Three movements played without a break, part of a collaboration with Mike Collier, Geoff Sample, and Alex Charrington, this is music for a set of 14 prints made by Mike and Alex, based on sonograms by Geoff. I have written this solo piano piece based on melodies derived from Geoff's sonograms of individual birdsongs. Rather than imitating the song of the birds, I have "translated" Geoff's visualisations (sonograms)into medieval neumatic notation, which the sonograms themselves resemble, and then translated the medieval into modern notations, and then composed freely with this material. The first section is based on transcriptions of redstarts, the first to sing in a typical dawn chorus, then a flourish leads into the main dawn chorus - blackbirds and robins, joined by wren, chaffinch, and dunnock, finally a tranquil evening chorus dominated by wood pigeons. The title, as has become normal for these collaborations with Mike Collier, is from a poem by Edward Thomas. The image is the third of Mike's images from the sequence of fourteen. Mike's exhibition of prints with my music has been seen (and heard) at National Drawing Centre, (Trowbridge, Wilts), Platform A Gallery, (Middlesboro), Allenheads Contemporary Arts, Black Swan Arts, (Frome), and Cheeseburn Grange, (Northumberland). 

The pianist here is Kate Williams.

Here's a link to Mike's artist website.
http://mikecollier.eu/
Connected to this project is a co-edited book by Mike and myself with John Strachan called "Songs of Time and Place: Birdsong and the Dawn Chorus in Natural History and the Arts", published by Gaia Project Press in collaboration with Art Editions North and Bath Spa University. ISBN: 978-0-9932192-9-0.

Out Of The Wood Of Thought That Grows By Night . . .

bennetthogg