Green Fuse Tour 2003
In autumn 2003, orfeo 5 were commissioned by The Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea to create a suite of new songs using poems by Dylan Thomas and W.S. Graham. We worked together at The Word Hoard in Huddersfield, and then spent a week working at The Dylan Thomas Centre, while staying in the very pleasant surroundings of The Mumbles. After the premiere in Swansea, the band then toured green fuse nationally to venues in Wallsend, Sheffield, Bournemouth, Exeter and Lancaster. While audiences, as always, varied in size, their response was universally positive. One of the best moments came in Swansea, when a member of our audience, a woman who had actually known Dylan Thomas, assured us that Dylan would have loved it. We, of course, believe her.
In fact, the group created 3 new works as part of the tour. We were also commissioned by Lancaster Litfest to make a new piece around the idea of memory, which came to be called to blow the silk door open between worlds. We used texts by our sax player Keith Jafrate and by Word Hoard member Dianne Darby to create a semi-narrative piece featuring recorded voices and soundtracks as well as our own live performance. And we composed a site-specific piece, a prayer to the sea, while in residence at The Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum in Bournemouth This involved working with local people from 3 years of age upwards to record sounds and texts that were then mixed into a live performance by the group.
For the green fuse tour we were lucky enough to secure the services of Al Orange as sound engineer. A musician, trapeze artist and pyrotechnician, Al brought many gifts other than skill with wires and dials to our work, and she took the pictures you can see on this page (except for the dolls, which were discovered at The Buddle Arts Centre in Wallsend by Matt and Dave and photographed by Keith).
Perhaps the most important thing that happened through the tour was that the group began to sound very much like itself, unified, everyone at ease in the mix. This showed especially in Lancaster, where we completed the commission in two and a half days but gave what was very likely the best performance of the tour, coming offstage amazed at the experience. Another good thing was finding we could compose in all sorts of ways, in all sorts of contexts and to different kinds of deadlines. What we really want to do next is extend and develop our site-specific work, using residencies to work together and with others to make music performances with multi-media content. Hopefully there will be more to report on this over the coming months.
You can listen to a prayer to the sea, by going HERE
