A Stranger In My City

I never imagined that I would ever have the guts to leave London. 'When a man has grown tired of London he has grown tired of life' said Samuel Johnson. Not so in my experience, exactly the reverse. But this post is not setting out to relay a cut and dry account of the wonders of the countryside but rather more an exploration in how separation from a place can lead to a growing appreciation of it. 

The Thames

Yesterday evening I trained down from Ely  (where I have moved to) to Kings Cross to conduct an orchestral rehearsal. What pleasure I feel at seeing the quiet rivery fenlands give way to rolling Royston hills culminating with the grand entrance into the big city. Finally I am a real Londoner arriving in its heart. I am no longer enclosed in the lofty heights of Hampstead and the extended North London corridor were the verdant heaths are so enticing that only work or obligations lure one into the city hub.

Relaxing on Hampstead Heath

Now with no London home to return to, exciting vistas open up. The river, yes the Thames where I imagine my difficult neighbour transforms into a slimy eel, living in one of its underground tributaries. Fresh joys abound: Meeting a professional chum at the Groucho Club and chatting up a man at the bar after two aperols. 'Here is my card' I thrust at him generously,  'Oh here is mine' he replies nervously. The smug pleasure of sitting in £7.50 seats in the gods to see a new ballet at Covent Garden.  

The dome of Covent Garden which I sang from in Parsifal 

A business meeting with a dynamic musician near the Guildhall School of Music where I teach composition. We find a glorious cafe by the London wall. More aperols and creative ideas flow.

The London Wall

I return home with gems: coffee beans from the Algerian coffee stores in Soho, exotic incense from China Town and gorgeous cheeses served by sexy men at Neals Yard. London is now my city and yet I walk in it as a stranger. It is no longer my own, instead I am free of ties to go where I want. In a Proustian way I romantically ponder on past friendships, the temple at Neasden, my Masonic friends, the swimming ponds at Highgate. 

The Mandir at Neasden

We sold up in Mill Hill only two years ago, just before the pandemic. Sometimes I miss our little ex-council house with its sweet garden which I created from a mud yard. But mostly I miss my parents who sadly are long gone.

Our garden at 42 Blundell Road

Returning to our little cottage in Ely which backs onto the cathedral park, I feel excitement. It takes no longer to get there than from central London to Mill Hill. I use the train journey to work on my scores. Ely is a mini-city furnished with an amazing market, cathedral and music. The octagon tower of the Cathedral beams hope every night lit up with Ukranian colours. The 4 minute walk to this iconic building still takes my breath away.

Cathedral view from The Almonry 

The Walled Garden at Ely 

The Power of The Dog

Creating a new performance work Tristan Sings

With Tristan as a puppy

Fortunately, titles cannot be put into copyright so the new Netflix film by Jane Campion The Power of the Dog at first is merely an attention puller for this post! However, it is also a film that I feel is a masterpieces of sensual sensitivity with a refreshingly empathetic take. So much is not said and left to our imagination. Benedict Cumberbatch makes an unlikely casting for a macho cowboy who loves men. But he pulls it off with aplomb. The original music by Jonny Greenwood has a classical contemporary music feel which works well. Have you ever seen cowboys riding to the meter of 5/8 r an out like sounding gutted guitar? This is a film I will cherish.

The Power of The Dog: Campion 2021

There is however another power of the dog that’s is on my mind and that is my new performance piece commissioned by Dr Andy Ingamells called Tristan Sings which just premièred at Artefact in Birmingham on March 18^{th .}

Tristan Sings is scored in text for border terrier, soundscape, film and live performance artist (s)

Practicalities: Two performers (any instrumentation) are invited to interactively perform with a film/sound installation which features Tristan Magnus the border terrier howling in response to operatic singing, aleatoric music generated with home-made instruments as well as Wagner and Bruckner. 

The Score: The parameters of the score are in a printed booklet and delineated on the film by ceremonial singing bowl cues which provide empty ambient space for the performers to respond to the howling interludes provided by Tristan. The piece concludes with a meditation in which the live performers emulate overtone chanting with their instrument or voice accompanied by a soundscape of resonating singing bowls. 

Purpose of The Piece: The act of howling provides a cathartic release through long doleful cries which facilitate a disintegration of pent up feelings. Great calmness results. Tristan Sings is a response to the unknown source of anxious emotions that have resulted from the extended pandemic lockdowns. Outcomes include a calmer mind. 

Tristan Magnus Christie is a 7-year-old border terrier. His research involves sniffing out opportunities of catching prey. Tristan's daily practice of interactive howling was initiated from an early age by encountering Dr Self’s singing. 

 

You can experiment interacting with the work yourself by following Tristan’s instructions on this youtube link 

https://youtu.be/HjaKxyHTlbE

A word about the composer/performer, Dr Andy Ingemells: He has an extraordinary way of creating provocative performances many which feel imbued with the spirit of Cage. I was lucky to work with Cage in person the Rocky Mountains on Aria, here I am with him above. This cohort of theatrical almost operatic provocative independents who contribute their avant-garde performance practices are a great gift to conventional opera. For them performance = anarchy and out of the box thinking. In a work that I commissioned from Andy in 2019 called He that plays the English gentleman shall be welcome, Andy dresses in cricket whites and provides as a cricket bat, an inexpensive violin. He invites the audience to throw tomatoes stuffed with numbered letters at him whilst literally batting them off as he delivers a dissertation about contemporary music practice. When the ensuing mayhem has receded he calmly invites the audience to pick up the felt backed letters and collectively create a sentence on the wall  which sums up their take on contemporary music!

