It’s finally arrived: Today, after several months of recording and preparation, 1000 copies of my new solo CD “Ascension” were delivered to my door. It’s an exciting feeling to open the first box and take the wrapping off 
the first CD. Although the music is all exactly the same as it was when it was on my computer prior to going to the CD pressing plant, it somehow feels different as I put the first real copy of the CD into the CD player and start playing it…..
As I listen through to the CD, I reflect that the wide variety of music on the recording seems to aptly reflect the sort of week I’m having: Varied seems, actually, to be a bit of an understatement!
Yesterday I was in a London recording studio, sitting in the small recording room, headphones at a jaunty angle (to allow one side to be over my right ear to hear the track I was recording over, while the other sits away from the other ear, so that I can also hear my own playing properly!), playing music by composer David Stoll. These were instrumental lines added above sampled instruments, for a ‘library’ CD – a recording which can be used by companies looking for music for TV shows, adverts and the like. I followed this by an evening orchestral rehearsal in Cambridge playing Johann Strauss’s famous operetta “Die Fledermaus”
Today I was preparing for, and then conducting, a rehearsal with Ely Sinfonia for their forthcoming Christmas concert featuring Howard Blake’s “The Snowman” and Edward Watson’s “The Twelve Days of Christmas”; a wonderfully witty musical setting based around the clever words of John Julius Norwich – a series of letters detailing the possible response to receiving the presents listed in this famous carol.
Tomorrow (although as I write this tomorrow has just become today!) I will be in Colchester giving a duo recital with clarinettist Charles Hine. We’ve put together a fairly way out mixture of acoustic and electronic music which goes from serialism to George Harrison, minimalism to Coldplay and improvisation to live looping……A first for me will be a new piece for solo clarinet where I’ll be doing live manipulation of the sound using loops, delays and other effects. A first for Charles will be having to pluck some violin notes in an arrangement I’ve made of “Fratres” by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt – it will be his violin debut! A first for everyone in the audience (and me!) will be watching Charles perform a piece written for two clarinets, but only one clarinettist….
All in all a varied week – and it’s only Wednesday.
I shall finish this blog post now and turn off the CD player: My “Ascension” CD has just got to track 8 – a short piece by the renaissance composer Susato, which I recorded using violins, recorders and percussion. Every time I hear it it makes me grin: I had such fun recording it. I’ve always enjoyed Renaissance dance music, and to be able to record some for my CD, in a very light-hearted arrangement, was a real pleasure.
You can buy “Ascension” directly from my online shop here. Both “Ascension” and my first solo CD “Duplicity” are available with 20% off for the whole of December.
September and October this year seem to have gone by in a rapidly-moving blur, and suddenly here we are in November and I realise that I haven’t written a post for two months!
I have, as you may easily guess, been keeping busy: September saw me coaching on a strings and woodwind course with the excellent Colin Touchin, as well as giving a workshop at Haileybury College, where I worked with some of the students on playing electric violin, and also demonstrated the looping techniques which I use in my solo concerts. This was also the month that my son Chris started at Lincoln University, a rather major change for all of us! He has still found time to design the artwork for my new CD though…
The major event in October was an Ely Sinfonia concert in Ely Cathedral where I conducted, among other works, the Elgar Cello Concerto, played superbly by the renowned Raphael Wallfisch. This was the culmination of my first season as Artistic Director of Ely Sinfonia, and we managed to draw an audience of over 600 for what was an excellent concert.
I also gave a couple of solo recitals in October, including playing for the 2nd Norwich Festival of Live Looping, where I met up with the person who got me into looping in the first place, bass guitarist Steve Lawson. Also on the bill was the excellent Per Boysen, all the way from Sweden, and the Festival organiser, guitarist Andy Butler. At the end of the month I travelled to Glasgow for 4 days with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, playing the huge Messiaen masterpiece “Des Canyons Aux Etoiles”. For those who might be interested the concert we gave of this piece will be broadcast on Radio 3 on the evening of December 12th.
However my main efforts over the last two months have been towards the completion of my new CD “Ascension”. It’s now finally finished and is off to be pressed this week, for release by the end of the month. An ideal Christmas gift, if I say so myself!
This CD has evolved a lot from my original idea of a short CD single with about 15 minutes of music on it. It’s ending up coming in at 55 minutes and, in true Bingham style, has everything from Renaissance dance music on violins, recorders and percussion, to Led Zeppelin on multi-tracked violins! In between there’s some more Bartok Duos, and excellent Telemann Canonic Sonata, a wonderful choral piece by Pablo Casals, which I’ve arranged for strings, an arrangement of a Jeff Beck number with double bass and African drums, and, the title track, my own composition “Ascension”. There are 3 remaining tracks, all recorded live: A light-hearted, jazzy encore from a concert I gave with guitarist Jason Carter in Cambridge a few years ago, and, from the more recent past, two live sections from the very first completely improvised performance I’ve ever given! The details of this concert are in my blog post “Improvizone” and I decided that some of the music would work well as the first and last tracks on the CD….
“Ascension” can be pre-ordered from my shop now, and will be available from the beginning of December.
Friday saw me playing with the band No-Man in their first live gig for 15 years, and my first gig with a ‘rock’ band.
- L to R: Mike Bearpark, Steven Wilson, Pete Morgan, Tim Bowness, Andy Booker, Steve Bingham, Stephen Bennett (photo: Lisa Smith)
Bush Hall, in West London, was full to capacity, plus recording engineer and film crew (the gig was being recorded for a live CD and DVD film).
- (photo: Lisa Smith)
- (photo: Chris Bingham)
The first song in the set was the haunting ‘Only Rain’, vocals and violin alone, and starting with a minute or so of solo violin live loops: 400 fans, some of whom had waited 15 years since they last heard the band live, eager to hear their heroes Tim Bowness and Steve Wilson perform – and the first thing they get is me! I have to admit to being a little nervous….
But all started well, and at the end of the evening I don’t think that any of the fans were disappointed:
A mixture of songs from old and new albums made for an interesting and varied set. I await the live CD and DVD with interest, but meanwhile we’re off to Europe on Tuesday for repeat performances in Holland and Germany. There are more photos from the London gig here.
Email news arrived yesterday of the release, by Bohemian Productions, in collaboration with Sony, of their Jeff Beck tribute CD – entitled ‘El Becko’ (was that a groan I heard?) – to which I contributed a cover of the song ‘Scatterbrain’. I hope to have some copies of the CD available on the shop soon, but the track will also appear on my ‘Ascension’ solo CD (when I get it finished!).
the first CD. Although the music is all exactly the same as it was when it was on my computer prior to going to the CD pressing plant, it somehow feels different as I put the first real copy of the CD into the CD player and start playing it…..
