Workshops - The Voice Project

WORKSHOP & CONCERT PROGRAMME
Vocal Invention is a packed weekend of vocal adventures, celebrating the creativity and inventiveness of the
human voice, poets, singers, improvisers, composers, talkers and thinkers come together for performances,
workshops, talks and surprise pop-up performances in the city curated by the ever – creative Voice Project.
From exquisite song to experimental vocal installations, 8-part harmony and digital poetry, the weekend is a
chance to see and take part in a huge range of vocal events.
Featuring the Voice Project Choir, Helen Chadwick, Ross Sutherland, The Neutrinos, George Szirtes, Birds of
Hell, Stephen Watts, Dan Richards, Harmonium, Mouthful, Neil Paris and Sianed Jones.
Full Weekend Tickets - £90 / £67.50 Conc.
Individual workshop & concerts tickets from £5 - £15
Friday 20th May
Concert:
Helen Chadwick / Mouthful / Human Music
Sat 21st May
Workshops:
Helen Chadwick - Creating Songs
Dave Camlin & Sharon Durant - In the Groove
Pete Murdoch - Songmaking / Starman Strategies
Bex Mather & Katherine Zeserson - Making it New
Concerts:
Harmonium
Ross Sutherland / The Neutrinos / Birds of Hell
Sunday 22nd May
Workshops:
Sian Croose & Su Hart - Harmonium
Sianed Jones - Voices on location
Dan Richards - Psychography – Writing in Landscape
The Neutrinos & Sal Pittman - Speechless
Neil Paris - Moving the Singer
Stephen Watts - Writing Workshop
Concerts:
Sianed Jones
Ross Sutherland / George Szirtes / Stephen Watts / Esther Morgan
FRIDAY 20th MAY - CONCERT
Helen Chadwick + Mouthful + Human Music
Norwich Arts Centre
8:00 PM
£15.00 / £12.00 concessions
Helen Chadwick
Helen’s new solo show investigates the need to improvise and be out of one’s comfort zone in order to create
and lead. It begins with songs and stories around risk
and ends with live over dubbed sung improvisations
based on fragments of love poems written by the
Greek poet Sappho
Mouthful
Mouthful create our repertoire together through
playing out loud with songs, with sounds, with
feelings, with ideas and with our voices. We
compose, arrange and mess up all kinds of
musical material. We invite you to immerse
yourself in our sound world, which is by turns
tender, groovy, mysterious, harmonious, discordant and celebratory….in this set you will hear
vocal music influenced by Finnish and Georgian
traditional song, by funk and beatbox, by jazz,
pop and contemporary music; all refracted
through the prism of The Mouthful Way
Human Music
Human Music is a vocal ensemble of 8 outstanding
singers and composers from around the UK. Jon Baker,
Dave Camlin, Helen Chadwick, Sian Croose, Sharon
Durant, Sianed Jones, Bex Mather and Katherine
Zeserson. Individually and in small groups they have
performed in and composed for some of the UK’s finest
venues including The Royal Opera House, Royal Festival Hall, The Sage Gateshead, Royal Shakespeare
Company, the British Museum and numerous UK and
International Festivals. “A wonderful blend of voices,
weaving their distinctive sounds into a rich texture of
myth and melody” (Eve Stebbing, Eastern Daily Press)
SATURDAY 21st MAY
9:30am - Warm Up
10am – 12pm - Workshops
Helen Chadwick
Creating Songs - Workshop
£15.00 : £10.00 concession
In this workshop led by international vocal composer
and performer Helen Chadwick, you will will create
fragments of songs and sing the harmonies on other
people’s creations This workshop is for who can sing
one voice to a part in a small group No composing
experience necessary. Bring a text you would like to
create into a song (one that does not have a tune yet)
and something to record and playback with: a smart
phone, an MP3 player, a minidisc or other recording
device.
Helen has been commissioned to compose songs for many venues including the National Theatre, the Royal
Shakespeare Company, English Touring Opera, Welsh National Opera, Dover Harbour Olympic Torch Fireworks,
and the BBC. Song theatre performance commissions include for the Royal Opera House, the British Museum,
the Getty Villa LA, Greenwich and Salisbury festivals, as well as touring in Europe and the Americas. She is
currently working on a site specific sound installation for Wollaton Hall in Nottingham. Helen’s album House of
Light was featured on Desert Island Discs.
