Last Monday at Hotel du Vin in Birmingham I presented a commissioned piece for Birmingham arts group Hybrid.
It was a musical piece developed conceptually on the them of “them and us”. The process led me to develop a piece somewhat differently than I would normally do so it was an interesting composition process.
What [...]
Archive for January 2008
Hybrid Commission - Posted January 30, 2008
Paddy Bashing - Posted
I see Ireland’s budget airline Ryanair is in trouble with the media again for an advert featuring a model as a scantily clad schoolgirl, BBC article here.
I got my first Ryanair flight a few months ago and it was actually a great experience despite all the horror stories I had read in the [...]
The Death of Mr Lazarescu - Posted January 11, 2008
“The Death of Mr Lazarescu” is a Romanian film by director Chris Puiu. Mr Lazarescu is an old guy who lives in a flat with his three cats and obviouslydrinks a lot. The film follows him over the course of a night from his flat to various hospitals as his health condition deteriorates. The film [...]
Birmingham Jazz Youth Creative Big Band Sessions - Posted
Coming up on Saturday 19th January at the CBSO centre Birmingham Jazz are hosting the first of 3 creative big band sessions. If you are interested in being part of a big group of improvising musicians and are aged between 12 and 21 come along. The first two sessions are 12pm-3pm and the final one [...]
Taxidermia - Posted January 3, 2008
The other night my girlfriend and I rented Taxidermia on DVD. It is described by Bizarre magazine as “One of the biggest head-fucks ever committed to celluloid”. And indeed it is a most gross and disturbing movie watching experience. But at the same time it is colourful, beautiful, hilarious and inspiring.
This is [...]
On The Road - Posted
My first artistic activity of 2008 was working with Steve Tromans on a musical setting of Jack Kerouac’s classic novel “On The Road”. This is part of Steve’s “Beat Series” project which you can learn a bit more about here.
I was fortunate to narrate Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” for Steve and we had [...]
Happy New Year - Posted
Happy New Year to one and all. I am intending to be more active on the blog front this year so if let’s see if I stick to it. I have a lot of stuff to do and quite a few projects that still need finishing! However, since starting my Phd with Ulster University my [...]