Bristol Harbour Festival
There were some absolutely awesome performances at Bristol's Harbour Festival this weekend. The Rudling Voices Choir and Remix Youth Ensemble among them.
I was blown away by the quality of what I saw at the Happy City Stage at the Harbour Festival on Saturday and wanted to say a huge "Well done!" to all involved. Rudling Voices, complete with string section, showed what modern choirs should be doing. I know people who think that giving a young choir popular music to sing is a waste of an opportunity to push their skills and dumbs down potential. Well, they have obviously not seen the Rudling Voices Choir.
First off, they compose their own music. Secondly, they have a string section, percussion and beat boxing. And, thirdly, the multi-layered melodies and harmonies interspersed with outstanding solos litterally made the rain stop in it's tracks. This project is a perfect example of how cross-county partnerships should be done. The proof of the pudding was a very tasty performance indeed.
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The Remix Youth Ensemble then did something quite rare. They showed me a musical place I had not only never been, but hadn't even considered visiting...until now. The ensemble have been working with the Forgiveness Project to create pieces of music based on stories of conflict and forgiveness. So you would be forgiven (ahem) for expecting to see them perform these pieces but, oh no...something far more impressive was in store...
Fortunately, the set was filmed so I don't need to be too descriptive but, essentially, the 18-piece ensemble performed a 30 minute continuous piece of music that seemed improvised with individual members putting down their instruments and conducting the others. There were references to pieces I had heard them perform at concerts before this one but it was as if the group had blown apart their compositions into some sort of free-form jam/symphony. Throughout the performance, live narrative was delivered by one of the Forgiveness Project team, bringing the mood of the previous and subsequent movements into sharp focus as the music and narrative became tied together in a kind of mesmerising music-story.
The best thing about it is that we, standing there on the day, watching, are the only ones who will see that performance. I learned afterwards that the key themes may or may not remain for the next performance, and that the rest of the music was indeed improvised with all but one of the young people conducting for the first time, on stage in front of around 300 people!
No doubt the skills picked up working with WOMAD foundation artists played a crucial role in developing the musical versatility that was on show. The group go to WOMAD festival next week and I shall be there, keen to see the next version of their unbelievable musical manifestation.