Colab - Baroque Music Vs Contemporary Dance - Finale! Friday

Well, while the title says Friday, it is definitely Saturday that I write this. Last night was an absolute success, but maybe I should do a brief recap of the day.

The problem with finale day is that there are so many acts that rehearsal time is extremely brief. Luckily we could use the recital room 10-12 and we made the most of the time. We warmed up, yes that has been going on all week, no none of the musicians can touch their toes or plank yet, and set to work. We split up to do detailed rehearsal before regrouping to top and tail the performance.

Mid-rehearsal disscusion

 We then had a massive gap before our sound check at 3:15 where we focused on ironing out the transitions. All that remained was to wait for the performance. Our slot was 8:15 and boys and girls:

Yeah we did. Everything went really well, couple of minor slip ups but this is what happens when you have 4 and a bit days to pull together a performance of dancers, singers and musicians. I don't have any pictures of the performance but I will update this post with some if I get hold of any. It's been a fun ride and I'm so proud of the entire group. It has been an interesting experience contrasting modern and baroque aspects of performance and I am quite interested in the potential for further development along these lines. Anyway, enough of that for now.

Be back in a bizzle xx


UPDATE: I found some of the professional pictures! (Today is 01/03/16 in case the examiner is wondering if this is before the deadline, it is, promise) Enjoy!

Musicians                                    Dancers

Colab - Baroque Music Vs Contemporary Dance - Thursday? Really? You sure?

I mean, there is one thing about this project, time is vanishing out from under us. Today we have once again been hard at the grindstone scrambling, in a completely organised manner of course, to get the 30min performance finalised. Unfortunately, as we grow closer the stress is starting to seep through in some places. Lyrics that people can't remember, dynamics ignored, a miss step here and there but the frustration comes out of the passion for the project rather than from any other source.

Endless Pleasure, Endless Love

Today was spent jumping around from piece to piece, fixing, altering, perfecting and working through a rough estimate of staging changes. Yesterday was the only time, apart from the sound check tomorrow, that we had in the performance space. It has made some of the planning a bit awkward but hopefully there will only be small adjustments needed tomorrow.

We finished the day with a run which came out at only slightly over 30 mins. With less faffing around everything is pretty solid. The changes are the main things that need practice and they need to be done in the hall tomorrow.

Orchestral Rehearsal

Everybody has been really involved today and the work put in by every single member of the group is of the highest standard. The outcome of the project is a 30min performance we should all be proud of. I am very much looking forward to tomorrow's performance but that's enough for now.

Goodnight world xx

Colab - Baroque Music Vs Contemporary Dance - We're already half way through the week Wednesday

Happy hump day! Today has been a hive of activity in the recital room at Blackheath. After a brief discussion with Lucy and a warm up courtesy of our dancer comrades we moved into a dedicated musical rehearsal. People were a lot more forthcoming with ideas today and the members of the group with experience of playing baroque music helped those who were unsure. We got a lot of things done and towards the end of the morning the music was starting to sound more stylistically accurate as well as having 20% more right notes in!

Orchestral Rehearsal

We all came together to share ideas and run through the ideas thus far. As I wasn't involved in some of the pieces I took a step outside the orchestra for some of it. The choreography provided by the dancers is already shaping up well and perfectly offsets the music. The music sounds a lot more together and balanced and the singers even got to have a go at their choreography as well.

Singers trying out their choreography

The afternoon was spent in the performance space. There change of acoustic and position caused the expected problems with regard to timing and balance but these were overcome rather quickly. A number of small alterations were made but otherwise everything worked as predicted. We finished the afternoon by running through but it was a bit of stopping and starting so it was around 5mins over time.

Rehearsal in situ

A lot of today's process was led by the group rather than requiring hints or direction which is a huge improvement on previous days. The slot is really coming together and the limits of everyone in the project are being pushed by the demands. Everyone is stepping up and the fun light atmosphere is really good to work in. Looking forward to tomorrow

Back soon xx

P.s. Have a bonus gif

Colab - Baroque Music Vs Contemporary Dance - Tuneful Tuesday

The first thing a musician does when arriving at a rehearsal is to set up their instrument right? Wrong. Today, we had a 30 minute physical warm up with all the dancers. Now, I don't know if you know how active a musician's lifestyle actually is but the reaction to this announcement sorta looked a bit like this...

