Alex came round tuesday and we spent a few hours going through the mp3's of the recording. He made excellent comments on how to improve the mixes. 15 years listening in ENO to the balance between the orchestra and the singers give him a surgical precision to his listening. Everything he said I just thought 'oh yes, why didn't I think of that?'. But I couldn't have thought of everything in the 3 days we had. A lot of the time was focussed on just making sure we ironed out any major problems in tuning and ensemble and got a faif general balance between things. With Alexs extra adjustments the balance will be really good.
I'm trying to concentrate on resting - but do feel restless. It's hard to go from a full on project for so long and then - boom - it stops... I am a bit disorientated and run down. I can feel this tiredness in my bones and yet my mind is still very active. Already having thoughts about a new opera!! Perish the thought!! I do have a subject up my sleeve... and if someone came up to me tomorrow and asked me to write another one I would - damn it! My plan was to stop writing big pieces - to concentrate on writing for myself. To develop my performance. To keep it much more connected to the present moment - rather than plotting out a project that can take years and years to realize. Part of me feels I've been there, done that, and I want to keep things more local and short term.
But my imagination is firing away about a new large scale work - all I need is the commission! As things stand right now - that is not likely to come my way. I am out of touch with commissions and connections at the moment. So - my pragmatic side is in fact more in tune with reality - which in many ways is a relief!
I had my association with Lontano for 12 years and wrote two full length chamber operas for that company. It took me the best part of 8 years. Inanna took me 2 years and Siddhartha Spirit Child took me 6 years. To bring Inanna up to speed with this recording took me another 2 years to prepare - so imagine if I wanted to bring Siddhartha Spirit Child up to speed with a recording...! Another 6 years?? Please no, surely not!
Though I haven't gone anywhere near the SSC score for many years my memory is that it is in a better state of repair than Inanna was. Inanna was written with fire and brimstone - in a flash, relatively speaking. SSC - was a more considered piece - I think...which would mean any revisions would be relatively minor. Inanna has had a complete overhaul. SSC may not need that. I think more than anything - SSC needs cutting - which is quicker than writing new stuff.
Once I am fully rested and had a summer break and we have the two DVD's in hand and a CD version of everything too - I will take stock of how to proceed from here.
In the meantime I'm in well-earned limbo land. Walks in the park, gentle exercise, healthy eating, once I have got over this deep tiredness. I will let that take it's own course. The body must catch up with me... I have been racing ahead with my muscial mind (I thrive there!) and my body is demanding I look after her now. She has been very patient! God bless her.
6.16.2007
The Mix, The Singers, The Film, The Gym!!!
The mixing is done. 3 days on 17 tracks!
It was fast work and having just listened again after 24 hours ear rest I know we have it moving in the right direction. Martin Gordon did a fantastic job - 'keeping it real' and yet enhancing in a subtle way. Adrian Lee came up with some very perceptive thoughts about the overal sound image - and some neat ideas about the orchestration to help it along. Alex and I will listen again next week and take notes. Then a tweaking session later in the week with Adrian.
Having enjoyed her part in the piece, Marie Angel, who sang Geshtinanna, is hoping to set up a meeting with the Drill Hall. I think the Drill Hall would be the right venue in London to perform the piece, should we be lucky enough to attract their interest. It's a place where a lot of new work is premiered, a place with a track record for innovation, in central London (Goodge St tube), and a great acoustic. It's an odd shape - having a long and thin stage space - but I have seen that work to advantage in the past.
The standard of the soloists singing is just superb. Maria Jardardottir is really our Bjork. What a star she is! Without Maria's voice the piece would be infinitely less exciting. But there she is - holding the central character and that voice of hers - just shining - just so present, just sweet, just raw, just honest, just so sexy!
Marie Angel - touches me with her voice to the very core of my being. Her artistry and interpretation of my melodies, especially in White Bull Dying, where she sings to her dying brother Dumuzi, is just shiver inducing.
Nigel Robson is excellent as Enki, God of Wisdom - delivering just the right amount of gravitas and playfullness together.
Adey Grummet turns on the icy voice for Ereshkigal and is chilling to the bone to hear - a fair interpretation of the character who is so pained in the Netherworld. Kerry Andrew was 100% on the spot with all her chorus lines - often leading the ladies chorus rhythms and pitches with precision and drama. Steve Douse, whose voice balances between muscial theatre and opera, achieved the right level of vulnerability for Dumuzi in his singing - as well as finding the drama and dignity of the character. Michael Solomon Williams as Utu in the Nomad Song has a superb sound - so musical, so refined. And Jeremy Birchall found his way round the chorus bass lines with good humour and ressonace.
The Smith Quartet stunned, as usual, with the power and brilliance of their playing - and the rest of the ensemble - woodwind, percussion, piano, double bass and bandoneon, supported the quartet throughout with faint-worthy sight reading and musicianship.
If the lift hadn't got stuck we would easily have recorded all 19 tracks on the schedule!!! But I'm happy with 17 for now.
