After a very early start for me (chickenpox children) I was really pleased to be in Amble's realm of Chapels and stain glass windows, meditative spaces and BIG reverb.
Amble's piece 'Chapels...' has some beautiful string writing with a lovely repeating cello line, floating violin contrasting with upper string pizz. The samples of welsh medieval poetry towards the end of the piece wove beautifully into the landscape.
Amble was really clear what she wanted to achieve with the piece - a kind of post post modernistic hyper-reality grounded in ancient medieval alchemy.
By the end of the day the piece worked really well with Amble subtly mixing in delays and reverbs and really catching the lovely bass line she had written in the score. It is a rare privilege to be able to rehearse with an ensemble and really work on the timing of events and the internal spaces between events.
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