Output details

Replica. Multimedia work for two vocal soloists (soprano and tenor), recorder consort and auxiliary audio. Funding from Arts Council England and the PRS for Music Foundation. Premiere: Spitalfields Summer Music Festival, 11th June 2013 at Venue One, Rich Mix, London. Score and CD recording (Track 2). URL and hard copy evidence date of dissemination.

The Replica project, a music-theatre production for two vocal soloists, recorder consort and auxiliary audio, engages equally with contemporary theatre as with the artistic practice of contemporary fine-art music. The project borrows from established devising approaches in contemporary theatre—less common or non-existent in fine art music—extending them in ways relevant to the telling of stories through abstract and mostly-wordless music. The basis of this evening-length production is a triptych of short scenes from novels that the late filmmaker Anthony Minghella had adapted: The Talented Mr Ripley (Patricia Highsmith, 1955); The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje, 1992); and Cold Mountain (Charles Frazier, 1997).The established process of devised theatre is often a matter of adapting a work. More recently, it is a matter of multimedia adaptation, using the layering of characterisation, sound-design and visual projection. Katie Mitchell, Complicite, Hotel Pro Forma, et al. have each adapted their respective canons to suit contemporary purposes—and have radically innovated and augmented new theatre. Replica’s aims were to adapt the traditions of devised theatre into an area of sound-specific presentation making the original scenes adapt to differing emotional complexions by altering and reiterating them. The aims were to innovate methodologies in directing sonic theatre to focus the sense of listening as the primary experiential aspect. Replica was written for John Potter (tenor), Peyee Chen (soprano) and Consortium5. It was first performed as part of Spitalfields Summer Music Festival in 2013, and was profiled on BBC R3's InTune prior to the work’s première.