You can now Listen Again to Ant&Cleo – the Musical! performed by Talking Birds with Orchestra of the Swan and the massed Elysian choirs of Bridgetown Primary, Bray’s and Welcombe Hills schools. The live audio stream of the Saturday performance is archived here. We’d love to know what you think of the ‘livestream’ and – if you saw it in the flesh – what you thought of the show, you can send us your review by clicking here.
If you haven’t got/can’t get a ticket for ANT&CLEO on Friday or Saturday – and let’s face it, they are now rarer than asp-venom antidote in Alexandria – FEAR NOT! We will be live streaming the audio so that you can listen in from the comfort of your sofa, via Mixlr.
** CLICK HERE TO ACCESS LIVE AUDIO STREAM **
Performances/Live Streams: FRIDAY 6.30pm & SATURDAY 2.30pm
You can access Mixlr via your browser, through our website or through the app (which you need to download in advance).
We’re entering the home straight on ANT&CLEO which shimmies into Stratford Artshouse this week and will be laid before a paying audience (that’s you, hopefully, but rest assured the tickets are very reasonably priced…) on Friday evening and Saturday afternoon. There’s more info about the show and a link to box office here.
(Rumour has it that Saturday’s show is already sold out, but do check with box office in case there are any returns).
It’s been a busy summer for the company, with The Whale roving the land, making appearances at – amongst many other places and events – the Commonwealth Games, the RSC and the Royal Tall Ships Regatta. The OakMobile (the Whale’s leafy sibling) has been turning up in special places for the National Trust (with a final appearance at altitude atop the Clent Hills); and our new outdoor show The Cricketers causing sporting havoc outside the Birmingham Hippodrome as part of Summer at Southside. Our collaboration with the Centres for the History of Medicine in the UK and Ireland – A Malady of Migration – was performed in Coventry and Dublin; and The Q celebrated the art of queueing at one of the country’s top outdoor arts festivals – Mintfest, in Kendal.
If you’ve missed all that, there are a number of things you can do via the website, including an audio walk of Coventry – the first of our Trails of the Unexpected; a frankly silly Pirate Game; and an audio walk by a canal of your choosing. Visit www.talkingbirds.co.uk.
Meanwhile, Derek and Janet are working with our friends at Midlands Creative Projects and The Belgrade Theatre on The Hundred Years’ War – a new stage production which will give a fresh voice to war poetry from the last century. A national tour starts at the Belgrade Theatre on 31 October/1 November: see www.livepoetry.org for more dates around the UK.
Taking a more light-hearted look at conflict, our final event of the year is the premiere of Ant & Cleo – The Musical! Many of you voted for us and our partners Orchestra of the Swan in The People’s Millions, winning funding for the project. The production features 100 extraordinary young people drawn from two schools for children with special needs (Welcombe Hills and Brays) and Bridgetown Primary School, alongside the superb orchestral forces of the Swan and four brilliant soloists – Birds’ regulars Sam Fox of Kiln Theatre, Jake Oldershaw of Untied Artists and Louise Wayman return, and we’re delighted to welcome Themba Mvula to the ranks.
Hope to see you for this on the 7th-8th November, it’ll be epic.
We Are Casting for a BARITONE!
Singer/Actor – BARITIONE – for a part in Ant & Cleo – The Musical!
An Orchestra of the Swan / Talking Birds Theatre Co co-production
Versatile singer/actor for new family opera being performed with young people with Special Educational Needs alongside three other soloists and an 11-piece professional orchestra (Orchestra of the Swan) in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Person spec: strong baritone, music reader, versatile actor taking a number of comic roles, experience of working with young people including those with Special Needs an advantage (though not essential). DBS check will be required. Applications from disabled artists particularly welcomed.
Auditions: 2nd October in Coventry
Rehearsal/performance dates:
Dress & performances: 6th – 8th November (Stratford-upon-Avon)
Rehearsals: Oct dates tbc but proposed: 8th, 10th, 22nd; Nov 3rd & 4th
Fee: £141/day + travel
Please send a CV with a covering letter/statement (max 1 side A4) setting out why you are interested and suitable for this role to philippa [at] talkingbirds.co.uk using the subject header ‘Ant & Cleo baritone’ by Friday 26th September 2014.
