The Louth Concert for the Bees
Sunday 26th May, 2013, 4pm
Playgoers Riverhead Studio Theatre
After reading
about the premiere of my new opera The
Silence of the Bees: A Science Opera, Biff Vernon, coordinator of The Louth
Festival of the Bees, contacted me about
the possibility of producing the opera at Louth’s Bee Festival. Taken with the idea of the festival, I
immediately agreed. Practicalities and my fondness for recycling my works
resulted in a new work. Hybrid Pollination is a musical exploration of bee decline in the form of a cantata.
‘Hybrid pollination’ in biology is a type of controlled pollination in which the
pollen comes from a different strain or species to improve or increase
biological function. Hybrid Pollination continues my interest
in musical hybridity and refers to pollination as a metaphor for communicating
ideas. I hope that the work helps to
contribute to the enormous amount of work that Biff, Transition Town Louth and
others are doing to communicate and raise public awareness of important
issues.
Kelvin Thomson
Composer
Programme
Extracts from Melissographia
by John Burnside (poet) and Amy Shelton
(artist)
Reader: Biff
Vernon
Songs of Bees and Flowers (ca. 30:00)
Various
Singer: Kate
Witney
Interval
Introduction to Hybrid
Pollination
by Kelvin Thomson
Composed by Kelvin
Thomson
Original text by Benet Catty and drawn
from original sources
Narrator: Kelvin
Thomson
Soprano: Danae
Eleni
Mezzo-soprano: Sophie
Yelland
Tenor: Patrick
Ashcroft
Baritone: Andre
Refig
Music Direction and Piano: Wyn
Hyland
Additional piano: Kelvin
Thomson
Oboe, Cor Anglais: Rachel
Broadbent
HYBRID POLLINATION
PROLOGUE – Them
A short requiem for bees and a requiem for mankind’s ability to make
good decisions. A chant of extinct and
endangered species of bumblebees and a nursery rhyme.
PART ONE
Perspectives
Tolstoy’s words remind us of the range of opinions life affords us,
particularly in relation to bees.
Facts
The Scientist gives an introductory lecture about bees. Three other characters introduce contrasting
perspectives. They are different aspects
of her personality.
Memories
Short true-life stories of individual encounters with bees continue
the big theme of perspectives.
INTERLUDE ONE
A setting of Jo Shapcott’s poem ‘The
Threshold’.
PART TWO
Global
The Scientist’s alter-egos become more dominant, explaining some of
the causes of the bee crisis.
Personal
The Scientist’s conflicted perspective on the issues becomes a
conflicted sense of herself, for instance regarding her experiments in which she
has to harm bees in order to help them. Her story becomes a symbol of the debate
over bees.
History
A comparison is made between the plight of bees and the global
warming story; that Man goes through the stages of denial, deceit, delay and
disaster. The bees’ crisis is shown to be
representative of a wider story of human
‘progress’.
INTERLUDE TWO
Settings of Marcus Aurelius and Francis Bacon.
PART THREE SI – Swarm Intelligence
The Truth (As I See It)
The Scientist creates a bee crisis debate in which representatives of
Science, Politics, Farming and Art state their cases in a familiar operetta
style. Unity seems far off.
Science Fact / Science Fiction
Tensions rise in the debate. Lack of unity turns to seeing
communication as a potential basis for progress. Answers lie in
unity.
INTERLUDE THREE
A setting of Liz Bahs’ poem ‘Nest’.
EPILOGUE – Us
The epilogue reprises the bumblebee chant and themes of progress are
restated.
Kelvin Thomson:
Music director, vocal coach, session
musician (piano/keyboards), composer and arranger.
Recent compositions have been performed
in London, Athens and Glasgow by Marilyn Wyers, Danae Eleni and
Enrico Bertelli; CHROMA; Duologue; and the London Contemporary Chamber
Orchestra. LCCO recorded Prelude and
Interlude from Cha tig Mor in Dec 2010 and nominated the piece for a British
Composer Award 2011
in
the Making Music category. Incidental music composed for Theatre Counteract’s
production of An Arrangement of
Shoes, Indian premiere Bangalore, November 2011.
As Music Director, toured with Celtic Woman,
USA (2006) and
Riverdance, Europe (2004-5). Assistant Conductor:
Southwark Playhouse’s production of John Adams’ Ceiling/Sky at the Huddersfield
Contemporary Music Festival (1999) and Opera Omaha’s
(USA) world premiere of Andrew Lloyd
Webber’s Requiem Variations (1996).
West
End Associate
Conductor, Zorro (2008-9) and Priscilla Queen of the Desert
(2009-2011).
Recordings as pianist/keyboardist
include: Movie Legends – The Music of
John Williams – RPO, (2007); Songs My
Mother Taught Me - Lorna Luft (2007); The Isles of Greece a song cycle by
Donald Swann (Classic FM’s record of the month 2000); Awakening (1997) and The Music of Life, Joseph Curiale, RPO
(2001).
Rachel Broadbent
Rachel studied at Birmingham Conservatoire and studied with Jonathan
Kelly (principal oboe Berlin Philharmonic) and George Caird. Whilst at the
Conservatoire Rachel was awarded the Rollason prize for performance and won the
Birmingham and
Midland Institute Woodwind Competition. She gained a 1st class B.Mus(hons)
degree and then moved to Guildhall School of Music and Drama to study for a Post
Graduate in Orchestral Training.
Rachel is now a busy freelance oboist working with many orchestras
around the country, amongst which are the Brandenburg Sinfonia, ,
Southern Sinfonia, BBC
Concert Orchestra, London Concert Orchestra, British Philharmonic Concert
Orchestra. Alongside her orchestral work Rachel performs as a soloist performing
Concertos with various orchestras and working regularly giving recitals with her
accompanist Kevin Vockerodt. Recently Rachel and Kevin gave the debut
performance of a new work called ‘Songs Eternity’ by
composer Kelvin Thomson.
Rachel is
actively involved in teaching and encouraging people to learn the oboe. She has
recently been employed to teach oboe at Guildhall School of Music Junior
Department and also
teaches at The Hall School in Hampstead, Haileybury
College in
Hertford and Beechood
Park
School in
Markyate, Hertfordshire. She is also a published arranger and an arrangement of
hers for 2 Oboes and Cor Anglais is available from Spartan Press. It is an
arrangement of Brahms - Variations on a Theme of Haydn and includes the theme
and a selection of the variations. In 2012 Emerson Edition will be publishing a
further arrangement, also of the music by Brahms. This arrangement is of 3
Brahms Songs and is arranged for Oboe and Piano, Clarinet and Piano or Cor
Anglais and Piano.
In an article for the first edition of Cryptozoology Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that cryptozoology is the study of 'unexpected animals' and following on from that perfectly reasonable assertion, it seems to us that whereas the study of out of place birds may not have the glamour of the hunt for bigfoot or lake monsters, it is still a perfectly valid area for the Fortean zoologist to be interested in. So after about six months of regular postings on the main bloggo Corinna took the plunge and started a 'Watcher of the Skies' blog of her own as part of the CFZ Bloggo Network.
