is considered one of Wren’s masterpieces. It is a highly unusual space where classical and baroque ideas collide, crowned by a large dome which floats above a circle formed by arches springing from eight of the twelve columns underneath. In 1987 a round travertine altar by Henry Moore was installed, causing much controversy at the time. It dominates the centre of the church, but has a genuine presence and articulates the space under the dome. The rough exterior, a palimpsest witness to the changes in the fabric of the city, gives away little of the clarity and beauty of the church’s interior.
St Stephen is renown for its outstanding acoustics. Wren intended his churches to be what he called auditories, ‘in which everyone present could see, hear and feel themselves part of the congregation’. (Kerry Downes)
www.ststephenwalbrook.net
