Thursday, July 29, 2010

The Bays & The Heritage Orchestra

This was an incredible bit of Music-Making history! Electronic-Improvisation group, The Bays teamed up with the Heritage Orchestra to perform together live at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall.


"Every writer has to face the challenge of the blank page. Tonight, that's what the audience faces - a blank score, displayed on three large screens behind the silent players of the Heritage Orchestra. The two "live composers", John Metcalfe and Simon Hale, have only just begun, quickly writing notes using score-writing software. A solo flute plays, while, on screen, the pages fill up with long notes, and conductor Jules Buckley cues the strings. The music grows slowly from these repeated sections, and then the Bays join in.

The idea is as simple - and as technologically, mind-bogglingly complicated - as that. Composers write notes; musicians, reading from individual LCD screens, play them. The Bays (drums, bass and two keyboards) improvise rhythm section parts that in turn prompt Metcalfe (strings) and Hale (winds) to write new motifs and themes: both composers have perfect pitch." -Words VIA
[VIA]