The perfect ensemble for any project
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LONDON (June 2006)
Ildiko Allen, Suzanne Wilson, Helen Rathbone, Amanda Morrison, Rowan Fenner, Rachel Weston, Margaret Cameron, Julia Batchelor, Heather Cairncross, Andrew Busher, Gerard O'Beirne, Philip Brown, Robert Kearley, Sam Evans, Michael Dore, Alistair Bamford, Andrew Fellowes, Simon Grant
"This was a world premiere and, sadly, not a smooth project for Synergy Vocals. Evocation of a Neophyte turned out to be nearly all vocal (3 sops/3 mezzos/3 altos/3 tenors/3 baritones/3 basses) with a smattering of harp, contrabassoon and percussion. It is a sequence of rather disjointed segments, and there is virtually no way of getting notes other than from each other. However, the parts we were presented with were just one line on an A3 sheet with no cues whatsoever, making this virtually impossible. John Zorn didn't want vocals scores, as that would involve more pages, and he didn't want any page turns to avoid breaking the mood.
In addition, the composer refused to let us have a midi of the piece (for aesthetic reasons), so the singers couldn't even hear where they might get their notes from. This would have been fine if we'd had weeks of rehearsal to get to know the piece and to familiarise ourselves with the sound world, but we had 3 rehearsals in total! I have to confess that, when we work as hard as we always do to achieve what a composer wants, I don't appreciate it when we have as little help as we did on this occasion. There is nothing more frustrating than feeling prevented from doing a good job, particularly when you have a line up like this one - with some of the most talented and experienced singers around. That said, they did brilliantly in the circumstances, though it was sad to hear how unrewarding a piece it was to perform. It's all very well living in an ideal world, but sometimes you've got to be a bit more realistic. If you don't make any concessions to your performers, how on earth are you going to get the best out of them....?" Micaela |
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