Filming at Cippyn

In a previous blog post I showed pictures of abandoned chapel in Cippyn near Cardigan. Since then I have started working on a project as part of my Arts Council of Wales Creative Wales project based on the building and its surrounding landscape.

I'm very lucky to be working on a short film of the chapel and its location.with Aaron Cooper and his tutor Heledd Wyn Hardy from the Faculty of Creative Industries at ATRiuM (Course Leader, Bilingual Media Production) at the University of South Wales. I'm now writing a piece for solo double bass (for Ashey Long) which is underpinned by an electronically manipulated soundscape of sounds recorded at the site. I've never worked with film before and am coming to grips with the technology of producing the soundscape over the last couple of months with the help of Odilon Marcenaro at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama.

Last Sunday I went along to the chapel at Cippyn with Arron and Heledd to watch them working on the film.

It's a long and painstaking process, with lots of tiny shots and different angles that will eventually be stitched together into the final cut. Here's Aaron filming a tiny clump of weeds that have grown up around the internal door to the chapel.

We were lucky with the weather and had the whole range of different types of weather and light during the day - very much a part of the coastal micro-climate in this part of the world. Here  is Aaron with Heledd filming the exterior of the church.

From the porch of the chapel itself, there is a breathtaking view down to one of the bays on the coast.

Most of the film is being made digitally, but we also had ten minutes of real film used for some of the shots. Here's the camera ...

Whilst Aaron and Heledd were working on the filming, I recorded various sounds from around the church: wind, rain dripping from the roof, different birds in the locality, a sudden downpour of rain and the inside of the church itself.

Now I'm working on the music, but won't put the whole thing together until after Monday when I see the first rough cut.

Lunchtime Serenata at St Martin-in-the-Fields

I was in London yesterday for a lunchtime performance of my Serenata 1 at the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields.

The performance was given by the Icaris Duo - guitarist Will Browne and fluatist Vicki Guise who were playing it (very beautifully) in public for the first time. Also on the programme was a new piece by Ben Vaughan, full of his usual fantasy and quirky charm.

The Serenata is an old piece, written in 1994, originally for composer and flautist Lynne Plowman and guitarist Sally Hillier - it's been taken taken up by at least half-a-dozen duos since it was written and lasts about nine minutes. It's a gentle lyrical piece, but uses a lot of rhythms derived from African music that can make it quite tricky at times.

The score is available by emailing me at my website. A recording is also available on Soundcloud.

Many thanks once again Will and Vicki

Chapel in the Woods

When I posted my blog about the small chapel at Bayvil back in August, Andrew Wilson-Dickson told me about a ruined chapel he had discovered whilst taking a detour from the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path near St Dogmaels, near Cardigan. The idea of the church suggested many new ideas that I could use as part of the Creative Wales Award I’m currently working on, so I set off to find the church.

I initially I started walking the south along the coastal path from Poppit Sands, encountering some alarming notices …

… and the usual fellow travellers …

As well as other abandoned and discarded artifacts

The chapel belonged to the community of Cippyn, which is so small that it isn’t even signposted. Eventually, after walking along a bridal path for half a mile or so, the roof of a building came in sight.

The chapel is surrounded by woodland and fields

Some of its windows are broken and the entrance is overgrown with brambles, but the building has not been vandalised: 

Inside the original communion table is still in place

Someone has recently left a little plastic bottle with flowers in a little niche in the wall

It’s difficult to know how long the church has been abandoned, but there was still a newspaper scattered around the floor dating back thirty years: 

I left armed with lots of information, ready to move on to the next stage ... watch this space! 

More pictures of the deserted chapel near Cippyn 

Programme Notes

Programme notes are a constant part of my working life and scarcely a week goes by when I don’t produce at least one set. Many of the notes are written for St David’s Hall, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, but there are also many other festivals and concert giving organisations who ask me for notes as well. Here is the programme for last night’s concert at St David’s Hall in Cardiff for which I did the notes.

It was the first concert in their 2014-15 International Concert Series, given by the Russian State Philharmonic orchestra conducted by Valery Polyansky with music by Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky. 

After the concert there was a blistering post-concert performance of Shostakovich’s Third String Quartet given by the Mavron Quartet. And here is my desk a few weeks ago, strewn with books and scores for last night’s notes.

Lots of people think that notes can be drafted quite quickly using Wikipedia, but I find that each note usually requires me to look at all the main source books on the composer, as well as consulting other notes and, of course, the score. I’ve just reached 1700 notes on file which helps me to respond quickly to requests for notes for concerts (for a list see my website)

Early in the morning

Up at 4am this morning to travel out into the Black Mountains to put on an early morning event at the little medieval church of Partrishow (see the previous two blogs for more details and pictures). 

Although there was no sunrise at 7.30am, when the event started,  it was very atmospheric with the grey mists over the surrounding countryside and an army of bats flying around the church. 

We managed to get everything organised ready for the start ...

A very appreciative small and audience listened to the full fifty minutes. 

There were some lovely moments: birdsong as Chrissie Mavron played her solo outside in the church porch;

Ashley Long's closing double bass solo surrounded by the sound of the singing bowls in and outside the church: Michael McCartney magically prolonged ending to one of his solos leading to a long-held silence and Catherine Handley's beautifully poised flute solos (not easy in a cold early morning church). And then breakfast for everyone afterwards with Cathy Morris’s frittatas and my bara brith

Thanks to all the performers and to Cathy Morris, Alex Thacker and Maja Palser. On to the next stage! 

Music at Partrishow

I've been at Partrishow Church in the Black Mountains today for rehearsals for a performance there on Saturday morning (20th September) ... at 7.30am.

The event is a pilot performance as part of the work I am doing on my Arts Council of Wales “Creative Wales” Award and about 35 minutes of music played by four instrumentalists: Catherine Handley (flute), Christiana Mavron (violin), Michael McCartney (guitar) and Ashley Long (bass). The performance uses many of the different spaces around the church. Here is Christiana Mavron playing her solo movement - in the porch to the building ... 

... and Michael and Catherine performing their duo at the west end of the church under the bells.

Here is the whole group in front of the extraordinary 15th century rood screen ...

... and viewed through the rood screen.

If you would like to come along, do drop me a line by going to the contact page on my website or to my usual email address. 

Partrishow at Dawn

A very early start to visit the small medieval church of St Partishow in the Black Mountains at dawn for research as part of the Arts Council Creative Wales Award that I am currently working on. 

Partishow, or St Issui, stands on a hill amongst the mountains and has one of the most extraordinary oak rood screens that have survived. 

The simple whitewashed walls are also decorated with pre-Reformation paintings and at the west end is a closed off hermit’s cell and chapel.

Because it is surrounded by mountains and hills, dawn is about an half-an-hour later than normal.  Inside the church all is still quite dark and outside there is just a glimmer of dawn in the East.

Inside, everything is still quite dark.

Eventually the sun rises over the mountains and floods the valley surrounding the church with light.

I can now head home with notes on how to use the church at this time of morning for a performance – watch this space for more details …

More architectural details

More images