Can You Give Up Your Seat Please? (Prelude)
programme note and biogs
Can You Give Up Your Seat Please? (Prelude) 15 mins
Michael-Jon Mizra (composer and director)
Brandon Bissell (chorus left)
Harry ‘Freddie’ Aitken (chorus right)
Kathy Hart (clarinet)
Sean Clarke (projectionist)
Michael-Jon Mizra (musical director and live sound)
KEEP READING FOR PROGRAMME NOTES AND BIOGS
This is the prelude to a work in progress which is exploring the idea of a multi-media opera. This scene contains projected footage which outline the narrative of the story, with score provided by live musicians and digital sound design. The narrative arc folows that of Dr David Hao, who was thrown off a United Airlines flight after becoming a ‘randomly selected volunteer’ due to over-booking. He was not given the option to go, only a cash incentive, and was not given the option to negotiate, only enforced upon. This was all captured by fellow passengers, and went viral online.
Michael-Jon Mizra is a composer working in Manchester. Mizra’s work concerns itself with the relationships society has constructed in a digital ecology. He is interested in the phenomenology of being in a de-materialised world, and how contemporary technology can be used in a creatively meaningful way. He studied composition and technology at the University of Leeds, focusing on human-machine performance interface. Mizra also creates club music under various names and plays guitar in an improvisation band.
I would like to say thank you to Abigail Toland of Second Movement for providing me the opportunity to explore a work that may have only ever stayed as an idea. I am indebted to Brighter Sound of Manchester for their continued support in developing my ideas as an artist, and for providing in-kind rehearsal space. Like wise, I offer thanks to the venue Texture of Manchester for allowing me to use their facilities to test the multi-media aspects of the performance. Finally, I am ever grateful to the crew for their patience, input and time devotion to the development of this piece. Without their support and understanding many aspects of the piece would have remained under-developed.
VOICINGS
programme note and biogs
Voicings 25 mins
by Voicings Collective
Michael Betteridge (composer and MD)
Rebecca Hurst (librettist)
Freya Wynn-Jones (director)
Vic Taylor (producer)
Robert Gildon (Cold TV Dinner Guy)
Patrick Terry (Curious Guy)
Robine Landi (Resisting Guy)
Freya Wynn-Jones (Reluctant Guy)
Michael Betteridge (TV Commentator)
we discover we’re powerless in face of the inevitable, will we go kicking and screaming, or with quiet dignity, or will we succumb to blissful apathy?
In February 2017 the Voicings Collective undertook ACE funded research and development, devising new work for classical singers, in association with Dartington. Over a five-day period we explored composing within the ensemble, drawing inspiration from Ionesco’s Rhinoceros and Dartington’s history of providing sanctuary to artists fleeing 1930s Germany. The experience of the collective became our focus, from text to music, to the fusing of sound, movement and narrative. The process removed the traditional hierarchy of new work with every word, melody and movement emerging in the rehearsal space, in any order and from any member.
We hope that the work that emerged creates a world both familiar and strange, as our characters are reunited ten years after an epidemic that radically changed their lives. Voicings seeks to probe how we, as individuals, conform to, or resist, collective pressure. Each character reacted differently to the demands and allure of popular movements and political change, but all eventually yielded to its power through a series of transformations.
We are exploring a piece that is both reminiscent and current; that speaks of what has been, and what is still to come. Voicings explores the sense of curiosity that motivates change, the shame of complicity, and the slow-burn horror of realising that yours is the only voice still saying no.
Biographies
The Voicings Collective is the brainchild of director Freya Wynn-Jones, composer Michael Betteridge and writer Rebecca Hurst. Led by these three artists, the Collective endeavours to create relevant works of music theatre while simultaneously exploring the radical possibilities afforded by composing within the ensemble. Interrogating the democracy of devising, work is shaped by the skills, creative practices, stories and unique voices of the individual artists taking part. This piece has also been created by our performers Robert Gildon, Robine Landi and Patrick Terry. The process aims to dismantle the rigidity of traditional hierarchies and roles in the opera-making world: every word, melody and movement emerges in the rehearsal space, from any member of the ensemble. And every member is motivated by a passion to collaborate, to take risks and explore the possibilities, chaos and revelations of forging work together.
