The journey to this concert was an exciting and difficult one I would say. We named this second instalment of the Virtually Live: LIVE series ‘Sound and Space’ as it was the first concert we introduced our new ideas around exploring the space we were performing in and how that could effect the way the sound of the music was received by the audience.
The idea of putting on a concert like this was something we had been discussing for a little while so we already had a lot of the ideas, it was just having the means to put them into practice that enabled the concert to go ahead which is where RPS and Harriet’s Trust helped us!
The first step in putting on this concert was deciding what pieces we would perform with choreography as we needed to have them memorised first. Having worked on memorising pieces together before we have found that it is most effective when we memorise pieces as a group. We would start the process like this and then continue the memorisation at home. I found it a lot easier to remember my own part by hearing how it fit with the other parts so would also play along to recordings of us practising the pieces together to help.
The memorisation was just the first hurdle in creating the performance we were aiming for! Next, we had to create suitable movements to go with the pieces. As Jess mentioned in her blog post, the funding allowed us to have a session with a choreographer where we explored moving as a group and then putting that into the context of our chosen pieces. We began with exercises in moving spontaneously together, using the space and communicating with each other non-verbally. These were really interesting exercises, since as an ensemble we are trained to respond to each other’s sounds so quickly and communicate non-verbally through music, however using body movement as well added a new nuance to this.
Having worked on setting up this communication, we then started thinking creatively about what we wanted each piece to say.
For example, O’ Fredrik, O’ Fredrik (an upbeat folk tune) felt like a performance of friends meeting and playing together spontaneously, teaching each other new melodies as the music developed through variations of the tune. This was the story we tried to tell through the movement.
For Weep O Mine Eyes, (a slow and emotional madrigal) we decided the best way to enhance the music was actually just to stay very still, stood at the front of the stage in a line, like a choir. This gave us a moment of stillness in an otherwise active programme and therefore felt like a really important moment in the concert. It was through this process that we learned that sometimes the best way to enhance the music with movement might actually be no movement at all.
Every step of the way we asked ourselves, does this support the music or interfere with it?
It was really interesting to see how we were able to bring the music to life, tell a story or emphasise what we wanted audiences to hear through the way we moved and interacted with each other.
Once we had created our movement pieces and curated the whole programme, we then did something else completely new for us – we staged the whole programme! This meant working out what instruments were needed where and when, what pieces we would take stands away for and what pieces we would move our stand positions for. It was the first time we had visualised one of our concerts as a whole stage production, curating every aspect of it beyond the music itself. Eleanor, being the tech whizz of the group, created diagrams of the stage layout for each piece so that we could each go through and write in our own stage instructions which was a really useful and clear way to visualise the concert.
As the concert drew nearer and things started to come together, we hit several bumps in the road. A group member caught Covid before the initial date and we had to postpone the concert.
We had to change venue (to the Niamos Arts Centre in Hulme) and reprint and repost our advertising, but we'd gained some good momentum with the publicity and took this in our stride. Jess had been experimenting with paid advertising on Facebook and Instagram and we'd decided to print flyers to distribute around Manchester ready for the first date - although we had to pay for this again for the new date, it was all a good learning experience and helped understand what marketing worked best for us and maybe we needed to advertise for longer than we initially thought.
A few weeks before the rescheduled date I found out I could finally have the knee surgery I had been waiting for but it would be just 10 days before the concert date. This would have been a complication for any ordinary concert but for one where we had envisioned moving during pieces it was going to be a problem! So we had another meeting and rearranged some of the choreography, trying to imagine what I would be able to do at that stage, and making sure we used what we had to the best of our abilities.
We had some really amazing creative sessions planning and re-planning the choreography, remembering that the music should come first and any movement to enhance this would have an impact. This concert would be the first step in a journey towards reinventing how we perform and as such, we were in unchartered waters.
On the actual day of the concert, we had rehearsal time in the venue to practice the movement pieces and space them out in the room. This was really important as we hadn’t worked in the space before so adjustments had to be made to make sure the movement still looked affective in a new room shape. We had also planned all the speaking we would do during the concert, taking it in turns to talk about the group and the concept behind the concert.
All in all it was a successful concert with a really big audience and possibly the most exciting concert I have performed in. A lot of planning went into, and with all the obstacles, it made it even more satisfying when everything came together. There was also a really lovely vibe to the concert because we had put in the work to pull down some of the barriers that usually exist in classical music concerts and worked to connect with the audience both through how we interacted with them between pieces, but also how we presented the music to them. Being able to perform away from music and music stands meant that we not only connected with the audience more, but also with each other, improving our sound as an ensemble.
It is definitely an approach to performing we will continue to explore and develop and we are looking forward to working with the choreographer more in the future to keep learning.
by Sarah
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