UK National Panorama Steelband Competition 2018 at the Emslie Horniman Pleasance Park: August 25

 

 

|| August 09: 2018 || ά. UK National Panorama Steelband takes place at the Emslie Horniman Pleasance Park at Bosworth Road, W10 3DH on Saturday, August 25 at 18:00-23:00, preceding the Notting Hill Carnival taking place this year on August 25-27. 100% of the money raised from the sale of tickets will be distributed equally among all the performing bands as a simple mark of appreciation and respect for such incredible entertainment and to help them recover some of the large expenses that they incurred in creating their performances. Tickets are available now from eventbrite.co.uk at £05.

For the first time, the competition will be brought inside of Emslie Horniman Pleasance Park, where traditionally it has taken place outside. This move will give the audience and bands a far greater and engaging experience. With a capacity of 6,000, there will, also, be incredible food stores selling traditional Caribbean food and a bar will be in operation inside the park for the entire evening. With a deep and rich history, the first UK Panorama Competition took place in 1978. It has since gone on to become the UK's most important steelband competition with bands of up to 120 people rehearsing and fine-tuning their skills throughout the year for a chance of being named the coveted winner by impressing a panel of judges.  

Mr Matthew Phillip, the Executive Director of Notting Hill Carnival Ltd, says, “Panorama is truly one of London’s undiscovered gems and I would encourage anyone, who has not had the pleasure of watching a full steelband perform to come along. You can watch and listen to a steelband online but that is nothing compared to watching and hearing up to 100 people playing steel pans in such unity live; it is a sight and sound like no other!”

The six bands competing this are:  

Croydon Steel Orchestra

Ebony

Mangrove

Metronomes

Phase One

Reading All Steel Percussion Orchestra:RASPO

About Notting Hill Carnival Ltd: After a successful bid to be the official organisers of Notting Hill Carnival 2018, C.V.T. incorporated Notting Hill Carnival Ltd. on January 8th 2018.  Notting Hill Carnival Ltd will develop, create and implement the structure and strategy to deliver on all that is set out in the Carnival Village Trust bid for Notting Hill Carnival 2018.  

Carnival Executive Director, Matthew Philip and Carnival Director Tara Hobson have been involved with the carnival arts for over 25 years and 6 years respectively. Having worked in the heart of the Notting Hill community running The Tabernacle and the Yaa Centre for five years, they are central to the area’s arts provision. These connections have allowed for the quick engagement with the community and will ensure a great working presence in 2018 and beyond.

Carnival Village Trust: Established in 2007, Carnival Village Trust or C.V.T. is a registered charity that is located in the heart of Notting Hill’s remarkable and diverse community. As London’s development agency for Carnival Arts, C.V.T. has championed the traditional Caribbean carnival art forms that spawn the artistic expression at the epicentre of Europe’s largest street event: Notting Hill Carnival.  

C.V.T. is an independent organisation receiving primary funding from Arts Council England and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to deliver an integrated programme of carnival arts across two venues: The Tabernacle and The Yaa Centre.

C.V.T. operates all year round delivering a diverse programme of Carnival Arts and African Caribbean events including workshops, classes, theatre productions, music performance, dance performance, mas band launches, book launches, art and photographic exhibitions, comedy and film. C.V.T. aims to deliver artistic productions and educational programs of a high standard, seeking to expand the boundaries of Carnival Arts and promote their delivery to a wide and diverse audience.

The Tabernacle, also, hosts a restaurant and bar and serves as a communal hub for the local community, a home from home. Both venues offer dedicated and well-equipped arts spaces for hire at subsidised rates. For generations these two venues have been central spaces for the operational coordination and artistic showcasing of the Notting Hill Carnival and its artistic expressions as well as being the base, meeting place and registered addresses of the five Carnival Arts arenas and previous Carnival organisers, London Notting Hill Carnival Enterprises Trust. 

About Panorama: Throughout the year all across the UK steelbands have been rehearsing and fine-tuning their skills for this very important date on the pan lovers’ calendar – one of the largest steel pan competitions outside of the Caribbean.

The Panorama National Steelband Competition sees six bands play a ten-minute composition from memory – no sheet music is allowed. Panorama competitions are traditionally open-air events and Notting Hill Carnival's Panorama is no exception. Watch the sunset, eat Caribbean street food and enjoy the sweet sound of pan whilst the steelbands get on with the serious business of impressing the judges. The steelbands will proudly hold their ranked titles until next year... when we do it all again.