With thanks to Amy Bere, Dartington, and the Arts Council England for giving us our first beginnings and to Richard Ramm lending us his artistic skills.
COMPOSER
Michael Betteridge is a composer based in Manchester, UK, with an eclectic output ranging from intimate concert hall works through to gargantuan site-specific installations. He is interested in creating socially engaged work, whether by tackling pertinent political issues in his work or engaging with communities to collaborate on new music.
His 2015 singer-instrumentalist opera Thousand Furs was described as ‘inventive’ in a five star review in the Financial Times, and 2016 saw the premiere of his verbatim opera Positive that used interviews of a young HIV+ man as a stimulus. 2016 also saw him travel to Iceland on an Arts Council England’s ‘International Artist Development Fund’ to develop a cappella music theatre based on misogyny on social media, the result being #echochamber a new interactive opera that will premiere in Reykjavik in 2018.
He was a Sound and Music Embedded composer-in-residence with Hampshire Music Service from 2014-16, and has also been selected for schemes with Britten Sinfonia (OPUS2014), London Symphony Orchestra (LSO Soundhub as ‘Collective and Curiosities’) and Making Music/Sound and Music (Adopt-a-composer). His has been commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra, Salisbury Arts Festival, re:sound music theatre, Chetham’s School of Music, amongst others. He is also a conductor of community choirs, and a workshop leader having worked with major music organisations across the UK.
In recent work Michael is looking to break away from the traditional roles within music theatre making and move towards create work that comes from a shared devised process. He is interested in creating high quality music theatre pieces in which the music acts as a vehicle for the narrative/character and is flexible and adaptable according to the needs of the performers, space and audience.
WRITER
Rebecca Hurst is a doctoral student at the University of Manchester where she writes poetry and researches Soviet fairy tales. Her work has appeared in various magazines including Agenda, Aesthetica, Antiphon, The Clearing, and Magma Poetry. Her chamber opera, After the Fall, written in collaboration with Helgi Rafn Ingvarsson, premiered in London in May 2017. Other staged works include the chamber opera, Isabella (2014), and Tatort: Märchenland (2015), a fairy-tale detective story. She is currently developing a new live-literature work based on the mother-daughter relationship in a world of mass global migration, called Vanishing Point.
Rebecca is committed to the possibilities afforded by creative collaboration and interdisciplinary encounters. She is particularly interested in exploring the ways text can be negotiated or provoked through movement; and in a developing a devising process that harnesses the voice and body, to work alongside human narrative impulses.
In co-founding the Voicings Collective, Rebecca sought collaborators inspired to challenge the traditional, hierarchical approach to creating new opera and music theatre.
DIRECTOR and SINGER
Freya Wynn-Jones is a director and singer working across a wide range of professional and community settings. Freya works on numerous collaborations to write, compose and devise new work and find contemporary resonance in long-standing repertoire.
Recent projects include directing ENO’s Youth Company in Threads of The Past (2017) The Marigold That Goes To Bed With The Sun (2017) and Speak Some Truth (2016) as well as directing The Royal Opera House’s abridged Boheme performed at The Curve in Leicester as part of the Opera Exposed program. This Autumn, Freya is involved in bringing work to the V&A with Garsington Opera and ENO as part of the Opera, Passion, Play exhibition as well as directing Hunger for the Helios Collective and Tchaikovsky And The Marvellous Kingdom with Aurora Orchestra as part of their Far Far Away series. She will also be creating new work for Spitalfields in the new year as part of their 2017 Open Call. More information about her work can be found at www.freyawynnjones.co.uk
At the heart of her work is truthful storytelling and a desire to test how the voice, in all its forms, can enhance the theatrical experience and connection.