Dave Camlin & Sharon Durant
In The Groove - Workshop
£15.00 : £10.00 concession
Dave Camlin and Sharon Durant Singing the
Mouthful Way: with Sharon Durant and Dave
Camlin: In this lively, creative workshop you’ll
explore different aspects of rhythm and groove,
using voice and body. You’ll learn ways of using
your voice as a rhythm instrument, approaches to
layering riffs and loops to create strong rhythmic
textures and have a really good time…
Dave Camlin
The love-child of James Taylor and Tim Booth, (Ed Boyd, Lunasa) Dr. Dave Camlin is a singer, composer, educator and researcher from rural west Cumbria. He performs solo, with vocal groups Mouthful and Human Music,
and acoustic collective The Coast Road. He is Head of Higher Education and Research at Sage Gateshead, and
lectures on Sage degree programmes, as well as at Durham University and Trinity-Laban conservatoire. His
recent doctorate developed a holistic model of ‘music in three dimensions’ which emphasises the aesthetic,
participatory and social aspects of music. He leads community choirs in Cumbria and the NE, and advocates
music – and especially singing – as a vital way of connecting us with our true selves, each other, and the land.
Sharon Durant
Sharon is a singer, choir leader, song writer and arranger. She loves harmony and has worked with singers of
all ages and abilities to explore and embrace their voices. With a particular interest in using riffs and grooves
as ways in to harmony singing, she invites you at Vocal Invention to come create, learn and animate some
funky songs whilst moving, grooving and having fun.
SATURDAY 21st MAY
Workshops
3pm – 5pm
Pete Murdoch
Songmaking - Starman Strategies
£15.00 : £10.00 concessions
In this fun and hands-on workshop we will explore
some of the creative methods of David Bowie.’Cut
up’ lyric writing, > graphic scores, subverting instruments, writing in character, Eno’s Oblique Strategies
– all of these approaches will be at our disposal as
we collaboratively create, play and sing our own
song. We might incorporate a bit of Philly Soul,
Kraftwerk or drum and bass or make a glam rock
monster! Bring your voices and if you like, your own
instruments. Some instruments and amplification
will be provided.
Pete Murdoch
Pete Murdoch’s music can broadly be divided into two categories: music for kids and music for adults. He’s
about to release an album of kid’s music ‘that grown-ups won’t hate’ under the name of Henhouse (think
ska version of 5 Little Monkeys sung by Ray Winston). And for the adults there is Birds of Hell where, using
guitar, vocoder and tape recordings of dead relatives, he renders songs on subjects ranging from his family
to being eaten by snakes and Clint Eastwood. Pete is a former member of Norwich favourites Sargasso Trio
who enjoyed numerous sessions for BBC 6Music as well releasing records in Japan, America and Europe. He
is also an experienced music tutor delivering workshops for over 10 years with children and adults.
Bex Mather & Katherine Zeserson
Making it New
£15.00 : £10.00 concessions
Singing the Mouthful Way: with Bex Mather and
Katherine Zeserson: We will experiment with many
different ways of creating multi-layered vocal
music, using improvisation, working with text, with
sound, with movement and with visual imagery.
We’ll share some approaches that have worked
well for us and invent new ones, with you…
Katherine Zeserson
Katherine Zeserson is a cultural activist, thinker and musician. She believes passionately in the power of
making music and other forms of art to inspire human development. She has a particular interest in a
cappella music and in singing for all – with the development of community choirs and the skills to support
inclusive vocal practice a central thread throughout her work. At Vocal Invention she invites you to discover yourself as a social sound-maker, exploring and capturing vocal and physical sounds, and creating new
music.
SATURDAY 21st MAY
Concerts
Harmonium
5.30pm / 6.15pm / 7pm
£5.00
Mostly wordless, Harmonium is an experiment in vocal
sound, created by layering 12 female voices using
interlocking rhythms and harmonies.
Created by Sian Croose of The Voice Project.