About Notting Hill Carnival: Claudia Jones, a Trinidadian human rights activist based in London, put on a BBC broadcasted indoor ‘Caribbean Carnival’ at St Pancras Town Hall back in 1959. She is widely credited with planting the seeds for carnival in the UK by doing so. With the blueprint set, an appetite for the indoor Caribbean carnival was fed by the likes of Trinidadian husband and wife booking agents Edric and Pearl Connor who along with others including The West Indian Gazette were promoting the indoor events in halls dotted around London well into the 1960s. It wasn’t until 1966 when the first outdoor festival took place in the streets of Notting Hill. A local resident and Social Worker Rhaune Laslett, a Londoner of Native American and Russian descent, organised an event for local children. A community activist with a history of easing racial tension in the area since the race riots of the 1950s, she set out to include the local West Indian residents in her event. She invited well-known pan player Russell Henderson, who was joined by his pan band members Sterling Betancourt, Vernon ‘Fellows’ Williams, Fitzroy Coleman and Ralph Cherry. The band was already popular amongst the Caribbean community as they were regulars at the indoor carnival events, and so as Laslett had intended, many local Caribbean residents did in fact attend, and her vision of an outdoor multi-cultural community celebration was a huge success. It saw Henderson’s steelband weave its way through Portobello Road, as a trail of locals spontaneously gathered and danced in the street to the sound of pan. The first Notting Hill Carnival was born.

Today Notting Hill Carnival is still proudly a very community-lead event, however, its ever-increasing popularity over the last 5 decades has seen it swell to become the wonderfully diverse and vibrant event it is today. With over a million expected over the August bank holiday, it’s second only to Brazil’s Rio carnival in size. And whilst Notting Hill Carnival is well-rooted in Caribbean culture and its Windrush generation influence is strongly evident, it is at the same time uniquely ‘London’. Today’s London. It’s the only large carnival in the world to feature static sound systems that were introduced in 1973 by promoter Leslie Palmer. That contribution from Jamaican culture now sees approx 38 sound systems playing every genre of music from reggae to house, from blues to afrobeats and almost everything in between, with world-renowned DJs and the likes of Stormzy and Wiley taking to the mic. There are live stage performances too, with the first organised by Wilf Walker in 1979 when the line-up was predominantly reggae and punk. The live stages have given us performances from emerging talent like Aswad and Eddie Grant who both went on to become two of the UK’s biggest musical exports to the likes of hip hop’s legendary Jay Z, Lil’ Kim and Busta Rhymes all hitting an NHC stage the same year. Carnival attracts and appeals to, people from all over the world, from small children to the elderly. It evokes passion and joy and means different things to different people... But one thing that it definitely means to all is UNITY.:::ω.

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The Southern Jazz in the House

 

 

|| March 22: 2018: University of Southampton News ||ά. Turner Sims Southampton, part of the University of Southampton, will receive over £315,000 for an ambitious scheme to, significantly, raise the aspirations of emerging and professional jazz artists, standards of performance, composition and promotion across the UK’s Southern regions. Turner Sims will now launch a three-year talent development programme Jazz South, the only music project in the country selected within the final round of the Arts Council England’s Ambition for Excellence programme fund.

Through Jazz South, established and emerging artists and gifted and talented children and young people, will work with promoters and leading UK and international figures. New work will be commissioned and talent and excellence developed through masterclasses and residencies. Jazz South will benefit from Turner Sims’ strong track record in jazz promotion, development and commitment to broadening the reach and raising the profile of the sector. Talent development opportunities will be offered throughout the Arts Council’s South West region, in addition to the central and southern parts of Arts Council’s current South East region, from Buckinghamshire to Kent.

The University’s own world-leading Music department, one of the largest and most diverse in the UK, will be involved in the project. Mr Kevin Appleby, Turner Sims Concert Hall Manager, said of the award, “This is a hugely exciting moment for Turner Sims and I’m most grateful to Arts Council England for their support.

This investment enables us to realise our aspirations for creating new opportunities for the jazz sector in the South of England. I know from the conversations we have had with a range of organisations and individuals across the region already that there is a great appetite for this and I look forward to working with partners regionally, nationally and internationally to bring these opportunities to life.”

