Current projects…
“An ensemble who cross the worlds of folk, classical, electronic and experimental music. It twists and turns through different sound worlds, an intriguing project.”
Propellor
Propellor’s journey started back in 2017, on the Suffolk coast...
I was lucky enough to be awarded a two year Open Space residency at Snape Maltings (home to Britten Pears Arts), developing the ensemble's sound and creating our first piece, Loom, which follows the watercourse backwards from the sea to the sky. We've toured Loom around the UK since its premiere at Snape's Festival of New in 2018, sharing our music in workshops and creating site-specific collaborations at each performance. Flight is our second project...
Flight is Propellor’s latest multi-platform project, an 8-part podcast series, an intimate evening of music and conversation, and a full ensemble show with live visuals and dance!
FLIGHT
Flight explores the interconnected world of music, birds and soundscape ecology. Above from left to right, top to bottom are contributors to the project:
British-Iranian turntablist and composer Shiva Feshareki (BBC Proms) - discussing the nature of creativity // David Hendy (author of Noise - a social history of sound) placing our relationship with our soundscape into historical and cultural context // Paraorchestra blind musicians Takashi Kikuchi and Victoria Oruwari discussing access, echo-location and the colour of noise // Mark Cocker (author of Birds Britannica) who unpins the themes with a narrative about migration and global unity // British-Finnish artist Hanna Tuulikki (Biennale of Sydney) exploring ideas of mimesis with the “more than human world” // Ruth Montgomery (artistic director of Audiovisibility) sharing ideas about eyes being her equivalent of noise pollution // Soundscape ecologist Linda O Keeffe explaining the elements of the science of listening, while exploring the connections between social issues and the soundscape // Musician Leafcutter John on treating a band like a field recording and the act of creating in the moment.
Expect music that tells the stories of astounding bird migrations, how we listen and why it matters, electronic collaborations with artist Leafcutter John, live reactive visuals, interactive recycled instruments and spoken word alongside powerful contemporary dance from About Time Dance Company director Jenny Reeves, with birds flying above it all, of course.
Loom
Loom (n.) The slow and silent movement of water in a deep pool (Cumbria)
Our first touring work was Loom, an audio-visual performance mapping our collective experience of water, charting its journey backwards from the sea to the sky.
"Truly magical to be with that immense music making. Involuntary dancing occurred, it was at times overwhelming – but in a great way." Audience Member (Lakeside Arts, Nottingham)
"Invigorating, moving, transported me to another world. So many wonderful moments that delighted my spirit." Audience Member (Lakes Alive, Kendal)
"An incredible journey through sound and image. Profoundly moving and inspirational." Audience Member (Festival of New, Snape Maltings)
Propellor has been supported by Arts Council England National Lottery Project Grants and PRS Foundation Open Fund.
“The piece is immersive and contemplative, ever evocative of shifting waters. The music metamorphoses through a kaleidoscopic range of styles and colours. Though the word ‘loom’ doesn’t have its usual meaning, the piece still evokes many threads being spun and woven into something whole.”
“Sumptuous art design and minimal documentation mean that you have to approach this beguiling album with open ears...
So we begin in what’s presumably a becalmed, chilly North Sea. Floods, and the idiocy of planners who build homes on flood plains, are a recurring theme, along with the centrality of water in people’s lives. Loom unfolds as a seamless single movement, the transitions between sections imperceptible. Folksy stomping and brass duets give way to patches of ambient electronica, and there’s a magical coda...this beautifully produced performance, taped in Snape Maltings, makes for agreeable listening, Propellor’s assorted instrumentalists audibly having fun. Five little Loom Miniatures, cut from the same cloth, are offered as a bonus. Accordion and clarinet jostle for attention in River, and there’s a sense of quiet desolation in Floodplain.”
Tao of Glass
World Premiere
Philip Glass & Phelim McDermott
TAO OF GLASS
Produced by Manchester International Festival, Improbable, and the Royal Exchange Theatre
Commissioned by Manchester International Festival, Improbable, Perth Festival, Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen and Carolina Performing Arts – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
An exploration of life, loss and a single question:
Where does true inspiration come from?
Composer Philip Glass and performer-director Phelim McDermott (Improbable) have worked together on acclaimed opera productions in London, New York and beyond, and Tao of Glass is their most personal collaboration yet. Inspired by a dream, this
world premiere marries ten meditations on life, death and Taoist wisdom with ten brand new pieces of music from Glass, presented by McDermott with an ensemble of musicians and puppeteers.
