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Dressing up as a white bear…

thecat

It has been a pleasure to work with the Welsh writer Rachel Trezise for the last project I undertook (www.racheltrezise.co.uk). I met Rachel when we both had pieces of work produced for the centenary of the Park and Dare theatre in Treorchy two years ago. The aim of the last project was to write a small collection of pieces using literature from Wales and Norway. Since I was setting a Norwegian folktale I thought it would be a nice counterpoint to work with a contemporary Welsh writer: and it was. Rachel took inspiration from a Norwegian folktale ‘The Cat on the Dovrefjell’, which in its simplest form is about trolls being scared away from a family home by a polar bear. What is beautiful and clever about the story that Rachel produced is the interweaving of this idea with a touching and intriguing snapshot of a scene in the life of a Welsh family. I recorded Rachel reading the text and then started working on a piece of music that would paint the scenes within it. The piece that was written was for solo vibraphone and electronics, performed at last week’s concert in the Norwegian Church, Cardiff Bay. If you click on the picture above, you will be taken directly to a recording of the piece on Soundcloud.

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