Sir Christopher Snowden, President and Vice-Chancellor at the University of Southampton, said, ''The University welcomes this funding for its renowned concert hall and is proud to be supporting this significant sector development, playing a leading role in talent development for jazz artists of all ages. As custodians of culture in Southampton, this extraordinary project is testimony to our University’s determination and commitment to the fundamental role, that arts and culture play and further underpins our essential role in nurturing new talent.”

Mr Phil Gibby, Area Director, South West, Arts Council England, said, “We’re delighted to be supporting Turner Sims with a significant grant of £315,755 through our National Lottery-funded Ambition for Excellence programme. The fund supports and stimulates ambition, talent and excellence in arts and culture across England and our investment in Jazz South looks set to support a step change in jazz music across the south west and south east of England.

Turner Sims, already, has a distinctive jazz programme with fantastic links across Europe and this investment will enable this identity to grow by developing young, emerging and established talent, creating new commissions and building different and diverse audiences. We are excited to see what the next three years have in store for jazz in the region, nationally and beyond.”

Turner Sims will be announcing the details of the first tranche of programme activity in summer 2018. ω.

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|| February 23: 2018 || ά. The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Contemporary Music category goes, in this tenth edition, to Finnish composer Ms Kaija Saariaho on the basis of 'a contribution to contemporary music, that is extraordinary in its individuality, breadth and scope'. From her earliest works, the jury continues, Ms Saariaho has exhibited 'a seamless interweaving of the worlds of acoustic music and technology', a quality, which the new laureate remarked, after hearing of the award, had come to her quite naturally. When she started studying music at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, she was frustrated at the acoustics of the venues she would attend to hear live performances.

Wondering, if, it was possible to alter characteristics like the volume of the instruments, she began recording them and processing the sound for subsequent playback. In 1982, she moved to Paris to continue her training at the Institut de Recherche et Co-ordination Acoustique:Musique:IRCAM, where she came into contact with the leading exponents of spectralism. The spectralist technique of decomposing sound left a recognisable imprint on Ms Saariaho’s writing in the form of electronic arrangements and computer-generated sounds. The combination of synthetic sounds, classical instrumentation and elements of nature shines through in early works like Lichtbogen, 1986, inspired by the Northern lights. “Coming from Finland, of course, has made me more sensitive to nature.” she explains.

“And this has a lot to do with the acoustics. When you walk through a big forest after the rain, the acoustics are very different, because the leaves are wet and that creates a reverberation. The forest is like a church. The same thing happens with snow, which creates a very particular silence. These childhood experiences are part of me and part of my music.” Ms Saariaho, also, acknowledges the influence of electronics and technology in her oeuvre to the extent that they have helped her pursue her chosen direction.

However, she does not see them as the core element. “My aim is that the listener doesn’t perceive the frontiers of the electronic component in my music. It is part of the orchestration. When there is something I can not do with natural instruments, I turn to computers, then I complete the orchestration, the musical idea.”

For the jury, Ms Saariaho’s music has 'a unique quality, that is, almost, as visual as it is sonorous'. And one that is steeped in imagination. As she says, “I have always loved music, as long as I can remember. My mother told me that at night when I was going to sleep, I would start to imagine that I was hearing music. So much so that I couldn’t fall asleep and would ask her to ‘turn off the pillow.’ Music has always been in my mind and my imagination.”

Ms Saariaho initially thought that her music was not dramatic enough for opera. Nonetheless, the idea stuck in her mind. The definitive push came with a Peter Sellers production of Olivier Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise, performed at the Salzburg Festival, which she describes as 'liberating' and 'a sign', that she could venture into the opera genre. “It was a lengthy process.” she recalls now. “Lasting about eight years in all. At first, I didn’t know who would be interested or if I could do it. But, finally, the means came together to make it possible.”

In the year 2000, back at the Salzburg Festival, she was present for the world premiere of her first opera L’Amour de loin, with a libretto by the Lebanese writer Mr Amin Maalouf. Its success, notes the jury, positioned Ms Saariaho at the forefront of a world in which women have, traditionally, been underrepresented. Asked whether being a woman meant she had to work harder, she offers a meditated response, “It was undoubtedly an obstacle, when I was a young composer trying to get a start and it still is for many young women today. But now that I have made a name in music, I don’t experience it as a problem.”

She has followed up L’Amour de loin with a further three operas, Adriana Mater, 2006, Émilie, 2010 and Only the Sound Remains, 2015, all of which address themes she considers important for humanity. “Love is one.” she relates. “And another is death. Both are great mysteries, that form part of our lives.”