After the early morning shock though everybody started getting into it and having a good laugh. The main focus for today was the dancers choreography. Later in the week we will be working on the musical nuances but today was more about giving the sense of the pieces rather than in depth rehearsal. The dancers have, after various discussions at the beginning of the day, split the three solo arias between them so not everyone is involved in everything. The singers once again spent some time in another room learning their parts. The hope is that as we all become more comfortable with the repertoire we will start working together a lot more. In all honesty we are still quite inside our own worlds and people still seem a little unsure and unwilling to speak up when they have ideas/suggestions. This is especially apparent in the musicians. We are so used to being led and told what to do that it seems almost unnatural to contradict and question in the extent we should really be doing. It is something I need to speak to Lucy about tomorrow before the session.

Post-lunch Discussion

The afternoon was spent in a similar manner. We did a small amount of rehearsal just as musicians but the majority of that is being left for tomorrow. The work we did today was essential for a good foundation and tomorrow we can hopefully play around with it a bit more.

Ttfn xx

Bonus Rep List (click to listen on youtube)

The Dance of the Furies - Gluck

The Dance of the Blessed Spirits - Gluck

'Svegliatevi nel core' from Giulio Cesare - Handel

The Nightingale Chorus from Solomon - Handel

Chaconne - Gluck

'Ciel e terra' from Tamerlano - Handel

'Endless Pleasure, Endless Love' - Handel

CoLab - Baroque Vs Contemporary Dance - Manic Monday

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there was a land which, once a year, held a glorious festival. All members of the kingdom came together for two weeks of the year, abandoning their usual pursuits, and threw themselves into brand new activities with people whom they hardly knew. Together they created great works of performance art by embracing their differences and throwing off the expectations. Sounds pretty idyllic huh? Well, here at Trinity Laban, that's kinda what we do. It's CoLab times again and we lovely folks on both sides of creek (Deptford creek this is) come together for a fun filled and action packed fortnight of activity.

This year I lucked out. I get to participate in the baroque meets contemporary dance project which will culminate in a performance in the Finale! I've just got back from day one and we've all been getting into the swing of things. Today we started with a session from Peter Knapp, our music mentor for the week, before getting right into the meat of the work.

The main aim of the day was to give everyone a rough idea of the repertoire. Whether this be for musicians seeing the arrangements for the first time or dancers hearing them for the first time. The orchestration we are using is not a "traditional" baroque orchestra and as such all the music had to be re-scored for the instruments available. Also, the time limitations required a number of cuts for us to be able to cover the broad range of repertoire.

We worked our way through all the pieces with the dancers making some recordings and talking through ideas for choreography. We then covered the chorus pieces (the chorus had spent some time in another room working with Peter, who is a baroque specialist). Throughout the process some of us were making notes on bits and pieces to focus on tomorrow in rehearsals as we start to dig into things a little deeper.

Overall it was a very productive and fun day. There are already a lot of promising ideas and I am really looking forward to the rest of the week.

xx

P.s This is the sort of thing we're aiming for. I found it while buzzing around the interwebs :)

 

Scottish Ensemble & Andersson Dance present Goldberg Variations - ternary patterns for insomnia -- Variation 1 from Scottish Ensemble on Vimeo.

BassoonTube - Uptown Funk vs Beethoven

Track number three is here, check it out, I'm very proud of it. It's been a difficult couple of months but working on this project has been an absolute joy. I've fallen back in love with playing the bassoon and it has really opened my eyes to the possibilities for the future of this idea. However I am a little bit sick of looking at screens like this haha.

The only problem today with this track was that I recorded in Trinity Laban. Whoever told me the percussion pods were sound proof definitely lied haha. There were a few problems trying to do takes without excess background noise but dedication and an extra half hour got the job done. Also, wandering college with all the recording stuff has been a drag, when they designed this building people obviously carried less things. This is part of the pile I had with me.

With regards to the future, I plan to carry on arranging and recording so if you've enjoyed the ones so far then make sure to keep an eye out cos there will be more on the way.

See you soon xx

BassoonTube - Begin Again

It's done! Track number two (Begin Again - Taylor Swift) has been recorded, edited and uploaded to SoundCloud. Take a listen here! I've got to be honest and say that I am really proud of the way it has turned out. The arrangement has been done for almost a month now but unfortunately due to my wind quintet going on tour and a number of other activities I haven't had chance to sit down and get it recorded. It was recorded again in The Parnaby Tavern Hunslet after my uncle very kindly allowed me to use the function room for a couple of hours. After that it took a bit of editing and boom, final product. The arrangement for the next track has also been finished and I'm looking forward to recording that in Trinity Laban over the next couple of days, in between competitions and practice of course haha.

BassoonTube - Well Hey There Delilah

Well, finally, after much umming and ahhing I have finally got myself a SoundCloud account and uploaded the cover of Hey There Delilah. It's been recorded for a while now but the sentimental meaning has made it quite difficult to face. That being said, take a listen here. Many thanks to my marvelous brother who threw in some oboe and flute on the track and also allowed me to put it up.