Part-concert, part-performance, Tao of Glass is a storytelling tapestry, soundtracked by Glass’s mesmerising music and shot through with Improbable’s trademark theatricality.
Photographs by Tristram Kenton.
“Soundtracked by 10 new Glass compositions, performed with delicate precision by a four-piece-band, it really is manna from heaven for fans of the composer, maximised by the fact that Glass himself appears to accompany the musicians in the final section.”
“The most thrilling passage comes in the spellbindingly feverish arpeggios of Scene 3, Kintsugi, which builds to a mesmerising climax, accompanying shadow puppet effects on stage...led by piano (Katherine Tinker), with violin (Rakhi Singh) and clarinet (Jack McNeill) providing elegant support and an arsenal of percussion effects (Chris Vatalaro) adding colour.”
"Stunning piece, exquisite playing, beautiful video. We're running out of superlatives!"
The Strad on the Gildas Quartet
Clarinet quintets and chamber music
Jack performs regularly alongside the Gildas Quartet, exploring the huge range of fantastic clarinet quintet repertoire, and as a trio with David Le Page (violin) and Viv McLean (piano) - who together perform as a quartet with Clare O'Connell (cello).
Jack is a founder member of the new chamber group LOKI, which gave premieres of works by Michael Zev Gordon, Ryan Latimer and Richard Ayres alongside Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire in February 2018, recorded for BBC Radio 3's Hear and Now. Loki will be giving the premiere of Michael Zev Gordan's new opera in summer 2020.
Jack also performs as a guest with Ensemble 360, CHROMA and the Harborough Collective.
“Finally came Brahms and his gently monumental, autumnal Clarinet Quintet. Joining the Gildas, Jack McNeill brought a wonderful diversity of timbre, veiled and wispy in the slow movement’s delicate arabesques, momentarily fruity in the first movement’s chalumeau ruminations, and never obtruding his instrument at the expense of a total ensemble which was empathetic, involving, and totally at the service of this wonderful music.”
“Incorporating found sounds, whole-group interplay and spontaneity DRAWLIGHT cast improvisation within the timbres of traditional music.”
Aaron Diaz (trumpet player, improviser, electronic experimenter and composer)
Drawlight
A quartet featuring clarinet and bass clarinet, harp (Esther Swift), accordion (Jim Molyneux), playing music composed and arranged by trumpeter Aaron Diaz. Debuting at the Surge in Spring festival at Birmingham’s MAC and influenced by Aaron’s time living and studying in Scandinavia, the groups' original compositions dart between the members shared disciplines and experience within the UK’s classical, folk and improvisational scenes. They have performed at the Alternative Aldeburgh Festival and are currently developing a studio album.
Scintilla
Composer Liz Johnson and Digital Artist James Dooley
Inspired by David Hart’s extended poem Crag Inspector this new theatrical work for clarinettist/actor, live electronics, percussionist and dancer (Dane Hurst) is currently in development through Sound and Music’s New Voices programme.
Rowan Rheingans
The Lines We Draw Together
A companion to Rowan’s acclaimed one-woman show Dispatches on The Red Dress, her debut solo album features cathartic collaborations with indy, jazz, classical and electronic musicians, including bassist Michele Stoddart (The Magic Numbers) and clarinettist Jack McNeill (Propellor).
Solo/Duo/Trio
After developing a solo show for two special concerts in the London series run by composer Alex Groves, SOLO. Jack has been devising sets for alternative late night venues, involving live processing, visuals and original composition alongside reworkings of the contemporary, classical and early music repertoire.
Initially a solo project idea, it quickly developed and Jack has started working with long time collaborator Kay Stephen (Viola/Violin) and Stuart Brown (Percussion) whom he met being part of the Sound and Music New Voices project with Liz Johnson.
Kay Stephen - viola/violin
Born in Aberdeen, Kay divides her time primarily as violist with the Gildas Quartet, violinist and violist with the Jacquin Trio. As a member of these ensembles she has been a recipient of numerous awards including the Royal Overseas League Chamber Music Prize and the Audience Engagement Prize at the Franz Schubert and Modern Music Competition, Graz. She has been supported by the City Music Foundation, the Tunnell Trust and twice by the Park Lane Group, performing in major UK venues including Manchester's Bridgewater Hall, the Wigmore Hall, the Cadogan Hall and frequently on BBC Radio 3.