Deadline 12pm Friday 26th Sept
The River Sherbourne, which runs culverted under Coventry city centre, has always been a bit of a draw to artists making work about the city. CityArcadia, Coventry Artspace’s new project space opened last night with a beautifully evocative piece by Kathryn Hawkins called [river] and featuring genuine drops of the Sherbourne. In times past, the route of the Sherbourne has been the inspiration for Talking Birds’ audio trail ‘CityScapes’, and several of our Artists in Waiting and Decathlon pieces to name but a few. More recently, we’ve returned to the river once more – and have this time been working with Ashley Brown (aka one half of previous FarGoSpace residents Ludic Rooms) on a phone-based way to explore the slightly shameful secret of the city’s relationship with its water.
The resulting piece: Trails of the Unexpected Vol 1 is now (softly) good to go, and we’re looking for people who find themselves in the middle of Coventry with their mobile and an hour or so to spare to have a go and then let us know what they think. It’s a bit of a treasure hunt – you have to follow picture clues which lead you to locations where you can then access, a fragment at a time, the river’s stories (which tread a fine line between the real and the fictional) via your mobile browser.
Although inspired and shaped by the river, the trail is perhaps really an invitation to look closely at the fabric of the city – in the way that no-one who lives here actually looks at it anymore: “This city has a slightly ambivalent relationship with water. It embraces it in the ‘right’ places and hides it in the ‘wrong’ places. Maybe that’s not so unusual. I couldn’t say. But this water, well, it doesn’t stay hidden, it oozes out of any holes it can find, up through the pores of this city whenever it gets the chance. And each time it escapes into the open, it brings out all the stories that it carries under the city with it…”
To find out more, including how to access the trail – have a look at the Trails of the Unexpected page of our website.
[This trail was originally presented at the 2014 conference of the International Federation for Theatre Research, themed “Theatre & Stratification”.]
The final outing for the OakMobile this year sees it climbing a big hill to look at the stars – and once there, and illuminated (gently so as not to interfere with the starlight) we’re hoping it may be mistaken for an eccentric observatory or perhaps a grounded UFO…
You’re welcome to join this stargazing event organised by the the National Trust and Birmingham Astronomical Society (and if you’re still under 11 and three quarters you can then tick stargazing off on your 50 Things list!) and bid the OakMobile farewell for another year!
Click here for event details – and remember to bring a picnic, wear stout shoes, dress up warmly and bring a torch!
It’s another busy summer for the company this year although, of course, we’re also trying to fit in a few trips to the seaside…
The Whale and the OakMobile are out and about throughout the next couple of months; the ideas we’ve been working on with the National Trust at Ickworth in Suffolk are developing nicely and we’ll continue to test bits and pieces out; there are also outings for The Cricketers and The Q at outdoor festivals in Birmingham and Kendal respectively; a few organisations are taking on and testing the Difference Engine; and we’re working towards our production of Ant&Cleo with Orchestra of the Swan.
What are your summer plans?
In an era when the issues of migration and mental health are seldom out of the news, our new show – A Malady of Migration – explores why the mid 19th century saw a prevalence of mental disorders amongst Irish migrants, in the second part of our Asylum Trilogy. As with the first part in the trilogy – last year’s Trade in Lunacy – the production combines original music, song and sharp characterisation, vividly bringing to life a series of intertwining stories with humour, insight and compassion.
Characters and events in the show are based on case notes, historical evidence and academic research by our fantastic collaborators from the Centres for the History of Medicine in Warwick and Dublin (UCD). The piece aims to open up conversations about mental illness and its history – so do please pass on the word to anyone you think might be interested in these topics.
We’re performing in intimate venues again, so it might be wise to book tickets sooner rather than later – especially for Thursday evenings, when we will again have an expert panel exploring the issues, after the performances in both locations: this was packed out for Trade in Lunacy, and we had great feedback from those who came to it. We are also running a more informal post show discussion after the Saturday lunchtime performances, when you can chat to the creative team and the researchers over a cuppa.
ShopFront Theatre, City Arcade, Coventry: Thurs 26th – Sat 28th June 2014, 1pm & 7pm Tickets 0845 680 1926 or online at http://www.oxboffice.com/Search.aspx?pid=1171
The New Theatre, Temple Bar, Dublin: Thurs 3rd – Sat 5th July 2014, 1pm & 7.30pm Tickets from The New Theatre
Tel: +353 (0)1 670 3361 or online at http://entertainment.ie/show-/The-New-Theatre/A-Malady-Of-Migration/event-2719658.htm
Last Friday 4th April 2014 Twin Song received its world premiere at Coventry Cathedral, performed by the Volgograd Children’s Symphony Orchestra and members of the Coventry Youth Wind Orchestra, conducted by Yuri Ilynov. You can hear it in two versions here: the salon version with piano, and the performance at the Cathedral (singers: Louise Wayman and Sam Fox; narrator (voicing Mother Russia) Victoria Agache).