The whole piece has 50 tracks altogether - so you can see - it is a fair chunk of music - about one third - of the whole piece.
Ample to give a good example of the score and the differing moods the piece moves through.
It takes time to let the mixes grow on one. I don't want to rush that.
The film involved four cameras. We will be looking at the material and working on that in the second half of July when Steve Teers has his next available time to work.
I myself am shattered. Walking round in a stupour this morning. Joined the gym - again. Because if I don't have a steam and a sauna soon my body will either wilt or freeze up. So, after a year of working on the score and ignoring my physical needs in the all consuming vision and dedication to the piece - the time has now come to rebalance my lifestyle and again pay some attention to my body.
Exercise to start on monday. This weekend - steams, saunas and more steams and more saunas!!!
It was fast work and having just listened again after 24 hours ear rest I know we have it moving in the right direction. Martin Gordon did a fantastic job - 'keeping it real' and yet enhancing in a subtle way. Adrian Lee came up with some very perceptive thoughts about the overal sound image - and some neat ideas about the orchestration to help it along. Alex and I will listen again next week and take notes. Then a tweaking session later in the week with Adrian.
Having enjoyed her part in the piece, Marie Angel, who sang Geshtinanna, is hoping to set up a meeting with the Drill Hall. I think the Drill Hall would be the right venue in London to perform the piece, should we be lucky enough to attract their interest. It's a place where a lot of new work is premiered, a place with a track record for innovation, in central London (Goodge St tube), and a great acoustic. It's an odd shape - having a long and thin stage space - but I have seen that work to advantage in the past.
The standard of the soloists singing is just superb. Maria Jardardottir is really our Bjork. What a star she is! Without Maria's voice the piece would be infinitely less exciting. But there she is - holding the central character and that voice of hers - just shining - just so present, just sweet, just raw, just honest, just so sexy!
Marie Angel - touches me with her voice to the very core of my being. Her artistry and interpretation of my melodies, especially in White Bull Dying, where she sings to her dying brother Dumuzi, is just shiver inducing.
Nigel Robson is excellent as Enki, God of Wisdom - delivering just the right amount of gravitas and playfullness together.
Adey Grummet turns on the icy voice for Ereshkigal and is chilling to the bone to hear - a fair interpretation of the character who is so pained in the Netherworld. Kerry Andrew was 100% on the spot with all her chorus lines - often leading the ladies chorus rhythms and pitches with precision and drama. Steve Douse, whose voice balances between muscial theatre and opera, achieved the right level of vulnerability for Dumuzi in his singing - as well as finding the drama and dignity of the character. Michael Solomon Williams as Utu in the Nomad Song has a superb sound - so musical, so refined. And Jeremy Birchall found his way round the chorus bass lines with good humour and ressonace.
The Smith Quartet stunned, as usual, with the power and brilliance of their playing - and the rest of the ensemble - woodwind, percussion, piano, double bass and bandoneon, supported the quartet throughout with faint-worthy sight reading and musicianship.
If the lift hadn't got stuck we would easily have recorded all 19 tracks on the schedule!!! But I'm happy with 17 for now.
The whole piece has 50 tracks altogether - so you can see - it is a fair chunk of music - about one third - of the whole piece.
Ample to give a good example of the score and the differing moods the piece moves through.
It takes time to let the mixes grow on one. I don't want to rush that.
The film involved four cameras. We will be looking at the material and working on that in the second half of July when Steve Teers has his next available time to work.
I myself am shattered. Walking round in a stupour this morning. Joined the gym - again. Because if I don't have a steam and a sauna soon my body will either wilt or freeze up. So, after a year of working on the score and ignoring my physical needs in the all consuming vision and dedication to the piece - the time has now come to rebalance my lifestyle and again pay some attention to my body.
Exercise to start on monday. This weekend - steams, saunas and more steams and more saunas!!!
6.12.2007
We did it!!!
It's the second morning after the night before! And the previous three days....phew!!!!!!
The recording of Inanna (extracts from the whole piece) is in the can!!! We planned to do 19 numbers and we got through 17 in six hours. The previous day was a rehearsal and a couple of weeks ago we had a workshop with the singers. That was the input to prepare the playing and, with that, the standard we achieved is without doubt top class. I could not have got a better bunch of people together! I listened yesterday afternoon to some of the playback and our worries about spillage between the instruments is not as bad as we ( I! ) thought it might be. The sound buffers did their job and the close micing gave a brilliant picture of each player.
But the dramas that ensued during the precious six hour recording session will go down in history for me.... You would not believe the amount of things that went wrong - or nearly went wrong - or threatened to go wrong - or just plain didn't happen.
I don't know where to start. Is it important to blog about the things that went wrong? Does it matter now - now I know that what went right is the music - and that is what counts - looking back on it now I can laugh and smile at the cliff hanger of a day that was June 10th 2007.
