Winter 2019 projects (part one)

In February 2019, I led a workshop with the Norwich-based charity Musical Keys, to make artwork for a book of notation, words and artwork of songs I’ve written from poems by Devon-based poet Alice Oswald.

I have written these songs over the last few years, which has also involved me happily playing more piano. In 2018, I played two gigs with my ALATI band, playing these songs. There are two sets of four songs, and we played one set of songs in each of the two gigs, in April and November 2018.

This project features a trio version of ALATI (which is a flexible group, so I can compose for different combinations in different projects), featuring the wonderful vocals of Brigitte Beraha, and the fluid piano playing of Dave O’ Brien.

In the workshop, held at the Create space in Trowse, near Norwich, I worked with a small group of young people with disabilities, as part of Musical Keys’ Creative Connections series. We used collage and painting to create a long piece of artwork.

There is a theme running through these two sets of songs, I think, around the sea, water and birds. On the way to the workshop, I found a book about diving in Oxfam in Norwich.

We cut up pictures from this book, some of the notation of the songs, and the words, to create the artwork.

I am waiting to hear about the possible publication of these songs, and I am considering another workshop where we make the artwork we have into a smaller collage.

More on this soon..!

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This post was written by chrisD