Musician in Residence at Brewery Arts
musician making here
It's been quite a year...
Now is the time for new music
Now is the time for new ideas
Now is the time for collaboration
July 2021: planning, prepping and Propellor-ing
July was my first month as Musician in Residence at Kendal’s Brewery Arts and it’s been a really enjoyable few weeks meeting lots of new people and making loads of preparations for the months of making ahead…
While I’m in residence I’ll be making lots of music (no surprise there!), supporting the Brewery team to deliver some exciting workshops and courses, devising new programmes for ages 18-30, collaborating with other local makers and organisations, creating and sharing the development of new interdisciplinary work, bringing my ensemble Propellor to record and produce our next project Flight, and also be performing live, online and in open sessions!
R&D FOR NEW PROJECTS…
I’ve had a lot of fun discussing plans for new projects with the Brewery’s passionate Artistic Director Miriam Randall.
One of the first things Miriam said to me was that as part of her vision for Brewery Arts, she feels it’s imperative to be a hub where new things get made. So as well as bringing some existing connections to my residency (including a mini pop-up concert series), I’m buzzing about making brand new work here in my hometown Kendal!
Over the next few months I’m going to be undertaking the R&D for a solo show with live processing and playable staging! As well as Propellor’s next live project, Flight. I’ll be sharing my progress on here, in open sessions with anyone who wants to come along, and online thanks to the Brewery’s new live stream facilities…
I’ll be reaching out to collaborate with other local makers alongside the fantastic in-house Brewery Arts team as things develop, and I can’t wait to share it all with you.
ARTS UNLEASHED - CREATIVE SUMMER CAMP
Next week I’ll be joining the Brewery Arts team of tutors and a group of freelance artists to make lots of music with the Arts Unleashed participants! We’ll be exploring how music can be a powerful binding force with other art forms and will be letting our creative spirits run wild.
I’m currently creating two short bits of music to underscore some animations (they both started life like this picture on the right), that the participants will be dreaming up…
And I’ve been having a think about all the different ways we’ll be able to improvise, compose, make instruments, play with found sounds, and arrange our own music on the camp. I can’t wait to get stuck in!
FUTURE CREATIVES at Brewery Arts Centre
Alongside composer and multi instrumentalist Anna Louisa Etherington, I’ll be collaborating on the creation of a new workshop series for participants aged 18-30.
This pilot interdisciplinary series will run at the Brewery from September to November this year and looks to be shaping up to include all kinds of creative writing and improvisation techniques, live processing, field recording, composing, beats making, arranging and devising.
Been wondering where to take your music next or want to learn from a team of active makers? Keep an eye on Brewery Arts communications for news of how to sign up and get involved…
Recording
I was super excited to have the opportunity to bring members of my ensemble Propellor to Kendal and start working on our next project in the Brewery’s theatre space.
We recorded some material for our new podcast series called Flight which we’re creating alongside one of the UK's leading writers on birds, Mark Cocker, and electronic musical pioneer/instrument builder Leafcutter John.
The huge theatre space allowed our percussionists Stu Brown and Delia Stevens to get creative with big sounds and LOTS of drums. A special mention for the Westmorland Youth Orchestra who let us use their orchestral bass drum for the session - thanks folks!
Flight will explore the interconnected worlds of birds, soundscape ecology and music, tracing lines between the birds of our imaginations and the science of our times. The series also lays the groundwork for a touring installation, which we’ll be putting together at Brewery Arts, and exciting developments in the way Propellor make new work and collaborate in the future.
I’ll share some of the results of these recordings on here next month…
While I’m in residence at the Brewery I’ll also be making the most of the space to record a handful of other things including premiere recordings of works by Alex Groves, Kate Halsall and David Matthews.
GIGS are back!
July also saw the return of some performances, which meant that Propellor could see out our ACE tour of Loom at Cheltenham Music Festival. Some of you may have seen us perform this in Kendal at the last Lakes Alive festival where we collaborated with local printmaker Caro Stow and poets Hannah Hodgson, Polly Atkin and Katie Hale.
I’m really excited that Propellor will be producing our next project at Brewery Arts. We can’t wait to explore the various performance spaces, projection mapping and surround sound installation possibilities in these spaces to bring Flight to life!
I’ll also be doing some small duo performances in August, the first is this Friday 6th in Newcastle’s ‘secret library’ The Lit & Phil with the wonderful pianist, composer and curator Kate Halsall. Following that I’ll be popping up in a Kendal space with some more of my musical friends in the coming weeks, keep an eye out around Elephant Yard for more news ;)
Hope to see you around the Brewery very soon.
Jack