If the problems had wrecked the recording it would be a very different story - but we triumphed - despite them. And I am aware how I want to blog about the singer with a potential bleeding mouth, the no-show of another singer who had been singing on a speed boat for the South Bank opening on the Thames the day before, the 'I'm too famous for you' act of another singer who was expected to participate and pulled out last minute, the faulty equipment that was on hire, the fact that SIX musicians got stuck in the lift for 45 minutes and we had to call the fire brigade, the firemen who couldn't find the release switch and had to force open the lift doors with a crow bar, me bursting into tears in the hall as the fireman told me they couldn't get access to the roof as the door was locked, the group hug from supportive family and friends as the firemen wrenched open the lift doors, the hugs and tears and laughter as I flung myself into the arms of six men I harldy knew - as if they might be running from a burning house and had been saved, the extraordinary poise and professionalism of the musicians, who within 5 minutes were back at their microphones and performing perfectly again...
It's all to much to recount here...
WHAT CAN I SAY?
As for the experience of listening, FINALLY, to my score with acutal musicians, rather than samples on a computer - it was deeply satisfying. And it went beyond my expecatations too. It was as if my bones felt, at last, like they had finally grown some flesh. I had no idea how beautiful and powerful flesh on the bone could feel. But it did, and it was, and it is! Yipeee!
It is taking me so long to really know my music is good. And this weekend I took another step towards that. It was clearly focussed for me when the morning after the recording I had to go through the score and find the points at which I want to overdub the 'free voice'. An improviser who was due to sing for us today (the one who decided he was too famous and expensive for us). Anyway - as I was looking at the score yesterday I found myself wondering - 'what was it that the composer wanted?', as if it wasn't me! - but I was taking great interest in someone else's work that I respected. I'm welling up as I write this... I thought - gosh that's me I'm thinking about. Take yourself seriously Jenni - other people are!
That's it - I'm blubbing now... oh dear me ...
Anyway - having read this back - I think that will do for now - better eat - have to go and blag a trolley from the supermaket as I have a plethora of leads, looms and 2 stage boxes to deliver before 10 am to Tottenham..
The recording of Inanna (extracts from the whole piece) is in the can!!! We planned to do 19 numbers and we got through 17 in six hours. The previous day was a rehearsal and a couple of weeks ago we had a workshop with the singers. That was the input to prepare the playing and, with that, the standard we achieved is without doubt top class. I could not have got a better bunch of people together! I listened yesterday afternoon to some of the playback and our worries about spillage between the instruments is not as bad as we ( I! ) thought it might be. The sound buffers did their job and the close micing gave a brilliant picture of each player.
But the dramas that ensued during the precious six hour recording session will go down in history for me.... You would not believe the amount of things that went wrong - or nearly went wrong - or threatened to go wrong - or just plain didn't happen.
I don't know where to start. Is it important to blog about the things that went wrong? Does it matter now - now I know that what went right is the music - and that is what counts - looking back on it now I can laugh and smile at the cliff hanger of a day that was June 10th 2007.
If the problems had wrecked the recording it would be a very different story - but we triumphed - despite them. And I am aware how I want to blog about the singer with a potential bleeding mouth, the no-show of another singer who had been singing on a speed boat for the South Bank opening on the Thames the day before, the 'I'm too famous for you' act of another singer who was expected to participate and pulled out last minute, the faulty equipment that was on hire, the fact that SIX musicians got stuck in the lift for 45 minutes and we had to call the fire brigade, the firemen who couldn't find the release switch and had to force open the lift doors with a crow bar, me bursting into tears in the hall as the fireman told me they couldn't get access to the roof as the door was locked, the group hug from supportive family and friends as the firemen wrenched open the lift doors, the hugs and tears and laughter as I flung myself into the arms of six men I harldy knew - as if they might be running from a burning house and had been saved, the extraordinary poise and professionalism of the musicians, who within 5 minutes were back at their microphones and performing perfectly again...
It's all to much to recount here...
WHAT CAN I SAY?
As for the experience of listening, FINALLY, to my score with acutal musicians, rather than samples on a computer - it was deeply satisfying. And it went beyond my expecatations too. It was as if my bones felt, at last, like they had finally grown some flesh. I had no idea how beautiful and powerful flesh on the bone could feel. But it did, and it was, and it is! Yipeee!
It is taking me so long to really know my music is good. And this weekend I took another step towards that. It was clearly focussed for me when the morning after the recording I had to go through the score and find the points at which I want to overdub the 'free voice'. An improviser who was due to sing for us today (the one who decided he was too famous and expensive for us). Anyway - as I was looking at the score yesterday I found myself wondering - 'what was it that the composer wanted?', as if it wasn't me! - but I was taking great interest in someone else's work that I respected. I'm welling up as I write this... I thought - gosh that's me I'm thinking about. Take yourself seriously Jenni - other people are!
That's it - I'm blubbing now... oh dear me ...
Anyway - having read this back - I think that will do for now - better eat - have to go and blag a trolley from the supermaket as I have a plethora of leads, looms and 2 stage boxes to deliver before 10 am to Tottenham..
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