Ross Sutherland / Birds of Hell / The Neutrinos
8:30 pm
£15.00 : £12.00 concessions
Ross Sutherland
Using looped video as a poetic form, exploring the
relationship between image and voice; a combination of poetry, rap, and a DVD commentary track
Birds of Hell
Birds of Hell brings unflinching confessions and twisted
tales of everyday life and family history. Lilting guitar or
a cathartic onslaught of beats and noise or recordings
of his dead relatives, Birds of Hell delivers it with face
paint and a smile
The Neutrinos
The Neutrinos and artist Sal Pittman come to Vocal
Invention with their darkly surreal experiments in
sound, light and space. Expect excerpts from their
forthcoming residency at London’s Royal Festival
Hall and forthcoming foreign travels. ‘A total
game-changer’ The Guardian.
SATURDAY 21st MAY
Concerts Cont.
The Voice Project Choir - Promenade Performance
1pm
Free
The Voice Project Choir will be performing at 1pm on Saturday 21st - starting at the Octagon Chapel on
Colegate. The performance will be a guided promenade around this historic part of the city and last approximately 40 minutes.
SUNDAY 22nd MAY
10am - Warm Up
10:30 am – 12 pm - Workshops
Sian Croose & Su Hart
Harmonium Workshop
£15.00 : £10.00
Mostly wordless, Harmonium is an experiment in
vocal sound, created by layering voices using interlocking rhythms and harmonies. Harmonium 1 was
written by Sian Croose for Vocal Invention 2009, Sian
and Su Hart are now working together on this project,
each writing pieces for women’s voices – influenced
by music as diverse as Meredith Monk and Baka
women’s rainforest singing. The aim of the workshop
is to offer participants an opportunity to experience
this kind of singing in the round – where the parts
make the whole. For experienced female singers.
Sianed Jones
Voices On Location Workshop
£15.00 : £10.00 concession
An improvisation- based workshop that
takes participants to different locations in
Norwich to explore the acoustics, the
architecture, the landscape of the city.
Singing by a park bench, singing by the
river, singing under an archway, singing in
the cobbled streets, singing on a zebra
crossing. The different locations will all be
within walking distance of each other in
the city centre.
Dan Richards
Creative writing – Psychography – Writing in Landscape
£15.00 : £10.00 concession
A practical workshop with Dan Richards taking a look at how we
engage with our environment and express it in words on the
page. Dan is co-author of Holloway with Robert Macfarlane and
Stanley Donwood, published by Faber in 2013. The Beechwood
Airship Interviews, a book about the creative process and the
importance of art for art’s sake, is to be published by The Friday
Project/HarperCollins in Summer 2015. Climbing Days, an exploration of the writing and climbing lives of his great great aunt
and uncle – Dorothy Pilley and I. A. Richards – is set to be published by Faber in Spring 2016.
SUNDAY 22nd MAY
2 pm – 4 pm - Workshops
The Neutrinos & Sal Pittman
Speechless - Workshop
£15.00 : £10.00 concession
(Jon Baker/Karen Reilly and Mark Howe) with the
artist Sal Pittman continue their journey of collaborations with buildings, with events, with people…
Speechless will be a cooperative activity of finding
song and sound and voice in the strangest of places
and, using limited conventional communication, we
will attempt to end up with a cohesive piece or suite
of pieces! We might record this… The session will take
place within a space altered by sound design and
lighting states. Bring an instrument if you like along
with a willingness to use and experiment with the
voice and diverse musical forms.
Neil Paris
Moving The Singer - Workshop
£15.00 : £10.00
An opportunity to work with Neil Paris – dancer,
choreographer and long- time colleague of
Margaret Pikes ,the respected voice teacher of
Roy Hart Theatre fame. Whether you are a singer
looking to increase your sense of connection to
your body or a choir director wanting to explore
movement work with your singers – this workshop will offer the chance to do just that.
Stephen Watts
Writing Workshop
£15.00 : £10.00 concession
Details to be announced...
SUNDAY 22nd MAY
Concerts
Sianed Jones in Concert
1:00 PM
£5.00
Composer, improviser and soprano extraordinaire , Sianed writes music and performs for site
specific performance and sound installations.