ROBERT GILDON, SINGER
Rob Gildon (baritone) studied at Manhattan School of Music in New York, Tanglewood and Aspen Music Summer Schools and the Britten/Pears School. Rob has performed with Garsington Opera (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Ariadne auf Naxos), Grange Park Opera (Le Roi Malgre lui) and the London Symphony Orchestra amongst others. 2017 has been a busy year with performances of Delius’ A Village Romeo and Juliet’ for New Sussex Opera, a new Community Opera with Sinfonia Viva, Scott Stroman’s new opera ‘Fever Pitch’, new Orlando Gough commission ‘Hospital Passion Play’ for Garsington, ‘Reimaginings’ for the ROH, Leontes in ‘A Winter’s Tale’(ENO Baylis) and Semele for Garsington Opera for all. More information at www.robertgildon.com
ROBINE LANDI, SINGER
Robine trained at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama graduating with a BA in Acting. Her work includes collaborations with leading artists from film, theatre and dance and she enjoys a varied career as an actress, singer and writer. An experienced coach, Robine has worked alongside the National Theatre, The Birmingham Stage Company/Soho Theatre and Pegasus Opera. Robine is a trustee for the Fergal O’Mahony Foundation, a charity providing financial support for young musicians.
Theatre: Masterclass (English Theatre Frankfurt), Sweeney Todd (West End and Chichester Festival Theatre), Laugh and Be Happy (Minerva Theatre, Chichester), Coco (Sadlers Wells), The Vaudevillains (Charing Cross Theatre and The Lowry), State Fair (Finborough and Trafalgar Studios), First Lady Suite (Union Theatre), Me and My Girl (London Palladium), Dust (Tricycle Theatre), Tiny Shows (The Copenhagen Interpretation), Circumnavigation (The Gyg).
Opera: La Rondine, Le Nozze di Figaro (Opera Holland Park), The Clothesburger (Southbank Centre), Dancing on Armistice Day (UK/France tour).
Film/Television: Hope and Glory (BBC), Interference (Short Film)
Workshops: Hallowed Ground, The Miller’s Wife, The Ruby Necklace, The Man in the Room.
Voice Recordings: Tubby and Enid (BBC), Sweeney Todd (West End Cast Recording), Cool Rider (West End Cast Recording), Singleton Whiskey (Advert).
PATRICK TERRY, SINGER
Patrick earned his Bachelors of Music from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities in 2014. He placed second in the 2015 Joan Chissell Schumann Lieder Competition, won the 2014 Maureen Lehane Vocal Award, was awarded the Loveday Song Prize in the 2017 Kathleen Ferrier Competition, and was the winner of the 2017 Richard Lewis/Jean Shanks Award. Patrick has been seen touring England with the Merry Opera and as a soloist with the RAM/Koch Foundation Bach Cantata series and the English Baroque Choir. His operatic engagements include singing Oberon in Chicago Summer Opera’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Ottone in L’incoronazione di Poppea and Ruggiero in Alcina with the Royal Academy Opera, covering Guildenstern in Glyndebourne Festival Opera’s commission Hamlet (Dean). This season Patrick is touring with Melos Sinfonia as The Boy/Angel 1 in Written on Skin and singing The Refugee in Royal Academy Opera’s 2018 production of Flight. In the fall of 2016 he began the Royal Academy Opera course where he studies with Michael Chance. Patrick is supported generously by the Josephine Baker Trust, the John J Adam’s Scholarship and the Help Musicians U.K. Sybil Tutton Award. https://about.me/patrickterry
RADIUM | programme notes and biogs
Radium 20 mins
Georgina Bowden (composer)
Eleanor Knight (librettist)
Ruth Knight (director)
Béatrice de Larragoïti (Sarah)
Charlotte Osborn (Amelia)
Olivia Lewis (Katy)
Anna Prowse (Miss Arnold/Figure in the Dark)
Eleanor Strutt (chorus)
Anna Rea (chorus)
Jemma Mitchell (chorus)
Audrey Wozniak (violin)
Wilmien Van Rensburg (violin)
James Layton (viola)
Theodore Balkwill (cello)
Alex Verster (double bass)
Georgina Bowden (conductor)
KEEP READING FOR PROGRAMME NOTES AND BIOGS
PROGRAMME NOTE
The radium girls were young women who changed the course of labour history in the US, though they didn’t live to enjoy the benefits. Employed to paint luminous dials on clocks and watches with radium paint, the girls (some as young as eleven) were instructed to moisten their fine-tipped brushes in their mouths in order to get through up to 250 dials a day. Wages were high and conditions were good – by the time they went home at night the girls were literally glowing. From the 1910s to the 40s, radium – discovered by Marie Curie in 1898 – was regarded as a wonder treatment for anything from constipation to fine lines and wrinkles. It was glamorous, gave off the sheen of modernity, and everyone wanted a bit of radium in their lives – except the men who were selling it, who knew it was deadly. Radium tells the story of this infamous case in the context of corporate exploitation, and looks at how consumerism preys on our desires for youth, beauty and progress. This short opera is a work in progress, with the possibility of expansion.
