On 22 July 2012 at the Trafalgar Square the famous British musician and DJ Matthew Herbert will present the Matthew Herbert All-Russian Big Band, the experimental project he has been working over during the last year.
The British Council is supporting a series of 5 high profile collaborations linking British musicians with artists and performers around the world which will form part of BT River of Music, a spectacular weekend of free music from across the 205 Olympic and Paralympic nations presented at iconic sites along the River Thames on 21 and 22 July 2012. The performances will help to make the London 2012 Games a truly international experience, and are produced by Serious.
The collaborations represent all five continents, and will be created from the development of projects around the world, resulting in performances both overseas and in London as part of BT River of Music.
British electronic musician and DJ Matthew Herbert has created a very special collaborative project to represent Russia for performance at BT River of Music. Matthew created a new Russian Big Band from scratch, with the ambition that the band will continue to play together long after the project has finished.
Well known for the use of so-called 'real', 'ordinary' or 'found' sounds in modern electronic music, Matthew composed two new pieces of music created from sounds of Russia – recordings of hundreds of Russian babies, Russian old people’s singing, recorded impulses inside iconic architectural buildings in Moscow.
“Instead of just writing music about Russia, we are trying to create music out of Russia and its people. For example, we have asked them to send us the sounds of their babies. What better way to state both the particularity and universality of the Russian experience than through the gurgle and scream of newborns? We have set up a telephone answer machine for the babies to call up and leave us a message.
The recordings will be turned in to a new piece of music, combined with our all-new-all-star Russian big band and performed on the day. In wanting to acknowledge though the enormous social, historical, political and cultural shifts that Russian society has been through, or been subjected to, it seemed only fair to also give the oldest generation a voice - those who actually lived through it. We will therefore also be collecting sounds, and memories of sounds from this elderly generation of Russians and turning them in to music.
At this stage it is hard to predict exactly how it all might sound but already it has been quite a fun challenge - trying to find new ways to navigate the enormous pitfalls present at every turn in trying to represent the world's biggest country in music. At the end of the process though, I'm looking forward to watching our conductor count off the first tune and hear our new band play for the first time,” says Matthew Herbert.
On 25 May 2012 the performance was previewed by Moscow audience at Strelka Institute.
For more information, please, contact Evgenia Gerasimova, British Council Russia evgenia.gerasimova@britishcouncil.ru +7 (495)278 1828.
BT River of Music will welcome the world to London with a spectacular weekend of free music from across the 205 Olympic and Paralympic nations, presented at iconic sites along the River Thames on 21 and 22 July 2012. BT River of Music is part of the London 2012 Festival. It is supported by National Lottery Funds through the Olympic Lottery Distributor and Arts Council England and is produced by Serious.
The London 2012 Cultural Olympiad is the largest cultural celebration in the history of the modern Olympic and Paralympic Movements. Spread over four years, it is designed to give everyone in the UK a chance to be part of London 2012 and inspire creativity across all forms of culture, especially among young people.
The culmination of the Cultural Olympiad will be the London 2012 Festival, a spectacular 12-week nationwide celebration bringing together leading artists from across the world with the very best from the UK, from Midsummers Day on 21 June and running until the final day of the Paralympic Games on 9 September 2012.The London 2012 Festival will celebrate the huge range, quality and accessibility of the UK’s world-class culture including dance, music, theatre, the visual arts, fashion, film and digital innovation, giving the opportunity for people across the UK to celebrate the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Principal funders of the Cultural Olympiad and London 2012 Festival are Arts Council England, Legacy Trust UK and the Olympic Lottery Distributor. BP and BT are Premier Partners of the Cultural Olympiad and the London 2012 Festival.
For more details on the programme and to sign up for information visit www.london2012.com/festival
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