Her unique voice has featured in most of the
Voice Project’s festival performances, notably
singing and playing violin in a boat on Holkham
Hall lake, and is currently working on Canu’r
Adeilad’, a sonic tour of The Old College, a gothic
building on the seafront at Aberystwyth As a
soloist for Gwilym Simcock at the Norfolk and
Norwich Festival “…..It was difficult to find words
to describe the breathtaking performance by
soprano Sianed Jones…...”
Ross Sutherland / George Szirtes
Stephen Watts / Esther Morgan
7:30 PM
£8.00 : £6.00 concession
The Bicycle Shop
George Szirtes
Ross Sutherland
Ross Sutherland has four poetry collections published by Penned in the Margins, including
Twelve Nudes and Emergency Window. His theatre
show, Stand by For Tape Back Up, was
nominated for the 2015 Art Foundation Award for
Spoken Word. The film adaptation was
nominated for Best Documentary at the Edinburgh
Film Festival, and won the Audience Prize
at Fantastic Fest in Austin. His storytelling podcast,
Imaginary Advice, is released monthly on
iTunes
George Szirtes is a Hungarian-born British poet,
writing in English, as well as a translator
from the Hungarian language into English. He has
lived in the United Kingdom for most of his
life. Born in Budapest on 29 November 1948,
Szirtes came to England as a refugee in 1956 aged
8. He was brought up in London and studied Fine
Art in London and Leeds. at Leeds was the ?
His poems began appearing in national magazines
in 1973 and his first book, The Slant Door,
was published in 1979. It won the Geoffrey Faber
Memorial Prize the following year. ?
He has won a variety of prizes for his work, most
recently the 2004 T. S. Eliot Prize, for his
collection Reel and the Bess Hokin Prize for poems
in Poetry magazine, 2008. His translations
from Hungarian poetry, fiction and drama have
also won numerous awards. George’s
specially- written poems have featured in numerous Voice Project performances , set to
music by Jon Baker and Karen Wimhurst.
Stephen Watts
Stephen Watts
Esther Morgan
Stephen Watts was born in London in 1952: his
father’s family came from
Stoke-on-Trent, his mother’s from the
Swiss-Italian Alps and he has cultural roots
there and
in Scotland. In the early 70’s he lived on North
Uist working as a shepherd and since 1976 has
been in Whitechapel in the East End of London.
He has read at international literary festivals,
worked extensively as a writer in schools and
hospitals and communities, and currently
works independently as a poet, translator,
editor and bibliographer. Stephen performed
with
The Voice Project as part of Ideas of Flight with
his extraordinary poem The Birds of East
London.
Esther Morgan was born in Kidderminster ,
Worcestershire in 1970. Since completing an
MA in Creative Writing at the University of East
Anglia in the 90s, she has published three
collections of poetry, all with Bloodaxe. Her
first, ‘Beyond Calling Distance’ (2001) won the
Aldeburgh Poetry Festival First Collection Prize
and was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn
Rhys Prize. Her most recent book, ‘Grace’, was a
Poetry Book Society Recommendation and
was shortlisted for the 2011 T. S. Eliot Prize.
She taught creative writing at UEA where she
also edited the contemporary poetry anthology ‘Reactions’. For several years she was Historic Recordings Manager for The Poetry Archive
and in 2015 co-edited the Spring edition of
Poetry Review with Moniza Alvi.
FULL WEEKEND TICKETS AVAILABLE
£90 / £67.50 concessions
Please select one workshop from each session
Print this page out and bring it in to the box office at Norwich Arts Centre when booking your full weekend ticket.
Online booking also available via: www.norwichartscentre.co.uk
Saturday 21st May - 10 am - 12 pm
Helen Chadwick - Creating Songs
Dave Camlin & Sharon Durant - In The Groove
Saturday 21st May - 3 pm - 5 pm
Pete Murdoch - Songmaking / Starman Strategies
Bex Mather & Katherine Zeserson - Making It New
Sunday 22nd - 10:30 am - 12:30 pm
Sian Croose & Su Hart - Harmonium
Sianed Jones - Voices on Location
Dan Richards - Writing In Landscape
Sunday 22nd - 2 pm - 4 pm
TheNeutrinos & Sal Pittman - Speechless
Neil Paris - Moving the Singer
Stephen Watts - Writing Workshop
Which performance of Harmonium would you like to attend on Saturday?
5:30 pm
6:15pm
7:00pm