Copy
View this email in your browser

Red Note's Spring 2020 Newsletter

Red Note performs Eight Songs for a Mad King at Cottiers Theatre
Hello Everyone

In common with the rest of the country faced with the Covid-19 crisis, we’ve stocked up on oatcakes and loo roll, undergone ninja multitasking training for simultaneously homeschooling and home working, taken our hour of mandatory exercise, rolled up our sleeves and got on with trying to work out how best to be useful rather than useless in these strange, strange times. Music may be the food of love - but even we know it’s not actually food. Health care, food parcels and financial and family security must come first for everyone right now - but our hope is that what’s in this newsletter from Red Note is at the very least temporarily diverting, interesting and entertaining for you all.

Stay safe, everyone! Take good care of yourselves and those around you, and stay in touch.

Warmest wishes,
The Red Note Team
Image by Robert McFadzean

What we've been up to in 2020...

 
We started the year across the pond for the the New York 2020 ISPA Congress: meeting, networking and learning with over 670 delegates from 57 regions.
It was a great opportunity to spark new collaborations and discuss key issues very close to our practice: eliminating barriers, diversity, community engagement, placemaking, and sustainability.


In February, we culminated the workshops of the Leverhulme Conducting Fellowship outside of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland for the first time. Red Note & MusicLab took on the remarkable music-theatre piece by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Eight Songs for a Mad King, with MMus Opera student Oskar McCarthy in the role of the Mad King, and conducted by fellow Teresa Riveiro Bohm. The special performance at Cottiers theatre also featured works by Mark Simpson, Harrison Birtwistle and new works by Sean O’Callaghan and Rylan Gleave.
 
"There was surely far too much good work in this staging of a fifty-year-old masterpiece for it to remain a one-off." Keith Bruce, The Herald 
Oceans Tour poster
In March, we were getting ready to travel around the Scottish Highlands and Islands with Kuljit Bhamra, Eliza Marshall, Jackie Shave, Robert Irvine and Crawford Logan. The Oceans Tour interleaves music and poetry from local and international poets celebrating and exploring the passions of the Oceans. Much to our disappointment, the Covid-19 outbreak forced us to put the tour on hold until safer times for our audiences and our musicians.

Noisy Nights social distancing edition

Red Note musicians
Red Note is embracing the digital world and providing an outlet to continue listening to emerging new musical ideas and voices. We are planning not just one but four nights of brand new music with these exceptional Red Note musicians that you can enjoy from your own home.
  • Ruth Morley – Flute,
  • Sasha Savaloni – Classical guitar,
  • Tom Hunter – Percussion,
  • Jackie Shave – Violin,
  • and Robert Irvine – Cello.

After opening a challenge to composers by randomly assigning them an instrument to write a solo piece for one of the five instruments, the 20 compositions selected by the players will be performed on our YouTube channel on four separate concerts: 10  April, 17 April, 24 April and 1 May. The last concert on the 1st May will be a special one including pieces from the youngest composers.

Join us from your home to ours and connect with other new music lovers online, as we hear some of the best examples of brand new music from new, emerging and established composers.

Image by Wattie Cheung

Relive 'Pass the Spoon'


Pass the Spoon performers on the Royal MileWe have another Covid-19 antidote for the quarantine: David Shrigley and David Fennessy’s “Sort-of Opera”, a collaboration of Red Note & Magnetic North. 

'Pass the Spoon' was a huge hit with critics and audiences during sell-out runs at Tramway, Traverse and Southbank Centre. What else can we say? Well...
It’s a show with actors, music and food.
It’s a bit like an opera, but with vegetables and fruit.
It’s about cooking.
It’s possibly the only show you’ll see this year featuring a dung beetle.
Oh, and someone gets eaten. Did we mention that?


You can now watch the performance at the Southbank Centre for free, all we ask is to make a donation (if you can) to support actors & musicians in these difficult times.

Coming up next...

We are monitoring developments and in the meantime working full of hope with our friends in Lammermuir and Sound to reunite with our audiences in the festivals this Autumn. 
 

Looking beyond performance...


We were thrilled to hear that our application to be a host organisation for Weston Jerwood Creative Bursaries 2020-22 has been successful. The bursary will help us expand our approach to diverse recruitment, and specifically will enable us to create a year-long Fellowship for an early-career creative professional. We’ll be supporting them to grow their skills and experience through work across our exciting 5 Places programme. Whilst Covid-19 (yes, that again!) has put the whole programme on hold, we’re raring to get going. Expect to hear more, soon!

5 Places: 2020 marks our third year of this project at the core of Red Note’s access, engagement and participation programme. We are working over a period of several years in 5 different locations in Scotland to develop creative music-making in the heart of their communities. We have started the sessions for the final performance work at Easterhouse with composer Brian Irvine; we are also getting to know the community at Methil better during our second year there, and we are looking forward to getting started this year at Ferguslie Park (Paisley).
 
Go Compose!: We are working with our friends at Sound to finalise the details of the next edition this autumn, getting ready to welcome a new group young composers and creative musicians. In the meantime, you can listen online to the fantastic compositions of last year's participants.

New Music Makers: while we wait for the schools to reopen and go back to work with the students in their composition skills, we are in discussion with music teachers to develop an online method to support them in their music lessons and inspire the pupils' creativity while at home.

In development: Birds

Taking a look at some of the work in preparation now for future years, we are very excited to be announcing that we are starting work on “Birds” (working title), a new music show for children under 8 years old based on the Welsh myth of the Birds of Rhiannon, supernatural creatures that possessed healing powers.
Our musicians will work with a soundscape, moving around the installation of magical birds and interacting with the children, encouraging them to also participate creating sounds and images.
We’re hoping for Birds to be premiered in Scotland next year prior to touring.
 
 
Picture by Alicia Wroblewska

Funding & Resources

Creative Scotland launched new funding programmes designed to provide further support to sustain the Scottish creative community during the COVID-19 outbreak: www.creativescotland.com/funding/funding-programmes
  • The Bridging Bursary is a fund for those individual artists and freelancers who have lost income from their creative work and/or practice due to COVID-19.
  • The Open Fund aims to enable individuals & organisations to explore ways of working that will help them to adapt and respond to the current changing circumstances.
For UK-based musicians, a collaboration between Help Musicians, the Incorporated Society of Musicians, The Ivors Academy, the Music Managers Forum, the Music Producers Guild, the Musicians' Union, and UK Music is regularly updating this central source of support and advice for all musicians during the coronavirus period: www.coronamusicians.info 

RED NOTE IS KINDLY SUPPORTED BY

Twitter
Facebook
Website
YouTube
Instagram
Copyright © 2020 Red Note Ensemble Ltd, All rights reserved.


Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.
 






This email was sent to <<Email Address>>
why did I get this?    unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences
Red Note Ensemble Ltd · Room 136, Artist Block, Summerhall · Summerhall Place · Edinburgh, EH9 1PL · United Kingdom

Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp