WHAT IF? REMEMBERED / IMAGINED
We’ve just come out of our 3 day rehearsal for Remembered / Imagined; an intense, challenging, surprising and wonderful experience. The project started last year, when I realised how much I loved writing for Mr McFalls Chamber, and how much I loved working with Pippa Murphy, and how much more there was left to do. That there were so many questions about this collaboration.
Remembered Imagined is a learning project, created through a spirit of “what if”. What if we asked Traditional music composers to write for Classical players? What would the challenges be in communicating between these two very different playing and reading cultures? What if we decided to work with poets, to explore language and music, what is the genre that is created somewhere between theatre, radio plays, performance poetry, storytelling and music? What if we wanted to work with all the different tongues and dialects in Scotland?
And what if we went into the School of Scottish studies? A sweetie shop of old tales, voices, songs, photographs and memories. What if we tried to collaborate with people long gone, with part of our culture which is entombed in these glorious archives? And then what if we took those memories, and brought them through to our audience using technology, using the internet, mp3s, live samples, and live processing?
What would happen?
And what if we asked 3 different pairs of composers and writers to try to do this? What would they find? How would they approach this, what would their relationships be like? How would the collaborations work? What balance between word and music would they find?
So this week we brought our collection of wonderful people together to find out, what if? Ailie Robertson, Rebecca Sharp, Angus Peter Campbell, Mike Vass, Sophie Cooke, Charlotte Murray, Ben Seal, Joe Seal, Judith Walsh, Pippa Murphy, Su-a Lee, Rosenna East, Rick Standley, Andrew Berridge and of course Robert McFall, all in one room, all doing the thing they do best, find a way to speak to each other, to share our languages, to make the thing, the thing of what ifs.
We’ll be sharing this work, this world of “what if” at two performances in March. We’d love to have you along, to join our questioning world, to see and hear the work of these extraordinary people making something new, all different, all beautiful. Come join us.
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