Lots of things are in the pipeline at the minute. Ive got another arrangement to record which has been finished for a couple of weeks and then there is one which I am working on right this very second (well, I was til I got bored and decided to write a blog). Can you guess what it is just from a quick screenshot?

Anyway, I think that's about it for the minute so, TTFN xx

BassoonTube - I have a cunning plan...

Boys and girls, a more cheerful post than last time. This is just a quick update on how things are going. I've been doing a lot of thinking and plotting relating to this project. There have been some absolutely hilarious ideas running through my head but I have now settled it all down and I have a PLAN!

I'll be honest, you know things are bad when I get so excited I start making mind map. So, without further idea, I shal reveal some of the plan. I have two more tracks to do before the end of april. I have already started arranging one (slowly arranging) piece which I hope to have recorded and online by the end of March. The other will probably come out towards the middle of April. I would tell you what they are but that would spoil the suprise.

Also, I have managed to get hold of a tripod which should make recording a lot easier. Or at least I will spend less time trying to balance books to get it the right hight anyway haha.

Thats all for now, byeeeeeeeeee xx

A #CoLabulous Fortnight - Week 2

This week I actually went home for a couple of days so didn't get back to the CoLab craziness until Wednesday. Obviously, cos I wasn't there to check on everyone all the time, there wasn't a whole lot of stuff that got done. As such it was a final mad rush to the end of this years fortnight of mentalness (I mean this in an entirely positive way and is totally a word so hush).

I could put up all the posters and things that I've done but that would be boring. If anyone feels so inclined, here is the website www.colabtl.com that I've been responsible. Other than that I would just like to share some pictures of the last two nights, which were awesome and packed out (pat on the back team comms).

Appalachian Spring

Spoon River

Haydn In Costume

Seven!

Prog Is The New Classical (The Connoisseur)

A #CoLabulous Fortnight - Finale of week 1

Well, it's been a long week that's for sure. I've been working pretty much constantly since Monday morning including when I go home on an evening. This being said, I've been having a great time going to the events that all the groups have been putting on. The pub crawl on Thursday was brilliant, a variety of groups making it a fun night for all. Tbh I think it may be my favourite event.

Tonight's event was awesome as well though, The dance faculty was a hive of activity with a large number of projects performing simultaneously while the audience popped in and out. The highlight for me though was the Bollywood group. They were fantastic and got everybody amped up and in a party mood.

When your set starts like that, there is no way people are gonna be bored. Anyway, that's enough for tonight, nanight internet peeps xx

A #CoLabulous Fortnight - And so, it begins...

It's official, CoLab has begun! The opening night party was a complete success. There had been some concern that there wouldn't be good attendence but between the mass emails, facebook event and word of mouth there was a brilliant audience for what was a highly entertaining performance. The picture quality isn't great but check it out.

As we're now officially in CoLab the work rate of the comms team has gradually increased. Things are starting to get done, people are starting to get to know what is going on and we have a great supply of post it notes! My favourite piece of work so far is the entrance board to KCC. It's only temporary until we get the post-it opinions display up but I think it looks quite arty :)

I need to add some more photos but it's getting there. That's pretty much all to report atm. Facebook events for the week are done, the website is looking good, Facebook and Twitter are full of info and pictures and collaboration is in the air. It seems to be too good to be true so I'll update later in the week. Tatty-bye xx

A #CoLabulous Fortnight - The prequel

Boys and girls, guess who's back. Me! I'm gonna try the blog thing again and this time I will keep it going.... promise.... Anyway, this is beside the point. It is once again that wonderful time of year we Trinity Laban students love, CoLab. This year I'm assigned to the CoLab Comms team which is a lot of work and runs throughout the entire fortnight as we market the entire festival period.

Due to a number of personal issues I was not involved in the first few meetings of the Comms team meaning that we now have one week before we start and, tbqh, I am concerned by the lack of activity and drive. The website has not been updated in a year, the twitter account sits dormant and there a couple of sporadic posts on the facebook page but nothing exciting. At this point there hasn't even been an email to introduce the comms team and no info has gone out. There is a LOT to be done!

My task for the week is to get the website up and running. I've spent the evening yesterday creating a new banner to go across the top which will go with the logo for this years festival. Here, take a look.

Nothing particularly fancy but I had a couple of arguments with my laptop while making it. My laptop won more than I did sadly.

I have also taken the initiative and come up with the hashtags for this year. We are using #CoLab2015 and #CoLabulous (it was late at night when I came up with this, shush).