https://soundcloud.com/derek-3-1/sets/twin-song
Twin Song is a symphonic poem marking 70 years of friendship between Coventry and Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad) – a bond of friendship officially formed in 1944 made them the first twin cities in the world. It was a friendship instigated by ordinary people – a tablecloth stitched with names by women in Coventry in 1942 was sent to Stalingrad, and a book signed by 16,000 Russian women was sent to Coventry (these can be seen in the Panorama Museum in Volgograd and the Herbert Peace & Reconciliation gallery in Coventry resepectively). Hence the reference to “Unseen fingers trace the stitches, names of strangers” in the song. Motherland Calling – the name of the 2nd movement – is the nameof the great statue depicting Mother Russia that stands on Mamayev Hill in Volgograd.
You can find out more about the twinning here:
http://www.talkingbirds.co.uk/twin60/
Myself and Peter Cann worked with pupils from two Coventry primary schools in the creation of Twin Song – Southfields and Aldermoor Farm – and their ideas are reflected in the finished piece. Indeed the pupils of Southfields heard the unofficial premiere of parts 1 & 3 on Weds 2nd April, as the schools hosted a workshop/concert by the visiting Volgograd orchestra. The final lines of the piece –
Better to be twins
Than be cold
to each other.
– were the wonderfully apt idea of a pupil at Aldermoor Farm.
We’re grateful to Carol Brown who masterminded the orchestra’s visit and to Coventry City Council whose Small Arts Grant scheme helped fund the commission.
Lyrics by Peter Cann:
1st Movement – I am Coventry
I am the bicycle,
wheels are turning.
Turn
from Godiva riding naked down the street.
Turn
on the table, let them feel the two tone beat.
I am the bicycle,
wheels are turning.
Turn
to the three tall spires stretching for the sky
Sky Blues
where are you? Oh Ricoh, Ricoh why?
I am the bicycle,
wheels are turning
Turn
I am the bicycle
Wheels are turning
Jets are burning
Lathes are spinning
Casting
Forging
Clocks and watches
Engines
motors
Tractors
Turbines
Armour
Weapons.
Clocks and watches
Engines
motors
Tractors
Turbines
Armour
Weapons.
2nd Movement: Motherland calling.
Mother Russia-
Oh my children,
Through the smoke that burns my eyes
I watch you stumble,
Fingers clawing through the stone
of the wounded city
Oh my children.
Mother Russia Oh the mothers
Singers Oh the mothers
Mother Russia Oh the mothers
Singers From the smoke that burns their eyes
Mother Russia from the smoke that burns their eyes
Singers they turn their faces.
Mother Russia they turn their faces.
Singers Hands are reaching from the stone
Mother Russia Hands are reaching from the stone
Singers of the wounded city
Mother Russia of the wounded city
Mother Russia And the mothers
Singers And the mothers
Mother Russia And the mothers
Singers Turn their faces
Mother Russia Turn their faces
Singers Towards the ocean
Mother Russia Across the ocean
Singers 2000 miles
Mother Russia Their eyes are meeting
Singers 2000 miles
Mother Russia Their eyes are meeting
Singers 2000 miles
Singers Their eyes are meeting.
3rd movement: The Twin Cities
Coventry
Volgograd
Coventry
Volgograd
Coventry
Volgograd
1.
Unseen fingers trace the stitches,
names of strangers.
Unheard voices try the sound of
names of strangers.
2.
In ravaged cities
connected cities
across the distance
across the decades.
3.
Unseen fingers trace the stitches
names of strangers.
Unseen fingers trace the stitches, names of strangers.
Unheard voices try the sound of
names of strangers.
4.
In changing cities
connected cities
across the distance
across the decades.
5.
In spite of walls and politicians
a bond unbroken
In spite of difference and suspicion
a bond unbroken.
6.
In changing cities
connected cities
across the distance
across the decades.
7.
Now a chill wind is ruffling the borders.
Now a chill wind is ruffling the borders.
8.
Better to be twins
Than be cold
to each other
Better to be twins
Than be cold
to each other.
Better to be twins
Better to be twins
Than be cold
Than be cold
to each other
to each other
9.
Coventry
Coventry
Volgograd
Volgograd
Coventry
Coventry
Volgograd
Volgograd
Coventry
Volgograd
posted by Derek Nisbet 11.4.14
Date: Fri 4th April
Venue: Coventry (New) Cathedral
Time: 7pm Tickets: free, no booking required, retiring collection.
