Original text by Isley Lynn
Music by Toni Mairata March
Performed in Madrid on the 3rd of February 2014

Conductor - Bernat Quetglas Torelló
Vocal (soprano) - Marga Rodriguez
Vocal (baritone) - Hector Rodriguez
Piano - Alba Herraiz
Piano - Pablo Garcia Vico
Clarinet - Ignacio Durán
Saxophone - Raúl García
Flute - Katia Perera Tornes
Trumpet - Felix Perez



God bless electric light 
Not only can we now really see in the dark 
And pressure fussy plants to grow when they should be sleeping 

But with electric light, man has transformed his landscape 
Mountains now are sprinkled with tiny bodies of brightness 

And the oceans are host to a thousand bobbing bulbs, all snailing over the 
water alone 
Every sea shore shines. 

It's garish sea-side attractions slicing out each country's quivering silhouette 
into some translated 
film negative 
And over every landmass light drizzles it's route across like honey skims the skin 
of a drum 
Rivers are reborn 
Transubstantiated angelically by the heavenly glow they reflect 
(A trick taught to them by the moon) 

And our invention, while brash and revealing, comforts too 
And women feel safer as they walk home alone, now cloaked by the street 
lamps in a distilled 
dazzle 

But 
Also 
God bless the desert 
Where wires cannot reach for the distance 
And poles cannot stand for the sand
And man sees nothing to illuminate
So the stars 
So solitary in their luminosity 
Swell for pride 
And break 
And mist us with their dissipating brilliance

The Improvised History of the World - Electric Light

Original text by Jonny Fluffypunk
Music by Gunnar Karel Másson
Performed in Copenhagen on the 29th of January 2014

Vocal - Helene Hvass Hansen
Saxophone - Jakub Wiecek
Accordion - Helga Kristbjörg Guðmundssdóttir
Flute - María Ösp Ómarsdóttir
Trombone - Finnur Karlsson
Percussion / Drums - Albert Karch

Hulyai-Pole's favourite son 
liberty comes with a bomb and a gun 
as revolutionaries go, you're my number one 
Nestor Makhno - 

Ukrainian peasant revolutionary leader Nestor Makhno 
walks into his home village of Hulyai-Pole 
his moustache's smelling sweetly of gunpowder and death. 
Fresh from slaughtering running dogs 
of the Tsar's white army; 
after a light lunch- egg mayonnaise sandwich; glass of milk- 
he's off to re-appropriate 20,000 hectares of prime arable land 
and redistribute it among the grateful peasantry. 
Makhno feels awkward- 
stray mayonnaise has oozed from his sandwich 
and stuck to his moustache 
but girls gaze adoringly from doorways
with the wonderment of children, 
oblivious to the rogue condiment 
Batko! Batko! Thank you 
from the bottom of our hearts! 

Hulyai-Pole's favourite son 
liberty comes with a bomb and a gun 
as revolutionaries go, you're my number one 
Nestor Makhno - 

(...)

Improvised History of the World - Nestor Makhno

Original text by AF Harrold
Music by Jerzy Bielski
Performed in Amsterdam on the 27th of January 2014

Vocal - Jerzy Bielski
Vocal - Hedwig van Leuven
Clarinet - Matthias Sigurdsson
Drums - Mauricio Ramirez
Percussion - Sujin Hwang
Piano - Kaja Draksler
Live Electronics - Felix De Bousies
Saxophone - Jon Bittman

They came from over there, 
always. 

The horizon, a dangerous neighbour,
was no barbed-wire border. 

They always came from over there, 
and cities fell, and villages burned, 
and empires spread, 
and, always, more babies were born into it all.

Improvised History of the World - Early Civilisations

Original text by AF Harrold
Music by Toni Mairata March
Performed in Madrid on the 3rd of February 2014

Conductor - Bernat Quetglas Torelló
Vocal (soprano) - Marga Rodriguez
Vocal (baritone) - Hector Rodriguez
Piano - Alba Herraiz
Piano - Pablo Garcia Vico
Clarinet - Ignacio Durán
Saxophone - Raúl García
Flute - Katia Perera Tornes
Trumpet - Felix Perez


Flint fits snug in the palm, 
cool against the skin, 
its weight heavier than an idea 
but full of one. 
 
From this knapped stone, 
like a flower, 
the future unfolds, blooms, explodes 
in a hundred thousand years of slow motion.

TIHotW - Prehistory

'Prehistory'
Original text by AF Harrold
Music by Toni Mairata March

'Electric Light'
Original text by Isley Lynn
Music by Toni Mairata March

'Nestor Makhno'
Original text by Jonny Fluffypunk
Music by Gunnar Karel Masson

'Harold's Song' 
Original text by AF Harrold
Music by Toni Mairata March

Performed in the Royal College of Music in Stockholm on the 31st of January 2014

Saxophone - Jesper Eriksson
Cello, Vocal - Emma Augustsson
Tuba - Anton Svanberg
Guitar - Sebastian Gerstel Sollerman
Violin - Alexander Rydberg

The Improvised History of the World - Stockholm Workshop

'The Improvised History of the World' is an interactive musical theatre show opening in London in August 2014.

ImprovisedHistory