Sound art, spoken word

CHAMBER MUSIC

'Fruit Songs' was originally written for the soprano Sarah Dacey and acoustic guitar. It has undergone other arrangements for chamber group (soprano, clarinet, violin, 'cello, piano and percussion) and for soprano and piano.

This version is sung by Jenny Duck-Chong with Janet Agostino on guitar, as part of the group Halcyon, a brilliant Australian ensemble who champion new music and have also given the Australian premieres of my works 'luna-cy' and 'ojo'. www.halcyon.org.au

They set five different poems about fruit!
I - Mango
II - Plum
III - Blackberry
IV - Cherry
V - Apple

'Kerry Andrew’s ‘fruit songs’…were playful, punning and admirably concise—not unlike a musical equivalent of the visual puns of the poetry of e.e. cummings.' Sydney Morning Herald, 2003

'Kerry Andrew’s ‘fruit songs’ …treat the voice as a circus acrobat treats a trapeze.' North Shore Times, Sydney, 2006

blackberry from fruit songs

'Fruit Songs' was originally written for the soprano Sarah Dacey and acoustic guitar. It has undergone other arrangements for chamber group (soprano, clarinet, violin, 'cello, piano and percussion) and for soprano and piano.

This version is sung by Jenny Duck-Chong with Janet Agostino on guitar, as part of the group Halcyon, a brilliant Australian ensemble who champion new music and have also given the Australian premieres of my works 'luna-cy' and 'ojo'. www.halcyon.org.au

They set five different poems about fruit! 
I - Mango 
II - Plum 
III - Blackberry 
IV - Cherry 
V - Apple

'Kerry Andrew’s ‘fruit songs’…were playful, punning and admirably concise—not unlike a musical equivalent of the visual puns of the poetry of e.e. cummings.' Sydney Morning Herald, 2003

'Kerry Andrew’s ‘fruit songs’ …treat the voice as a circus acrobat treats a trapeze.' North Shore Times, Sydney, 2006

apple from fruit songs

This theatrical chamber piece was written for 3 female voices, clarinet, trumpet, electric guitar, electric bass, vibraphone, electric piano, electric organ, and radio player. It was inspired by listening to lots of post-rock and a sound I heard a tube train make on the London Underground.

Its programme note is a poem:

It started late into the night, sitting on the Tube
caged in its hammer-glare 
the air filmy with sweat
drunks turning the seats to liquid.

Then the train curved on the rail.
It made a sound like light bending.

This piece should feel nothing like sitting on the Tube.
(KA)

This recording is from a live performance by The Chimera Ensemble.

late night radio (sleepmusic)

A walk around the People's Park in the centre of Zhengzhou, which was full of activity on a Saturday afternoon.

Ping pong, traditional performers, karaoke, rollercoasters and lots of people dancing to some Chinese ska.

Kerry is a Musician in Residence in China with the British Council/PRS for Music Foundation. She is visiting the Henan region, mostly based in Zhengzhou, from February 25th-March 31st. She is making work based on the trickster fox in European and Chinese folklore.

Find out more at fox-pop.com

People's Park, Zhengzhou

Graininess and Sheen was made while I was Composer in Residence at Handel House Museum in London (2010-12). I spent time recording interviews with the volunteers at the House, and recording myself playing the three keyboard instruments there as well as other sounds in the House. Every sound you hear comes from the House.

www.kerryandrew.net

Graininess and Sheen

Sounds of Fair Isle chosen, recorded and curated by the children of Fair Isle Primary School, under the guidance of Kerry Andrew - "Half-Island Half-Bird" project, Fair Isle August 2016

Our Fair Isle Sounds

'THE, WHAT IS IT? THE GOLDEN EAGLE?', commissioned and performed by Icebreaker at Nottingham Lakeside.

I admit being a little terrified about writing this piece; almost all of the music that I have written professionally has included the voice. However, I treated it as a chance to experiment with mixing classical and leftfield pop styles in a way that I’ve always wanted to. I am a huge admirer of Anna Meredith’s, and was also thinking of David Lang and the bands Battles and Dawn of Midi as I was writing.

The piece is partly inspired by contemporary America, chiefly a recent road trip down the US West Coast and into Arizona, especially driving up to Joshua Tree National Park. The ridiculous vistas - big roads, wide skies and dramatic rock formations - gave me at least one of the main riffs. The title is from a transcript of the interview Donald Trump gave to the massed journalists of the New York Times in November 2016, when talking about his disapproval of wind farms in California. He couldn’t remember the name of a very well-known bird of prey, which he seemed to be attempting to say was in danger from getting caught in wind turbines, although it’s a little hard to tell from his meandering, grandstanding speech patterns. 

I’ve been known to write a piece or five inspired by birds, so halfway through writing this I realised that the wavering ’cello was essentially a golden eagle flying up and around a wind turbine (unhurt), before ideally swooping back down and pecking viciously at the next President. (Please note this was written before the inauguration.)

I am very grateful to Icebreaker for commissioning me.

Ice 202 Nottingham (22_02_17) [music only]

THE, WHAT IS IT? THE GOLDEN EAGLE? (Performed LIVE by Icebreaker)

The second movement of my piece written at Aldeburgh in 2011, 'Birdsong For Two Voices', for two pianos, loop station and speaker. This movement sets my own text, based on 'whisperingsong', a birdsong phenomenon when birds such as robins or blackbirds are in a state of arousal! Their beaks are often shut, but keep blurting out little bursts of fairly-formed song. I imagine that the acoustic first is the 'translation', or what the bird hears in his head, and the second looped half (freely collected live on the loop station and then manipulated by the other pianist) is what we might hear in the forest.

Birdsong For Two Voices II Whisperingsong

Yerbury Primary School play their version of Composer in Residence 2010-12 Kerry Andrew's 'Screech', live at St. George's Church, Hanover Square, London on February 26th 2013.

The piece is part of a suite for recorder quintet Consortium 5 called 'badluck birds', and was commission by Handel House Museum. 'Screech' exists as a graphic score comprising 52 flexible fragments which can be played in any combination and order.

'Screech' is old regional British name for the mistle thrush. It was believe that these birds were bad luck because they sang lustily just before, and throughout, storms.

You can compose your very own video-composition version of 'Screech' at screech.handelhouse.org

handelhouse.org
consortium5.com
kerryandrew.net

Screech - Yerbury Primary School

Kerry Andrew is a composer, performer and author based in West  Yorkshire, England. 

They specialises in vocal music and opera, choral music, folk, jazz, and community music. Choral and experimental work has been heard on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, 6Music and Classic FM and on national news channels. Kerry won a British Composer Award in 2010 and two more for her chamber operas 'Woodwose' and 'Dart's Love' in 2014. They won their 4th for 'who we are' for the National Youth Choirs at the Royal Albert Hall. They were 2010-12's Handel House Composer in Residence. In 2017, she made her Proms debut with BBC Ten Pieces.

Her debut novel, Swansong, is out now: https://www.waterstones.com/book/swansong/kerry-andrew/9781911214229 and her second novel, SKIN, is published in February 2021.

Kerry performs as alt-folk artist You Are Wolf http://soundcloud.com/you-are-wolf; music can be heard and ordered here: https://youarewolf.bandcamp.com/

She performs with the award-winning vocal trio https://soundcloud.com/juicevocalensembleuk

She also performs with the jazz/classical/rock collective https://soundcloud.com/dollyman.

‘Stunning‘ Classic FM

‘Brilliant, Berio-like vocal effects…‘ The Times

www.kerryandrew.net

Birdsong For Two Voices II Whisperingsong

Kerry Andrew Composer