Ms Saariaho is an eminently versatile author, known for her ability to switch genre. She has written for soloists and chamber groups and composed orchestral works, operas, oratories and vocal, incidental and electronic music. Her four operas, along with her chamber and orchestral music repertoire, are familiar ground to Conductor Mr Ernest Martínez Izquierdo, who has directed every work of hers in a collaboration dating back twenty-five years. He talks admiringly of how she has carved out a path in a male-dominated profession.

“It hasn’t been easy but she knows what she wants and doesn’t stop until she achieves it. She comes over as very sweet and never raises her voice; but she has character and, if, she doesn’t like something she says so. She is honest and forthright.”

Mr Martínez Izquierdo admits that Ms Saariaho’s music is a challenge to perform. ''But not because the score is very complex, as might happen composers like Boulez, but because you, also, have to grasp her musical poetics. Her music is more than the notes, it is, also, colour. And to perform it, you have to coax that colour from the sounds. Her approach to the orchestra starts from electronics and she knows how to get the musicians to produce effects and sounds from that world, which she then fuses with actual electronics. The result is that both sounds merge so smoothly you can not tell them apart.

As a writer she is always thinking of the performer and is very loyal to those she has worked with. She spoils us and gives us an unaccustomed degree of freedom. With other composers, you can feel like a metronome; she makes you part of the creative process in a way very few authors do, which is why I cherish working with Kaija.”

Perhaps this freedom flows from the importance that the Finnish composer accords to creativity, the bridge, as she sees it, between science and culture. “All the great inventions come from creative minds, so there are obviously many meeting points between the two worlds. I follow scientific developments with great interest, especially, in the domain of music and acoustics.”

Ms Kaija Saariaho is currently working on what will be her fifth opera. “It is a long piece, that I started on some years ago and I will continue working on it until early 2019.”

The jury in this category was chaired by Mr Nicholas Cook, Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Cambridge, UK. The secretary was Mr  Pwyll Ap Sion, Professor in Music in the School of Music at Bangor University, UK. Remaining members were Mr Tom Huizenga, a music Producer, Reporter and Editor for radio network NPR Music, Violinist Ms Leila Josefowicz, Mr Andrew McGregor, a Broadcaster with BBC Radio Three and Mr Alex Ross, Music Critic and Staff Writer on The New Yorker.

The Contemporary Music award in last year’s edition went to Russian Composer Ms Sofia Gubaidulina for the 'spiritual quality' imbuing her work and 'the transformative dimension of her music'. ω.

Kaija Saariaho

|| February 05: 2018: University of St Andrews News || ά. A new CD celebrates world-renowned composer Sir James MacMillan, Professor at the University of St Andrews’ Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts:ITIA and his ongoing contributions, as composer and mentor, to sacred music and theology. Performed by the St Salvator’s Chapel Choir, under the direction of Mr Tom Wilkinson, Annunciations: Sacred Music for the 21st Century, being released on March 09, is a CD collection of sacred choral music by Sir James MacMillan, his inspirations, contemporaries and six outstanding young British and Irish composers mentored by him on the TheoArtistry Composers Scheme.

The CD will be launched at a special free concert on Tuesday, March 06 at 19:30 in St Salvator’s Chapel, University of St Andrews. The concert forms the culmination of the TheoArtistry Festival: Sacred Music for the 21st Century, which will explore the challenges and opportunities for sacred music in the 21st century, including, sessions on sacred music in and outside the church, as well as, reflection by leading scholars on new directions in theology and music. TheoArtistry is a ground-breaking initiative led by the ITIA, a pioneer of theologically informed programming and performance:TIPP, which promotes the practice, making, performance, curatorship and reception of Christian art. Annunciations brings together theologians and artists seeking new insights to the role of the arts in theology and church practice.

Almost 100 young composers from across the United Kingdom applied to join the TheoArtistry Composers Scheme for the chance to be mentored by Sir James MacMillan and the opportunity to work alongside Dr George Corbett from the ITIA and researchers from the School of Divinity at the University. The composers were encouraged to collaborate with theologians, using divinity as a source of inspiration.

Annunciations takes the listener on a musical journey through salvation history, exploring how and when God communicates to humankind and is released on Sanctiandree Records, the University’s internationally distributed record label.Sir James MacMillan said, ''It will be interesting to see if the next generation of composers will engage with theology, Christianity or the general search for the sacred.