Stuart brown - drums and live visuals
Stuart Brown is a full time drummer, band leader, producer, composer and drum teacher based in Glasgow, Scotland, U.K. As a drummer he has toured internationally around Europe, USA, India, Brazil and New Zealand and has worked with many national and international artists including Craig Armstrong (film composer for Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge, etc), Niki Haris (Maddona's backing singer), David Byrne of Talking Heads (for the Young Adam film sound track), Tom Jones, Horse, Barbara Morrison, Rab Noakes, Darius Campbell, Dave Gordon (SunRa Arkestra) Evan Parker, Fred Frith, George Lewis, John Hollenbeck and the unique Orquestra Scotland Brazil project (a British council funded project featuring 16 Scottish and Brazilian musicians).
Past projects…
When i die
A Ghost Story with Music, by Thom Luz
A true story: Rosemary Brown, widow and mother of two, lives in a town house in Balham, South London. In November 1964 the ghost of Franz Liszt visits her and asks her if he could dictate a couple of compositions to her which he could not finish in his lifetime. Brown who does not have a musical education, agrees. Shortly after this incident, Johann Sebastian Bach comes to her with the same wish – and immediately after this there are Johannes Brahms, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Edvard Grieg, Claude Debussy, Robert Schumann, Ludwig van Beethoven – joined later by John Lennon and Albert Einstein. In the following years Brown gets up at half past six every morning, has breakfast and then receives deceased composers for a musical dictation between eight and two and between three and six o’clock. These sessions create among other works a forty pages long sonata and twelve Lieder by Schubert, a fantaisie impromptu by Chopin and two sonatas as well as the tenth and eleventh symphonies by Beethoven. Rosemary Brown herself dies in London in 2001.
On the basis of this story and the dead composers’ music, director Thom Luz has built a magical, fine-tuned and eerie performance with actors and musicians who seem to have emerged from another dimension. The atmospheric musical piece is spellbindingly beautiful and poignant, at times even amusing. It creates space that allows you to turn off your intellect.
With Suly Röthlisberger, Jack McNeill, Daniele Pintaudi, Samuel Streiff, Mathias Weibel
Director and Stage Design Thom Luz
Musical Director Mathias Weibel
Costume and Light Design Tina Bleuler
Dramaturgy Markus Dross
Technical Director/Light Li Sanli
Sound Design Martin Hofstetter
Assistant Stage Design Corinne Dettwiler
Assistant Costume Design Linda Dürst
Programm Book Simon Renggli
Subtitles Dôra Kapusta, Subtext
Production Management Gabi Bernetta
Production and more information Thom Luz und Bernetta Theaterproduktionen
danserye
By Sebastian Matthias and Michael Wolters
Thielman Susato’s Musyck Boexken Danserye, a collection of scores for dance music, was created for ballroom dancing events in 1551. During these performance parties, allemandes, gaillardes and branles were danced on the basis of the treatise. Through the varying constellations of the dances as solos, couples, or groups, roles could switch in a way that participants could be spectators and dancing partners at the same time. With virtuosity and skillful musical variations of the steps, dancers interweave with musicians and viewers into a music dance feast.
Together with eight musicians and dancers, Danserye attempts to transfer this music dance feast into the frame of a contemporary dance performance, asking which forms of inclusion and interaction are possible amongst musicians, dancers and viewers. What constellations does the treatise instigate between them? What forms of invitations to dance? Do features of a feast of today emerge? The performers perpetually change their positionings, focusing on themselves and their interaction with the music, or configuring duets and group constellations, constantly altering their relation to the viewer. As the treatise builds the basis for both musical and dancerly material,
structures and qualities emerge that are inherent in both art forms. All this takes place within an installation developed by visual artists Awst & Walther, which includes the visitor and opens up new perspectives within the performance arena.
…concerned with softening the boundaries between popular dance in club contexts and dance in the hierarchical space of theatre… this is Matthias’ second collaboration with new music and instrumentalists, which he now enhances together with composer Michael Wolters.
Concept/Choreography Sebastian Matthias
Composition Michael Wolters
Dance/Choreography Jan Burkhardt, Lisanne Goodhue, Deborah Hofstetter, Isaac Spencer
Recorder Michelle Holloway Violin Simon Goff Guitar Paul Norman Clarinets Jack McNeill
Production and more information Sebastian Matthias and Michael Wolters
