For my first post of 2010 I’ve got a new video release: It’s part of the “Touchable Dreams” performance which I did with Jeremy Harmer in December 2009 in Cambridge. This clip is just me doing a looped version of the famous “Canon in D” by Pachelbel. I worked out the programming needed in order to perform it properly in it’s original form – bass line and three canonical violin lines – a while ago: It involves a straight loop for the bass line and then lots of careful loop/replace functions for the canon. I was delighted it proved possible to do; and it proves popular in live performances.
This particular concert was the first outing for my new Bridge 5-string electric violin: More about the superb Bridge instruments soon…..
Thursday 10th December sees Jeremy Harmer and I presenting our show “Touchable Dreams” in Cambridge, at the Emmanuel United Reformed Church in Trumpington Street.
Subtitled “Words and Music in the Key of Love” the show has had great success so far this year, and lots of our friends and colleagues in the Cambridge area were asking when we’d do it locally: So here it is.
This show blends my playing, using my usual blend of looping, electric violin, pedals and acoustic violin; with Jeremy’s expressive readings from poets as diverse as Shakespeare and Carol Ann Duffy (with a little singing thrown in!). The words frame the music, the music illuminates the words. And when they happen together, the effect is spellbinding….
If you’re anywhere near Cambridge do come along! Tickets will be available on the door, but can also be purchased online from http://www.stevebingham.co.uk/shop/. Just click the “ticket” link.
The weekend of the 7th/8th of November saw me playing in two very different situations. On the Saturday I travelled to Thame in Oxfordshire, to Lord Williams’ School, which I attended for the first two years of my secondary education from 1974 – 1976. I had been asked to play in a concert celebrating the Schools’ 450th Anniversary – along the way I also got roped into sorting out the sound system for the other performers and singing in an ad hoc chamber choir! Oddly the last time I had sung in a choir was when I was at the school, before my voice broke…..!
Rehearsing with Howard Goodall at LWS in 1975 (I'm the 2nd boy from the right!)
The day started with a real nostalgia trip as I joined a group being given a tour of the school: There were two old schoolmates in the group and we also visited the room which had been my dormitory for two years (now a conference room). It was smaller than I remembered!!
In my old dormitory at LWS!
The concert went well; a fun evening with lots of variety. I even managed to get around the choir pieces (a selection of madrigals and other short pieces conducted by my old head of music, Robin Nelson) fairly well. My violin contributions went down well, and there was the premiere of a choral piece written specially for the occasion by ex-pupil (in the 6th form when I was there) Howard Goodall.
But enough of nostalgia……
On the Sunday I had to get to the Yehudi Menuhin School in Surrey for 8.30am in order to setup my electric violin and looping gear for the European String Teachers Association annual conference! I gave a short recital to the delegates, and then a 90 minute presentation of a variety of electric violin and looping techniques. The Hall at the school is excellent, and it was a most enjoyable morning. There was a lot of interest in what I was doing, and lots of positive networking, which I hope will lead to some more concerts and demonstrations.
Performing in the Menuhin Hall for the ESTA conference (photo: Geraint Tellem)
I also had a chance to try out some Bridge electric violins (they had a display stand at the conference), and was instantly impressed, in particular with their octave bass violin. I feel that the number of electric violins in my house may soon be increasing! Watch this space….
Apologies to anyone who was unable to get onto my site last week: My server was terminally hacked and had ot be replaced, so the site was offline for a few days.
In the meantime I’ve given an inaugural concert with a new collaboration; a violin duo called “Phase Two” with violinist Kelly Jones. We played a mixed programme of acoustic and electric works in a wonderful church in Shoreham, including first performances of a new duo piece by Chris Gander and a new arrangement I’ve made of Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal”!
On Sunday I was conducting Ely Sinfonia in a one day orchestral workshop on Brahms’ “Academic Festival Overture” and Bernstein’s “Candide”. A tiring but very enjoyable day. I read somewhere that conducting is the best aerobic exercise there is – I completely agree! One new first violin said “Steve is so good… he has to put up with all our mistakes and he doesn’t shout at us like some conductors!” I’ll try not to let it go to my head….
I’ve also received some photos from our Ely Sinfonia concert in October, taken during the afternoon rehearsal for the Mozart “Requiem”. Here are a couple.
Rehearsing Mozart's Requiem in Ely Cathedral
...the largest group of musicians I have conducted to date!
After several very successful outings over the summer, “Touchable Dreams“, a poetry and music show with the excellent Jeremy Harmer, will be playing at the Halesworth Arts Festival this coming Wednesday, 14th October at 7.30pm. The venue is the Cut Arts Centre in Halesworth.
I have a number of completely free tickets for this event, so if you’d like to see this unique show all you need to do is email or phone me as soon as possible to secure your free tickets.
“Touchable Dreams” takes its title from a poem by poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy. It is an exploration of the symbiosis between the expressive beauty of words and the ethereal poetry of music. Both aim to express the passion, tenderness and agony of deep feeling, and when they complement each other, the effect can be extraordinarily intense.
Sometimes, in Touchable Dreams, words follow the music, echoing its plangent harmonies; at other times music follows the words, transforming their individual power into raw emotion. And sometimes the words and the music are intertwined in an almost physical interdependency.
Touchable Dreams describes romantic love, transient love, ridiculous love, bitter love, lost love, and sublime love in the music of J S Bach, Steve Bingham, Nick Drake, Andrew Keeling, Johann Pachelbel, Astor Piazzolla, eugene Ysaye and other, and in the words of poets and playwrights such as W H Auden, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Elizabeth Bishop, e e cummings, Carol Ann Duffy, Jeremy Harmer, Ted Hughes, Elizabeth Jennings, Jenny Joseph, Roger McGough, Brian Patten, William Shakespeare and others.
In the words of Steve and Jeremy, “we want to show how music and words – the very bases of human emotion – can co-exist and enhance each other’s power for one of the greatest emotions – love – of the human experience.”
