Last week saw me playing double bass and workshop leading with the Threads Orchestra. This jam packed few days saw us recording the rhythm section parts for Jon Brigg's new album "Ranch" at Huddersfield University, several workshops and a culmination concert at Hymers College in Hull and a full Threads Orchestra concert at Ropery Hall in Barton-on-Humber.
Wednesday - Recording
This was a challenging session due to time restraints and saw the Threads rhythm section (Kit Downes; Keys, Chris Montague; Guitar, Kris Wright; Drums and myself on Double Bass) recording our parts for the strings to be overdubbed at a later date. We were joined by ex Loose Tubes member, Dai Pritchard on Soprano Sax, who played beautifully.
A few photos from the session:
Thursday - Hymers College Workshop
The day began with a concert for the Junior school, which I presented. There were some really fantastic observations and magical ideas shared by students about our music, I think that we will be planning a Key Stage 2 project very soon.
We then moved to the senior school to work with both the intermediate and senior string ensembles.The repertoire used was "Libertango" by Astor Piazzolla, "Wheelbarrow Walk" by Michael Nyman and the affectionately titled "Hurdy Gurdy" by Valentin Clastrier.
Each 'section' of Threads took a different role within the workshop, the strings sharing wonderful insights into bowing, articulation, interpretation and extended techniques, Kit and Chris working in smaller groups specifically looking at improvisational techniques and Kris gave a really great presentation on layering rhythmic cells using extended techniques while I led from the back!
Kris gave a really inspiring analogy to the students about improvising using extended techniques in an open section at the beginning of Libertango. It went something like this:
Kris: "you've all heard of strong and wrong right?"
Participants: (laughter)
Kris: Guess that's a yes then...When you play any music think about if you were in a
race,
the gold medal is strong and right. the silver medal is strong and wrong.
The bronze
medal, finishing a long way behind the gold and silver medals is
weak and right. Think
two thoroughbred horses against a three-legged donkey,
it's that much of a
difference...
...With Libertango, there is no written material so how can it be right? or wrong?
so
that just leaves us with strong or weak playing, and we know what medals we
get for
those...!
The next day we received this photo from the school
The day ended with a culmination concert with all of the strings performing alongside Threads, this was a great concert with some wonderful playing. I had a wonderful time with my bass section, there is nothing quite like a 5 strong bass section playing heavy pizz in Libertango!
Friday - Golf and a concert at Ropery Hall!
After a fun night out nothing clears away the cobwebs like a round of golf, lots of fun and frustration (mentioning no names!) was had, it's a nice time of year to be outside (wrapped up warm of course!) and the season was readily witnessed in the changing shades of the flora.
The evening saw a fantastic concert to an almost sold out house. Threads were joined by two fantastic 'deps' in Fran Pye from the BBC Phil on Violin and my old friend and piano virtuoso, Rob Barron. It was great to play with Rob again after such a long time, both he and Fran played amazingly. Ropery Hall is a really beautiful venue with a great sound and a fantastic staff who really looked after us. Many thanks to everyone who came along and to all the staff. See you again next year!
Thanks so much to Adam Robinson for his amazing playing and for organising and managing the group and to the rest of the people who played and made this such a fun few days:
Huddersfield University, Hymers College, Ropery Hall, Rob Barron, Jon Brigg, Martin Couzin, Kit Downes, Chris Montague, Dai Pritchard, Fran Pye, Kris Wright and family and Semay Wu.
This was an action packed few days, it's always magical when Threads get together so check out the website for more details of our work in the field of music education and for live dates.
Connect with Threads via Website, Facebook and Twitter
