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So, you thought that a whole lunchtime rogramme of music at Fairfield by local composers, including five world premiers, was exeptional?
Well, it was. But let me say that things are really buzzing. For in the next six days there will be Four concerts which feature Ten composers with Croydon associations. And of the works to be heard at least Eight, I know, will be world premieres.
And Two of the concerts will be presented at the very cutting edge of new communications technology, so that we can justifiably claim a unique musical status here in Croydon.
Neither of the last mentioned concerts will be in Croydon, but both have been master-minded by Sanderstead composer Ludger Hofmann-Engl, a member of the Chameleon Group of Composers. They will be given simultaneously - three thousand miles apart!
To explain: Réseau Résonnant, a concert comprising ieces by the Croydon composer Giles Easterbrook (Warwick Light for soprano, clarinet, cello and iano); Peter Anthony Monk (Railway Parade for clarinet and piano); and Hofmann-Engl himself (Psalm 30for soprano, clarinet and cello); will be given by singer Lesley-Jane Rogers and Fibonacci Seqeunce at the Insitute of Contemporary Art, The Mall, London, on Sunday at 8 pm.
At the same time Marcella Calabi (soprano), Evan Spritzer (clarinet), Michael Finckel (cello) and Jai Jeffryes (piano) will perform work by Tom Cipullo, John Link and Ben Yarmolinsky at the Greenwich House in New York (3 pm American Time). Audiences at each event will be able to see visual images from the other throughout their concert and during the interval and before and after live sound links will be made between the two venues
But the real beauty of this event is that anyone who is online can see the images and hear the music (from 7 pm). First you will have to down-load a RealPlayer from real.com; then you will be able to access images and sound.
It is an exiting and an innovative idea, and one that Hofmann-Engl has been working on for some time:
Basically, composers who do not have a publisher can make their music available on the internet, to be accessed and downloaded by anyone, anywhere in the world who has an interest. In that way the selection of composers who are heard in the public domain becomes more efficent."
Collection of royalties are some way from being resolved, but in the meantime composers at least have a way of getting real exposure.
Just access the Croydon group's website on www.chameleongroup.org.uk/concerts/reseau.html and let technology do the rest!
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