News
On Landguard Point: East Anglia's Cultural Olympiad | BBC News
A £500,000 art project, which ties-in with the London Olympics, is seeking people’s stories of home from across East Anglia.
The multi-media On Languard Point idea includes a People’s Encyclopaedia for the stories to go in.
Artist Robert Pacitti said: “The whole project is set up to be participatory.”
Other events include a concert by Michael Nyman and archaeological digs aided by Cambridge University’s Carenza Lewis, who used to be in Time Team.
The multi-media series of events is part of the Cultural Olympiad which aims “to give everyone in the UK a chance to be part of London 2012”.
The East Anglian project, which is named after the spit of land at Felixstowe, covers Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire.
It will also lead to the creation of a film and giant public feasts inspired by a project cookbook.
Mr Pacitti, 43, said: “We want you to tell us what you think of as home.
“What does it mean? What does it mean to live here, now? What are our memories of home? What can we share?
“I grew up in Ipswich and used to get taken to the American air bases, so I’d probably write some of my memories about that.”
Memories can be submitted using postcards at the various live events or via the On Landguard Point website.
There will be 205 entries for the encyclopaedia - signifying the number of countries taking part in the Olympics.
Another part of the project involves lining the East Anglian coast with 205 flags.
Prehistoric seas
People are also being asked to dig up a square metre of their gardens.
The Dig & Sow part of the project will register 205 sites.
Ms Lewis, director of Access Cambridge Archaeology, said: “I grew up [near Bungay] looking for fossils of the animals that lived in the prehistoric seas of East Anglia.
“We’ll have archaeologists on-call if people ring up and say ‘Help, I’ve got a Sutton Hoo ship burial, what should I do next?’
“It’s amazing what turns up because, before about 50 years ago, rubbish wasn’t taken away, it was just put out the back.”
The project is funded by the Arts Council and Helen Lax, its regional director, said: “We’re hoping there will be a legacy after the Olympics that people have got involved, participated, volunteered or seen really great art.
“[Art and sport] are the two things that fire people up and there’s a misconception that you either like sport or you like art - people like both.
“We’re really good at the arts in this country, so the Cultural Olympiad is a chance to celebrate our cultural heritage with the rest of the world.”
Michael Nyman’s concert takes place at Felixstowe’s Spa Pavilion on Friday, 23 September, 2011 and it features three sound commissions including the world premiere of a piece called On Landguard Point.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-13888188
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More about the concert:
World premiere of On Landguard Point by Michael Nyman
Performed by Michael Nyman & The Michael Nyman Band
With guest soprano Marie Angel When: Friday 23 September 2011 Time: 7:30pm Where: The Spa Pavilion, Felixstowe, Suffolk
From Oscars pain to Sydney history: Michael Nyman composes himself
Michael Nyman has a music career that takes in famous friendships, Oscars disappointment and an historic trip to Sydney, as he explains.
Nyman’s latest composition helps celebrate the centenary of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
“Doing the Rounds is the first piece I’ve written [that was] commissioned by an academic institution,” he reveals.
It made its world premiere on Friday 27 May, performed by the Symphony Orchestra and Sydney Conservatorium Large Choir in the Conservatorium’s Verbrugghen Hall.
It is something of a coup for Sydney to host a milestone for a man made famous by his scores for films directed by the likes of Peter Greenaway and Jane Campion.
Read the full article and listen to an audio interview with Michael Nyman.
Source: ABC Sydney
The composer, the artist and the Brickworks
British composer Michael Nyman is best known for his scores, but he’s developed another artistic endeavour – film.
The Australian debut of his work is at the Brickworks, in Sydney Park, St Peters.
Co-hosted by COFA’s National Institute for Experimental Arts (NIEA), Cine Opera shows vignettes from everyday life, such as football fans celebrating in Barcelona and the connection between two train carriages in Tunisia. Many of the films are set to his music.
The installation was opened by director Jane Campion.
Michael Nyman’s scores include Campion’s work The Piano as well as those from a long-standing collaboration with Peter Greenaway (The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover and Prospero’s Books).
Nyman began filming over 40 years ago, but honed his skills over the past 15 years.
“Now I always go out armed with a camera or two,” he says. “Filming is the opposite of composing music. It’s completely unpredictable.”
The exhibition is curated by NIEA’s Felicity Fenner.
“This installation is a collection of spontaneous visual diaries of everyday life across a diversity of cultures. Soundtracks to some of the films use location sounds, whilst others recycle existing scores from the composer’s own archive, or a combination of both to create sound/score montages,” she says.
The event is co-hosted by The Conservatorium of Music, where Michael Nyman is Composer-in-Residence. The event at the Brickworks runs until 13 June.
Source: http://www.unsw.edu.au/news/pad/articles/2011/may/nyman.html
Facing Goya review | The Arts Desk
Nyman does fashion a witty, entertaining piece…
It’s a work of many incidental pleasures – the insidiously catchy “Leonardo says” aria in Act I, or the resuscitated Goya asking the scientists why he couldn’t have been left in peace in the third act. Contralto Hilary Summers’s low contralto is perfect for the key role of the Art Banker, and the small multitasking supporting cast, notably sopranos Winnie Böwe and Marie Angel, are excellent. Nyman’s own chamber ensemble provides punchy, incisive backing under the composer’s direction in a reissue of a recording dating from 2003.
—Graham Rickson, The Arts Desk
The composer, the artist, their work and the jealousy | Sydney Morning Herald
By Joyce Morgan, May 24, 2011
THE composer Michael Nyman picks up his compact camera.
“Oh, that’s interesting,” he says.
Exactly what is so fascinating about the garbage truck that has pulled up before us at the Sydney Park Brickworks isn’t apparent.
But he has been filming such vignettes for years on his hand-held camera. A drunken man struggling to put on his tie, the aftermath of a bullfight and a derelict but once-magnificent Mexican cinema are among the scenes that have captured his attention.
“I feel very privileged and snoopy,” he says. “I like the accident of the thing happening in front of me, setting up a frame and just allowing what transpires.”
Filmmaking is the lesser known side of Nyman’s oeuvre. He is best known for his film scores, including for Jane Campion’s The Piano and Peter Greenaway’s The Draftsman’s Contract and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover.
Both sides will be on show in Sydney this week in a series of events that include the world premiere of a musical composition, a public lecture and screenings of his films.