Lost a tenor - gained the lead role!

- Late night - but here's the latest. Maria Jardadottir is now cast in the lead role of Inanna. Feels really good decision. She's a non classical singer - an improviser with special interest in live performances, composition and Indian music. Her voice is beautifully natural, and free. Just right for the role. She is not the fastest reader in the world - but she learns something in her body and soul and then flies with it - though it takes her a little longer to get there than a trained classical singer. So what? We have put some time aside to work with her and she will get it - I know.

Felt really excited and even inspired when I made that decision. She's a wild woman with a nose ring and a tongue piercing and a bald head - great presence - the camera will love her and her voice is really easy to enjoy. She naturally decorates phrases with inflections and that I love.

It's an exciting risk to cast her along side fantastic classical voices like Marie Angel and Adey Grummet - but both these lovely ladies are so artistic and flexible as musicians I forsee no problem in integrating these different vocal stlyes. And we will use the amazing Carol Grimes - of Soul Britannia fame - on 3 Ereshkigal numbers - bringing in that hard hitting jazz vocal that she does so inimitably well. And Kerry Andrew will be a great supporting chorus as Spinner - with a real grounded alto voice, very body, and close to speech sound in her singing. Completely unaffected.

We lost out lead tenor today. So we are slightly panicing that we need to find another strong tenor asap!! But the 4 men we do have are richly endowed as singers. Nigel Robson - melt worthy, Jeremy Birchall - like dark chocolate in the bass Baritone, and young Michael Solomon Williams who will make an endearing Utu and fine young Laughing Demon. The extraordinary Nawroz Oramar will add Kurdish inspired vocal improvisations as after dubs where he can relax into his own style and add an authentic voice from the very regions the story originated from - Iraq.

Must lie horizontal.

Inanna: the facts so far about the recording.

Just come back from a story telling evening with Diane Wolkstein - the woman who helped manifest the story of Inanna in the world and who, last year, came and did an evening here at the Loft. She's on again at the weekend at the BM and the Theosophical Society. We had a brief chat after show tonight and she suggested I get some flyers together for the weekend so I can alert people about the Inanna opera project. Speaking of which, it is getting ever closer to the recording on June 10 and, so long as I keep plugging away at the score, I should have everything ready in time.

We have cast most of the roles. We haven't confirmed yet who will sing Inanna and Dumuzi but we are getting closer - and all the other roles are cast. Here are the singers we have on board so far:
Marie Angel - Geshtinanna
Adey Grummet and Carol Grimes- sharing the role of Ereshkigal
Maria Jardadottir - Spinner solos (tbc)
Kerry Andrew - Spinner - chorus only
Eyjolfur Eyjolfsson - Dumuzi (tbc)
Nigel Robson - Enki
Michael Solomon Williams - Utu
Jeremy Birchall - Gilgamesh
Nawroz Oramar - Free vocal improviser (Kurdish Iraqi artist)

The players are:
The Smith String Quartet :
Ian Humphries violin 1
Darragh Morgan violin 2
Nic Pendelbury viola
Deidre Cooper, violoncello
Corrado Canonici - double bass
Nancy Ruffer - flute
Dai Pritchard - clarinet
Julian Jacobson - piano
Walter Fabeck - keyboard
Joby Burgess - percussion
Martin Allen - percussion

We have Alex Ingram conducting. Adrian Lee is producer and Michael Gordon is sound engineer. Steve Teers of Diva Pix is filming (with a crew of 4 and 6 cameras). We have two helpers - my cousin Sue and friend Phil. There will be 27 microphones and 3 DI's. We will work with two computers, one slaved to the other, four sound cards, each with 8 inputs. We are going to do the recording at the Loft.

We hope to record 40 minutes from the 100 minute piece. We will make a 10 minute DVD promotional film and a 60 minute (or so) archive of the whole days recording including all the music performed, interviews, relevant imagery from the story, etc.

I think that's all the for this post. Just needed to get the facts down for now.