He that plays the English gentleman shall be welcome, Ingamells: 2019

This approach connects to the legacy of imaginative works such as Ligeti’s Poème Symphonique (Ligeti: 1962), which replaces human performers with 100 metronomes. The methodology and intention of these piece becomes as important as the music. Going a step further, the artist Zimoun (2016: online) creates installations which feature mechanically generated sound which can be experienced by the observer freely rather than through a score which is fixed by a period of time. But back to The Power of The Dog. When I became a full-time composer 8 years ago it seemed to me that I needed a companion and Tristan has certainly been an inspiration and nurturer. He is bold, he can sing and dance and he provides a constant source of interaction which demonstrates the real power of the dog which is the message of Tristan Sings.

Tristan Magnus Christie

The performance score and film to perform with of Tristan Sings will shortly be available from 

composersedition.com

 

 

She is my Pharaoh

 Recently I spent a week improvising with the clarinettist/performance artist Neyire Ashworth in our new music studio, The ARC, in North Norfolk. Neyire is experienced in performance practice and has worked with David Glass. I spent over ten years singing roles with Opera Factory, being inspired to take more and more risks under the directorship of David Freeman. Also I have in my bones the life-changing experience of working with John Cage on 'Aria' in Canada.

Together Neyire and I were ripe to imagine creating a work that features interactive installation and performance. For our starting point we chose the female pharaoh Hatshepsut. The audience will experience the intimacy of Hatshepsut's tomb through my compositional methodology of quilting with found materials, video installation, soundscapes and live improvisation. Our practice as musicians is grounded in the physical theatre of practitioners such as Pina Bausch and DV8. We want to literally get inside Hatshepsut's character and feel her bones. She is my Pharaoh plays on rhyming slang to mean She is my Hero. Although Hatshepsut was allowed to be a female pharaoh, she wasn't allowed to go to war. Instead we embark on her ceremonial journey to Punt where she gathered healing herbs and exotic animals. 

Here is a five-minute video of a soundscape which I generated from our improvisations. We are looking for a première, will you be the one to book She is my Pharaoh?

https://youtu.be/W2AnrLVg1ys

Why women's day is so important for everyone

As a maturing composer and conductor I have had my fair share of discrimination as a woman in the past. As as result I go out of my way to support my younger colleagues on their career paths and I look forward to a brighter future. Lets not forget on this Woman's Day that over half the World's population has until very recently been under the thumb of male dominance. One of the first feelings I grew up with was that as a girl I was inferior. This learnt lack lead me to all kinds of problems with body dysmorphia. As a kid I wanted to be a boy. Sure I wanted to climb trees, fish and explore the woods but to be honest I also hoped that by some magic I would wake up one day with a penis. 

In Cornwall

My Dad was remarkably helpful. He bought me real wood working tools and played football with me, I was extremely lucky. 

My Dad

However in teenage-hood my perceptions of being a second class citizen fuelled a  renouncement of female fleshiness in favour of thinness during a severe but short bout of anorexia. Fortunately getting into The Royal College of Music when I was 17 and finding a boyfriend resolved not eating, he was too sexy to not allow flesh to creep on. And I realise that this boyfriend who is now my husband was crucial to my inner empowerment as a woman. He has supported my musical career all the way as an equal. 

With Michael Christie

We both entered The Royal College of Music as composers, he played cello and I sang. I wanted to become a composer when I left, but the Principle said I must become an opera singer because women couldn't make it as composers. In many respects I learnt my trade as a composer of operas because of all those years singing many solo roles at The Vlaamse Opera and Opera du Rhin. I have as a result of the standard repertoire made sure that all my operas promote women who are heroic and powerful in their own right such as Boudicca, Artemisia Gentileschi and Rosa Parks. Through these works I have largely exorcised the discrimination that lingered in me. 

The schoolboy in Berg's Lulu at The Vlaamse Opera 

Fortunately attitudes have changed a lot now so that in my maturer years I have been able to shift to being full time composer. I am now in the place that I want to be. In the last 7 years have been empowered by wonderful supervisors at Cambridge University and Royal Birmingham Conservatoire culminating in a PhD in composition. However challenges still remain and false perceptions of my ability due to my genital assignment persist such as the comment from an adjudicator at a conducting competition in Cambridge 2014," you conduct well for a woman but I don't like it that you are so tall " or a top publisher at an Opera Europa Conference " Women composers are lightweight". 

Conducting my opera The Butt in Vienna, 2016

Whatever your take on this it must be faced that the repression of half the World's population from equal opportunities is the largest miscarriage of human freedom in the history of the World. Now we are on the road to improvement in some countries although I fear that woman are still over worried about their physical appearance and keep their real passions recessed in order to fit in. My latest opera HER BODY in particular questions the notion of what we need to be like as women, this also applies to men. 

To conclude: Do we need positive discrimination? Well yes, I believe so. Lets have more Proms commissions for women for example. And others who identify as woman ? Welcome on board just as long as you understand that personally I don't identify as a woman but rather as a successful male composer! 

Happy Woman's Day

In HER BODY for Tête a Tête, London 2021 

Link to conducting The Orbita Orchestra playing HER BODY 2021

https://youtu.be/ls_CZmo6miE

Link to The Opera HER BODY 2021

https://vimeo.com/615142400