BIOGRAPHIES
COMPOSER
Georgina Bowden Since completing a Masters of Architecture in 2012, Georgina Bowden has been increasingly devoting her time to composition, which she is now studying at Masters level at Trinity Laban Conservatoire. Georgina has frequent performances in Sussex and London and has been commissioned several times. She has previously been sponsored by the Hinrischen Foundation, RVW Trust and is currently a Loveday Scholar. She is particularly interested in choral singing and conducting to compliment her vocal writing. Georgina is also a portrait artist and was winner of the SAA Young Artist Award in 2014.
LIBRETTIST
Eleanor Knight is the librettist of a several short operas, including Elfyn Jones’s The Trial of Jean Rhys (Royal Opera House Exposure season, 2011) and Bushra El-Turk’s Silkmoth ( Nour Festival, 2015). She wrote a valedictory song cycle, with Danyal Dhondy, for the foot-tunnels beneath the Elephant & Castle roundabout and, with Ed Hughes, The Opposite of Familiarity a love duet for robots. Eleanor’s short fiction is published in a number of collections, and her journalism in the national press. She teaches creative writing and is a visiting lecturer at the University of Brighton.
DIRECTOR
Ruth Knight is a young opera director from London. Alongside her own work, most notably with Salon Opera, she regularly assists top European directors at some of the world’s most established festivals and houses. This year, she is looking forward to working on the revival of Damiano Michieletto’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci at the Royal Opera House. Next year, she will be returning to Garsington Opera for Netia Jones’s Die Zauberflöte, where Ruth will also be directing the school’s performance on the main stage at Wormsley.
With thanks to Anne Moore.
rough for opera #16 | works and makers | Radium (working title)
Radium 25 mins
Georgina Bowden composer
Eleanor Knight librettist
Ruth Knight director
The radium girls were young women who changed the course of labour history in the US, though they didn’t live to enjoy the benefits. Employed to paint luminous dials on clocks and watches with radium paint, the girls (some as young as eleven) were instructed to moisten their fine-tipped brushes in their mouths in order to get through up to 250 dials a day. Wages were high and conditions were good – by the time they went home at night the girls were literally glowing. From the 1910s to the 40s, radium – discovered by Marie Curie in 1898 – was regarded as a wonder treatment for anything from constipation to fine lines and wrinkles, it was glamorous, gave off the sheen of modernity, and everyone wanted a bit of radium in their lives. Except, that is, for the men who were selling it. They knew it was deadly.
America the Radiant tells the story of the infamous case in the context of corporate exploitation, and looks at how consumerism preys on our desires for youth, beauty and progress.
Georgina Bowden Since completing a Masters of Architecture in 2012, Georgina Bowden has been increasingly devoting her time to composition, and is currently studying at Masters level at Trinity Laban Conservatoire. Georgina has frequent performances in Sussex and London and has been commissioned several times. She has previously been sponsored by the Hinrischen Foundation, RVW Trust and Loveday Scholarship. Her particular interests are choral singing and conducting to compliment her vocal writing. Georgina is also a portrait artist and winner of the SAA Young Artist Award in 2014. georginabowden.com
Eleanor Knight is the librettist of a several short operas, including Elfyn Jones’s The Trial of Jean Rhys (Royal Opera House Exposure season, 2011) and Bushra El-Turk’s Silkmoth (Nour Festival, 2015). She wrote a valedictory song cycle, with Danyal Dhondy, for the foot-tunnels beneath the Elephant & Castle roundabout and, with Ed Hughes, The Opposite of Familiarity a love duet for robots. Eleanor’s short fiction is published in a number of collections, and her journalism in the national press. She teaches creative writing and is a visiting lecturer at the University of Brighton.
rough for opera #16 | works and makers | ‘Can you give up your seat please?’
