11 October 2011

The Cube Orchestra

Hey reader/listeners and a good old giggedy to ya (sorry, been watching way too much Family Guy recently). So, The Cube Orchestra, who or what are they might you ask? My journey to finding them was an interesting one, allow me to divulge..

May 30th, the last night of the Brighton Festival, at Brighton Dome .. a friend and I attended a STUNNING live music and film project, developed in Bristol by musicians Adrian Utley (Portishead) and Will Gregory (Goldfrapp), in which a large eclectic musical ensemble provided a re-written score to a classic silent movie 'The Passion of Joan of Arc'. Having never seen or heard of such a project before, I was left completely breath taken at the scale and complexity that must have gone into it, twas amazing. Check out this review.

Feeling infinitely inspired I thought to myself, what if I could do something like this, but perhaps on a smaller scale... 3 months later, back in Bristol having returned from Uni, I decided to seek out other musicians to potentially help form such a project. Eventually, I met up with a chap through facebook, Ed McGregor, a unique live-remixing electronic guru, who told me to check out the Cube Orchestra (thanks Ed!).

A week later I met up with the Cube Orchestra (CO); an ever changing line up of various musicians, who get together every Wed evening at the Cube Cinema and go improv crazy.. and, who, every so once in a while perform live improvised (mostly) film scores(!!!). Within a week and a half I was performing with the CO in front of around 30 people to an old silent German film called The Holy Mountain, and I have to say it was one of the most amazing live performance experiences I've had to date. A day later, through links with the CO, I was providing horroresque background music for a local storyteller and discussing writing some music for an animator who I met through another musician. For any musicians reading this, this really does prove that networking is a vital key towards finding work and opportunities. If any more performances are coming up, I will be sure to let you know.

S.J.Hazell