Music for Theatre – Composing for All Eventualities
The music themes are all pretty much composed for The Count of Monte Cristo, a new, irreverent theatre adaptation of the book by Alexandre Dumas. Rehearsals start next week at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, where it will play from mid-April to mid-May.
These are some of the challenges which have become clear through the writing process.
They Only Come At Night: Visions on Tour
I love soundifying Slung Low’s promos. They’re so flippin’ exciting!
The hit sell-out show is on tour…
Sold out at the Barbican in October, They Only Come At Night: Visions is moving to the Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield, next week (23-28th November, 2009).
So if you didn’t get your ticket before they all sold out for [...]
Beyond The Front Line – Up and Running
Beyond The Front Line, the Slung Low promenade show, is now playing at the Lowry Theatre in Salford until next weekend (17th Oct 2009)
Requiem for Beyond the Front Line
As promised in my last post, here’s some news about my latest project, the Requiem for Beyond the Front Line.
It’s actually probably better to describe it as a Requiemetta, putting to music five verses of the many-more that are usually part of a Requiem.
The most exciting part about this project for me is that the [...]
TOCANLive: The Hunt Goes Live Online!
Slung Low, the fantabulous theatrical collective, is launching TOCANLive this Monday, 10th August.
TOCANLive is an Alternative Reality Game (ARG) that will expand the world of ‘They Only Come At Night’, Slung Low’s series of vampire shows, to a worldwide audience, and promote the next show, They Only Come At Night: Resurrection, which is on at [...]
Patience and Planning Contingencies
What do you do when your best-laid plans go awry? Do you stress out? Rile against the injustice of it all? Or do you have other strategies to deal with such a situation?
Last week, my car’s back window was smashed in. This irked me somewhat, but mostly because it messed with my schedule. But [...]
Unexpected Inspiration
Inspiration, the source of creativity. I would say that mine usually comes from the film that I have in front of me, or conversations with a director; or, at least, that is the most obvious source.
This morning I drove from Sheffield to Manchester for my final day working with Slung Low at the Lowry theatre [...]
Composing Music for Slung Low Theatre
This month it was my turn to write the ‘New Thoughts’ article for the Slung Low website, entitled ‘Why Music’.
You can read the whole post here.
In the article I cover a few basic, practical reasons for including music in a Slung Low show.
Slung Low makes installation and site-specific theatre. It’s anything but conventional, [...]
What Kind Of Posts Would YOU Like To See?
Take a look at the poll at the top of the sidebar to the right: I want to know what YOU want to see and read here. You decide what I write about next. ————->
The categories are pretty self-explanatory, but if there’s something you’d like to know about that I haven’t put in [...]
Inspiration
inspiration n
stimulation or arousal of the mind, feelings, etc., to special or unusual activity or creativity
the state or quality of being so stimulated or aroused
someone or something that causes this state
an idea or action resulting from such a state
the act or process of inhaling; breathing in
From English Collins Dictionary – English Definition & Thesaurus
Inspiration is [...]
A Day In The Life Of A Composer
Today is going to be a pretty typical day for me. As in hectic. And exactly the kind of work I like.
Although composing is now my bread and butter, I also do other work to keep the roof over my head. Today is a pretty good example of how I live day-to-day. It [...]
Beyond The Front Line – Trailer for a Slunglow Show
Beyond The Front Line is a new show by Slunglow, currently in development and due to play at the Lowry, Manchester in October. Below is the new trailer…
A Week of Research and Development with Slunglow
Having just returned last Sunday from a week of research and development with the Slunglow team, I’ve had time to reflect on how the week went for me in terms of productivity, efficiency, effectiveness, those sorts of things.
Winter Break
We stayed in St. Aygulf on the South Coast of France, the French Riviera, just down the [...]
Trailer Podcast – Beyond The Front Line by Slung Low
Beyond The Front Line – Trailer (01:46)
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Click on the player to hear the trailer podcast for Beyond The Front Line, a outdoors installation theatre show produced by Slung Low in association with The Lowry Theatre. It’s playing 7th-17th October 2009 and is shaping up to be an unforgettably epic theatrical experience with performance, movement, lights, sound, video projection and pyrotechnics.
Theatre Music – Terre Haute off Broadway
Terre Haute has received its first review Stateside from Jon Sobel on the Blog Critics website.
I’m very chuffed to read that my music gets a mention!
“the dark-Americana musical score by Heather Fenoughty heightens the play’s ‘weird America’ atmosphere at critical moments.”
Now I’m smiley
Click here to read the full review Theatre Review (NYC): Terre Haute [...]
Sundance Theatre Lab at White Oak in Florida
This is Day 5 for me at the Sundance Theatre Lab at White Oak Plantation, Florida. I’m here as composer with a great bunch of artists from Punchdrunk Theatre developing ideas for their epic, immersive, experiential, theatre adaptation of Woyzeck.
Is Film Music Art or Just Low-Brow Commercial Fluff?
Is any music that is created for a purpose, other than that of it’s own existence, art? Is film music art, or theatre music, or advert music, or music that appears on a CD-Rom presentation, or accompanying a website promo film, or music on a trailer? Even if the music’s primary purpose is purely commercial – to sell that product or promote another – does that preclude its intrinsic value as art?
Online Music Licensing – How to Make Money from your Back Catalogue
Today I’ve been uploading music to YouLicense and CuePop. These are both sites in the business of online music licensing that will put that back catalogue of unused music to good use and hopefully make you some money! If you’ve also been savvy enough to keep your copyright and licensed your commissioned music non-exclusively, then [...]
Writing Music for Theatre – Helium
The ’short adventure for one’, Helium, has completed its run at the Barbican.
4 stars in The Guardian
The show is a theatrical installation, or ‘box show’ where an audience member travels through a number of specially-constructed rooms featuring digital audio, video and live performance. The audience is invited to follow Bella’s imaginary journey through her Grandfather’s [...]
First Post
Hi – and welcome to my new blog!
My first post comes on one of the last few performance dates of ‘Helium’ by Slung Low, performing at The Barbican in London to riotous acclaim (4 stars in The Guardian, same in Metro), and the news that I’ll be off to Florida in October with the [...]