Suitable for all ages.
What does it mean to be a twin?
Twin Song is a specially composed symphonic poem for the 70th birthday of the twinning between Coventry, UK & Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad), Russia.
Created by Talking Birds – composer Derek Nisbet and writer Peter Cann – working with pupils from Southfields and Aldermoor Farm Schools.
Performed by members of the Volgograd Children’s Symphony Orchestra and Coventry Youth Wind Orchestra. Funded by Coventry City Council’s Small Arts Grant scheme.
More about the Twin Cities here.
– See more at: http://www.talkingbirds.co.uk/pages/whatson.asp#sthash.gkA2x6J9.dpuf
More about the Twin Cities here.
– See more at: http://www.talkingbirds.co.uk/pages/whatson.asp#sthash.gkA2x6J9.dpuf
Workshop 1, 28th Feb 2014
Today is the start of a journey that will culminate on the 7th & 8th of November at Stratford Civic Hall – show time for our new, musical take on the epic tale of Antony & Cleopatra (or Ant & Cleo as we prefer to call them). This episodic blog will keep you posted on our progress – because, as it was you that voted for Antony & Cleopatra – The Musical in The People’s Millions, we’d like you to come with us!
Peter Cann (Director), Nick Walker (writer/librettist) and me (Composer) are at Welcombe Hills School in Stratford, where we observe the school’s daily ritual – an energetic Shake Up ‘n’ Wake Up routine. This freeform bop to a funky soundtrack should surely be adopted around the globe as a caffeine substitute (or at least in lieu of that extra shot). It’s characteristic of this school – and many Special Educational Needs settings – that the approach to just about every aspect of school life is imaginative, playful and progressive.
The first 3 sessions are about getting to know our team – at Welcombe Hills, that’s about 30 pupils aged 9-11 with a variety of special needs – or rather, what’s more important to us, an astonishing amount of imaginative power and creative talent – and working out with them how we are going to tell the story. We have the bare bones of the narrative courtesy of Plutarch (source for Shakespeare’s version), but at this stage everything else is up for grabs.
Peter uses signing/actions to introduce the characters – what’s a good sign for Antony, the Roman Soldier? What’s a good sign for Egypt? Next: where might A & C arrange to meet? ‘Costa Coffee! A big music place ! A lighthouse!’ Then divide into Romans & Egyptians and find different ways of moving for each side. I provide some musical accompaniment – at this stage it’s all about improvising, unlocking and capturing ideas and me and Nick keep notes which will later be sifted and shaped into the script and score.
Every child will have their own way of contributing, some will readily be involved, for others it will be a more a gradual process – we rely on the close involvement of teachers and teaching assistants to help us overcome any communication barriers and start to find connections. One pupil really responds to what I’m playing on the piano and violin and together we come up with a little theme tune based on his name. I record this so I can use it next time.
In the afternoon we head to Bray’s School in Birmingham where we’re again given a warm welcome and see familiar faces of staff and students who were involved in our last opera epic Troy Story. [http://www.talkingbirds.co.uk/pages/troystory.asp]
We have a team of about 30 here too – again with a wide variety of special needs, but more importantly a full spectrum of wicked senses of humour. Here ‘Asda!’ is proposed as a good rendez-vous spot for the heroes. Everyone’s keen to do some singing – we unleash range of musical instruments and melodic and rhythmic ideas come from the floor for the words ‘Cle-o-pa-tra’ and ‘An-to-ny’. Composing can be exciting in solitude, but seldom as exciting as it is in a room of 40 people. Here it’s a team sport, and anyone can take the ball.
From the name-patterns emerge two longer musical phrases, to which Nick puts some words; then we string them together into an embryonic song. What we sing as the culmination of the session is work-in-progress and will evolve further, but the imprint of everyone in this room on the finished piece will be unmistakable. We’re off!
Derek Nisbet, Talking Birds
Be a friend of Ant & Cleo…
Keep updated on our progress by liking this blog. Follow us on Twitter @birdmail and @Orchestra_Swan
Support this project by buying a copy of the DVD Troy Story – An Interegalactic Opera here
http://www.orchestraoftheswan.org/shop/troy-story-dvd/
Or by making a donation here
http://www.orchestraoftheswan.org/support-2/giving-levels-and-benefits/
You can pre-order a CD of Troy Story via the Talking Birds website
Words from the Birds 