shiraz @ decißel

found out late yesterday that Shiraz, our film project with new music composed by Sarvar Sabri from last year's Festival, has been accepted into the decißel Performing Arts Showcase. This year decißel takes place in Manchester between 15-18 September, and while we are still waiting to hear which slot the Sabri Ensemble will be given, the opportunity to perform in front of promoters from a huge variety of venues and festivals across the UK will increase the profile of both the Sabri Ensemble and the project, and hopefully lead to a strong Spring to Autumn 2010 tour. Information about the Sabri Ensemble's performance at decißel can be found here.

shiraz touring

steps are being taken to increase the chances of Shiraz, the film score for the 1928 silent film we produced at the 2008 festival, to be resurrected and tour. Working with the composer Sabri and ex-sampad Sarah-Jane Watkinson, we are planning to take Shiraz on the road between Spring and Autumn 2010 to various venues throughout the UK and a few selected international multi-arts and film festivals. If the BFI join us, we may even be able to record it for DVD release. To have the Lichfield Festival as a producer of touring content would be a significant step to take. So far we have received extremely positive feedback from the promoters we have contacted, but watch this space for more information about where the performance might be seen again...

day eight.five

yet another incredible evening here in Lichfield despite the insessant rain. Firstly we had a comfortably packed St Michael's church for the Elias Quartet (great to see them all again since their first performance here a year ago - two have left Lichfield already, while the other two are staying for tomorr'w Ensemble 360 performance).
Then we had the world premiere of the Festival commission Shiraz - I managed to see the first 40 mins, and I thought Sabri had done such an excellent job on bringing the film to life. We also had several venues and a few film festivals in, so maybe we'll be able to resurrect the touring plans after all (we've also had interest from Istanbul and Dubai).
and from my office, I can hear the second half starting up of Acoustic Triangle and the Sacconi Strings who are performing to another larger audience than I had expected - we've turned the cathedral so they ar performing in the round, and it sounds spectacular.
And the really nice thing is that everyone has been going to everyone else's gigs. Badke and Sacconi players were at Elias. Elias are at Acoustic Triangle. and the audiences have been running from event to event as well. A good night...

west midlands artists

nearly a full page in this morning's Birmingham Post which looks much better in the actual paper than it does online. It is right next to a feature about all the Birmingham artists performing this year, including Rosie Kay Dance Company (5 July), Bryan Corbett Quartet (6 July), Thomas Trotter (7 & 9 July), MDCC Theatre Company (5, 6 & 12 July), Polarbear (9 July), and the Sabri Ensemble (10 & 11 July). Of course, alongside these artists, is the inaugural Lichfield Festival Chorus (8 July), and the culmination of the two year Stone City Voices project with Lichfield Poets and David Calcutt (12 July).

shiraz project

this afternoon we finish up the second round of schools workshops and tomorrow we start with the third visit in the lead up to a performance in front of peers on 7 July. the project is jointly devised by Sarvar Sabri, the composer of the Festival commission for the full film, and Miguel Mera, the brilliant London-based film composer who devised our Silent Film Project based on Charlie Chaplin shorts in 2006 (alongside the most excellent Rainmaker Vision Factory from Wolverhampton).
This year students from four schools will compose and perform a score for excerpts from the 1928 silent Indian film, Shiraz (receiving its world premiere with a Sabri score on 10 July), while learning about musical structures and genre and also about the structure of film and the way different cultures are represented.
The project received generous support from the Clore Duffield Foundation.

Chanced across this pic in the office - it's Carl Peberdy teaching sitar from one of the initial workshops.

shiraz line up

Just had a brief production meeting with Sabri regarding his Shiraz commission for the 1928 Franz Osten film being screened on 10 July. Rehearsals are up and running (which is great news), and things are going to plan. The lineup of musicians from the Sabri Ensemble has also been released and is very exciting: Sarvar Sabri tabla/percussion Kamal Sabri sarangi/vocals Sanchita Pal vocals Carl Peberdy sitar Dan Nichols piano Ryan Trebilcock bass Hannah Marsden viola Lluis Mather flute/sax Manveer Wahiwala percussion/vocals.