‘Can you Give Up Your Seat, Please?’ 10 mins
Michael-Jon Mizra composer and librettist
The narrative of this work touches on issues of corporate responsibility, advertising and the rituals of capitalism. The narrative is drawn from news stories that focus on corporate responses to , and interactions with, the consumer. The work attempts to portray a surreal environment brought about by an exaggeration of environmental sound and social situations. It utilises voice, instrumentation, electronics and video projections. It is a work in progress that intends to explore the concept of multi-media opera, and how a space can be transformed acoustically with the consideration of instrumental and performer placement.
Michael-Jon Mizra is a sound artist based in Manchester. His work is primarily concerned with sound design and left-field club culture, but has come to include electro-acoustic ensemble writing, improvisational performance with laptop-instruments, public installation, performance art, multi-media compositions and performances, and visual projections. He attended the University of Leeds, where he studied composition, technology and aesthetics. www.soundcloud.com/0101x www.instagram.com/akasignal
rough for opera #16 | works and makers | Voicings
Voicings 20 mins
The Voicings Collective
Michael Betteridge composer
Rebecca Hurst librettist
Freya Wynn-Jones director
Rob Gildon, Robine Landi, Patrick Terry performers
Drawing early inspiration from Ionesco’s absurdist Rhinoceros, in creating this new work the Voicings Collective focused on the experience of collaboration, from text to music, to the fusing of sound, movement and narrative. The discovery that our immersive devising process mirrors Ionesco’s themes of popular movements and transformation, has given our work contemporary resonance and urgency.
If we discover we’re powerless in face of the inevitable, will we go kicking and screaming, or with quiet dignity, or will we succumb to blissful apathy?
The Voicings Collective is the brainchild of director Freya Wynn-Jones, composer Michael Betteridge and writer Rebecca Hurst. The company aims to interrogate the democracy of devising: work is created collectively, shaped by the skills, creative practices, stories and unique voices of the individual artists taking part. As the Voicings Collective continues to grow, it seeks to discover a unique way of creating new music theatre work that can be enjoyed by, and benefit, a wide range of people. http://www.voicingscollective.co.uk
for artist biogs
Michael Betteridge Described as ‘inventive’ (Financial Times) Michael is a composer with an eclectic output. His music has been performed across the world and he has worked with organisations such as the London Symphony Orchestra. Future projects include the world premiere of his twitter opera #echochamber in Reykjavik in 2018. He is currently undertaking doctoral research at the University of Hull, funded by a scholarship from UK City of Culture, examining how verbatim theatre techniques can be used in the composition process. www.michaelbetteridge.com
Rebecca Hurst is a doctoral student at the University of Manchester where she writes poetry and researches Soviet fairy tales. Her work has appeared in various magazines includingAgenda, Aesthetica, The Wild Hunt, and Magma Poetry. Her opera, After the Fall, written with composer Helgi Ingvarsson, premiered in May 2017. She is a member of the Arts Council England funded Voicings Collective. https://rebeccahurst70.wordpress.com
Freya Wynn-Jones is a director, singer and animateur working across a wide range of professional, educational and community settings. With a particular interest in the relationship between theatre and vocal art, Freya has worked with companies including Glyndebourne Opera (Tycho’s Dream and Into The Harbour), The Royal Opera House (When The Night Wakes), English National Opera, Opera North (Lemmenkainen’s Quest), and Garsington Opera. She also works on numerous collaborations to write, compose and devise new work for her own and other emerging arts companies. www.freyawynnjones.co.uk
Blaze
rough for opera 