Anyway, I think there is enough to be going on with, I will update you all soon.

Much Love xx

BassoonTube - A short explanation on the power of loss

I haven't uploaded the Carol of the Bells arrangement. Never even recorded it. It's too late to use it now. I wish that the only reason was that I was busy. I wish I could go back and this had never happened. But, life doesn't work like that. At around 4pm on 16th December 2014 my loving, wonderful, amazing dad passed away suddenly and completely unexpectedly. To say the world has crashed around me doesn't even cover it. The worst thing is that I'd been so busy doing work for college that I hadn't seen him for two months before this happened.

But, that's enough of me being emotional for the minute. After all, some poor examiner is going to have to read this and I don't think that an essay on the destructive power of loss on my creativity and motivation will brighten up their day. This being said, I have arranged and recorded a track. A cover of Hey There Delilah by Plain White Ts for flute, oboe and two bassoons. Although this is technically outside my original plan I am going to include it. My brother played the flute and oboe parts however we are not ready to release it publicly yet as it's original purpose was to be played at the funeral which we finally had a few days ago.

Due to the fact that it could be some time before the track is uploaded I'm just gonna include a screen capture to prove that it is in existence.

For obvious reasons I have decided to scale back my project slightly. I had been hoping to create 4 tracks and videos but, with the amount of work I have to do for college on top of all the personal issues I am having I have come to the conclusion that there are not enough hours in the day. As such I am hoping to create three tracks and upload them onto SoundCloud. Depending on how they go down I am also going to plan some videos and, if some of these copyright people ever get back to me, I will upload them to YouTube at some point over the summer.

Hopefully there won't be too long a gap this time haha, see you soon xx

BassoonTube - It's bassoon Jim, but not as we know it

Boys and girls, a very exciting thing is happening. I have, over the last couple of years, become very interested by classical crossover and now, I have the perfect excuse to launch myself into that genre. As part of my degree we have to do a large scale outward facing project and I have been given the go ahead for mine.

The idea is to create arrangements of popular music for bassoon (duets/trios/quartets), include some sneaky/not so sneaky classical music quotes, record it all by my lonesome and record it SoundCloud. I'm then going to start looking at creating videos before uploading to YouTube. Crazy as this all sounds I am really looking forward to getting stuck into it. Currently I'm listening to The Piano Guys, who you should really check out if you haven't listened to them already, for inspiration as they do a very similar thing.


I've already started on an arrangement of Carol of the Bells to come out in December so you probably won't hear from me much about this until then.

Catch you soon xx

Website :O

Hey guys,
Just a quick one today. I've just put my shiny new website online (I know, exciting right?) and was hoping you could maybe have a look and give me some feedback,
Love to you all in advance for being awesome xx
www.deannagreenwood.wix.com/deannabassoon

LPO stalking - Poulenc, Prokofiev and Shostakovich

Well hi there. So, over the past few weeks I’ve been to see a number of concerts by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. They have an amazing student deal on certain concerts that means you can get the best available seat for only £4. If you’re a student and haven’t signed up for the mailing list you should really check it out totally worth your time. The LPO aren’t the only orchestra that do student offer as well so you should have a nosey and see what discounts you can find.

Anyway, tangent over, one of the concerts I went to see was of the Poulenc Piano concerto, Prokofiev Symphony 7 and Poulenc Stabat Matar. Now, I’ve played Prokofiev 7 but the two Poulenc pieces were completely new to me. I adored the piano concerto, the soloist was spectacular and the orchestra were really on the ball. Excellent playing of what is really a beautiful piece. Prokofiev 7 is one of my favourite bassoon parts to play because it’s just so ridiculous at times. Have a listen if you haven’t heard it, it’s a good piece and really enjoyable to listen to. The Stabat Matar was not my favourite but was still quite a good piece.

The other concert was Shostakovich 13 (Babi Yar). This piece is not really performed regularly but was an amazing experience. The combination of male voice choir, bass soloist and orchestra was hair raisingly beautiful. Sadly I need to go to bed so I can’t give you a full review but you should have a listen. I went to broaden my horizons and thoroughly enjoyed it :)

Sorry this a bit dull but hey, I'm funny 99% of the time, this was just the unfortunate 1%, see you next time

So, I accidentally got on a plane to Germany...