There has been a significant development in this kind of intellectual, academic and creative activity in the last 20 years or so. In the world of theology there is an understanding that the arts open a unique window onto the divine.

Lecturer in the ITIA and Director of TheoArtistry, Dr George Corbett said, “Music is for many people, whether believers or not, a profound spiritual, intellectual and emotional resource. Where Historically Informed Performance:HIP tends to focus on style, Theologically Informed Programming and Performance:TIPP privileges the intense religious dimension of music. This TheoArtistry recording is an opportunity to celebrate the way that the divine seems to speak to humankind through music.”

University Organist and Director of Chapel Music Mr Tom Wilkinson said, “It has been a joy to explore the music of Sir James MacMillan, and to be part of his work with the next generation of composers. Our collaborative work with the young composers and theologians, Sir James and Dr George Corbett, has enriched our understanding of this wonderful tradition, and more to the point, has produced six fantastic new pieces.”

Sir James MacMillan, one of Scotland’s most accomplished living classical composers and conductors, holds a part-time professorship in ITIA. Alongside five of his own pieces, the album includes works by two decisive influences on Sir James MacMillan, Benjamin Britten and Kenneth Leighton; two significant contemporaries, John Tavener and Judith Bingham.

Annunciations: Sir James MacMillan, and Sacred Music for the 21st Century CD will be on sale for £14.50 on St Salvators Chapel Choir website.The CD general release date is Friday, March 09, 2018.

Sanctiandree is distributed in the UK by Proper Note and in the USA by Membran Entertainment Group. Sanctiandree is the University of St Andrews’ CD label, launched in 2015. ω.

Caption: The St Salvator's Chapel Choir Image: University of St Andrews

|| January 28: 2018: University of Aberdeen News || ά. Ms Amy Papiransky, 24, from Keith, who is a music graduate of the University of Aberdeen, graduating in 2015 with a bachelors in Music Education and has since been working as a music teacher in schools, as well as, undertaking her Masters and recording her first EP of her own work. And, along the way, she now has reached the final of the of BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year, which has been underway at this weekend.

But today, Sunday, January 28 Ms Papiransky is terribly occupied and, understandably, excited with her aims and efforts focusing on producing the performance of her life in front of a packed out Celtic Connections Festival at Glasgow’s City Halls. Now, here, she will have to ignite the Celtic Souls towards reaching and seeing into the heights of her musical prowess, reaches, riches and subtleties in order to win the accolade and the title. “I am really nervous to be honest. Super excited but nervous. I definitely think this will be my most important performance yet.” Ms Papiransky says.

“It’s been a goal of mine to enter the competition ever since a friend of mine reached the final in 2009. A group of us went to see him perform in the final and I thought, ‘I would love to be in this!’. Since then it has been one of my goals to enter and even just get accepted into the semi-finals, I never dreamed I would reach the finals with such an amazingly talented line-up.

There really are a crazy number of young traditional players and singers out there now. I am just going to pretend it isn't a competition and simply just a concert. Winning is not even a thought for me but I guess I should never say never!

So far the competition experience has been amazing. I have met new friends in my fellow competitors and gained more knowledge on useful organisations such as PRS. I have also made many more contacts that will hopefully help me to get my name out there in the folk scene.”

Ms Papiransky says that the support and training she received at the University of Aberdeen has played its role in her ongoing success. “I absolutely loved studying at Aberdeen. I met friends for life, both fellow students and tutors. I was so lucky to receive an extremely high standard of tuition in classical voice and piano at the University and I thank Blair Cargill and Gillian Jack so much for this.”

Since graduating, she has moved to Glasgow, where she has been teaching at schools in the North Lanarkshire area. Last year she started her Masters in Scots Song at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

“It has been fun so far, very much self-taught, as in, the majority of the course is performance-based so I have been working on my own individual projects. Right now I am in the middle of recording my first EP and the plan is to have my first album consisting of my own song writing out either at the end of this year or the start of next.

I, also, head to India in March to sing and play with an organisation called 'Ethno'. I would be one extremely happy young woman if I could continue working in song writing, Scots song and performing at festivals locally and internationally whilst keeping my High School music teaching on the side along with tutoring privately and singing and playing at weddings.” ω.

Caption: Amy Papiranksy: Image: University of Aberdeen