Hello world, so, I'm currently in Germany visiting Sez, my bestest friend in the whole world, for her 21st birthday. And this means I managed to get to Mannheim, Germany, just. Now, I don't know how many of you have used London public transport but generally it's very good. On Thursday it totally wasn't. Thanks to a number of delays, trains that decided they weren't actually going to go to terminal 5 even though they said they were and the sheer number of people trying to get to the airport it took me over 2 hours to get there. OVER 2 HOURS! Was a little bit stressed and nearly missed my flight but thankfully managed to escape the motherland to pastures new.
This is where my tale of stress turns into tales of joy. Sez met me at the airport and after a coffee, a train journey and a trip to the local shop we settled into her lovely flat for the night for a catch up and some sleep. Waking up alone on Friday, the poor girl had a three hour lecture on her birthday, at 8:30, owch, I got up and ready to explore. We visited Universitaet Mannheim, where she's studying for the year, which is a castle, jealous much?

We also had an explore of a couple of other places but the main event of yesterday was the Adler Mannheim ice-hockey match which was INSANE! Now, I've never been into ice-hockey, it's not really a thing in England but really, after watching last night, I have no idea why. The game is fascinating, fast paced and has a nice edge of physical contact which keeps it super exciting. The atmosphere throughout the entire match was electric and I can safely say I'm now a Adler Mannheim fan, and we totally smashed Munich. The end score was Munich 0 - Adler Mannheim 9. GO ADLER MANNHEIM! Here's a couple of snaps of the pre-game display and the pitch.

After we arrived

 Pre-game warm up

More warm-up

And we're off!!!

So, the lesson here boys and girls is that I'm now an ice-hockey fan (I know some of the chants and everything, even though they're in German). And that Sez had an amazing 21st birthday. That's all for now, I'll finish my tale, including today's events and extra details, when I get back to the UK but for now, tatty bye :)

If you want to here Sez's opinion on events check her out at http://studiesintheschloss.blogspot.de/ it's also an interesting account on Erasmus for those considering doing a year abroad.

All comments/questions/requests welcome :) xx

First real post - LPO concert and recording shenanigans

Hello world! So, I've finally decided to use my blog as a blog is supposed to be used rather than doing an assessment on it and then hiding it away in the tab fest that is my internet browser (yes I'm one of those people, yes I do judge myself, no I will not change). So, I know how you all want to hear about my life so without further ado, here we go.
So, a quick run down of interesting things that have happened to me recently. I went to watch the London Philharmonic Orchestra concert last Wednesday. It. Was. Awesome! The concert was in their home venue of Royal Festival Hall, a brilliant venue which is a real pleasure to play in, and it was magnificent. I went to the concert not knowing any of the music, I've decided I need to broaden my horizons. The programme was entirely Britten, which is not someone I usually go for, but it was really enjoyable. If any of you get chance to go watch the LPO then go, totally worth it. Also, student tickets are really cheap, especially for the £4 noise concerts. £4 for the best seat available, crazy! But anyway, much fun was had.
Also exciting, today in bassoon class we were working in the recording studio. Bassoonist Alice Lee, who freelances in orchestras and the west end, came in to help us learn about working in a recording environment and to let us know what was expected and so on. It was a realllllllllly fun session. We had a go at recording using click tracks, which is a lot trickier than it sounds, especially when you're sight-reading. Trying to play with headphones on is disorienting, and hearing yourself through them as well as hearing yourself live is bizarre. We also had a go at recording ensemble pieces without a click track but using drop ins to cover any mistakes. A drop in is where you record a small section and replace the original bit with it. All in all a fun and really useful experience .
Well, I think that's enough for now but if you have any feedback/questions leave me a comment (comments are love) and I'll see you all soon :) xx

Check out the LPO at http://www.lpo.org.uk/

CoLab - It's A Kind Of Magic - Show Time

So, wow, just done the magic show. It. Was. AWESOME! Butlers bar has never had such a buzzing atmosphere, like, ever. The show went amazingly well and everyone was really impressed with it. The most terrifying thing about it was that we opened the show.

We opened with Quiajing pouring a glass of wine into a newspaper and the wine magically disappearing and the reappearing at the end, after the newspaper had been opened over a poor unsuspecting member of audience who just came out to enjoy the show, poor girl. While this was happening I was accompanying with a cheerful, jazzy tune on bassoon and Quiajing played on the humorous aspect of the music to create a brilliant performance without saying a word. It was brilliantly done. I then put down the bassoon and took to the stage with accompaniment of dramatic piano. My trick involved filing a glass full of water, placing a piece of paper over it and then turning it upside down over the poor audience members head (I do feel a bit bad about that). The water stays in and then I rip the paper off before letting the water fall out into a bowl. The crowd loved it and we pulled it off spectacularly, in my opinion. The whole project has been brilliant fun and working with the group has been brilliant. A big shout out to Max for organising it and, until next year, farewell :)