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RECORDING ANGEL

This haunting evening will stay with me

The Voice Project
Norwich Cathedral

The Festival curtain fell with another world premiere and a bang, the brilliant DJ sampler Jan Bang. Blending found sounds and created, musical and unearthly, he mixed technology with sublime massed human voices of the Voice Project Choir and the musical brilliance of trumpeter, conductor and singer Arve Henriksen.
In the first half, scripture, 16th century poetry and contemporary verse were given the Voice Project interpretation. After the break, Recording Angel was the new work that will sit in the canon of 21st century repertoire. To describe it is to dig deep into the lexicon of praise. Simultaneously experimental, traditional, a fusion of genres from choral chant and Biblical text, to poignant, touching-heaven emotions, it was conducted by the inspired Sian Croose, leading the most versatile instrument, the human voice.
Soprano Sianed Jones, alto Rebecca Askew, tenor Jeremy Avis and Jonathan Baker, bass brought virtuoso singing that blended not only together, but with the extraordinary harmony of magnified sounds, a guitar and creative percussion at one point.
In the soaring vaulted chamber of the cathedral, the whole became a sensuous experience that touched the body’s inner core. It grew organically from all the ingredients to release emotion that will haunt listeners for ages to come.

David Porter
EDP

'Arve Henriksen’s trumpet sounds like a voice. It whispers and sings, wheezes and pants, carried along by a breathing rhythm. It is a haunting, fragile sound, the sound of a musician interested in environment and evocation rather then virtuosity or showmanship. His music is atmospheric, but not in any way soft or vague; it works to create its own space, something like a landscape through which his own voice moves. It is not a difficult music; it is in fact beautiful without being at all hackneyed or manipulative. It really is genuinely beautiful.
To hear that Henriksen will be working with the Voice Project is both exciting and strangely unsurprising. Unsurprising because of his softly singing trumpet sound (to say nothing of his own singing voice), his attention to space and place, and his openness to the musicianship of others; exciting because of just what might come of his engagement with the voices of the choir and the soaring spaces of Norwich Cathedral. What will the voices sing? In what ways will the trumpet sing with, inside or against them? What will come of the promised electronic element, to be provided by Henriksen’s long-standing collaborator, Jan Bang? These are tantalizing questions. It promises to be a special event.'

Dr Stephen Benson
School of Literature and Creative Writing
University of East Anglia

I PREFER THE GORGEOUS FREEDOM

'Melodically rich, harmonically daring, rhythmically subtle, pianist Gwilym Simcock's quartet piece, “Longing To Be”, which kicked off last night's Queen Elizabeth Hall gig was one of the most jaw-dropping performances I've heard at this year's London Jazz Festival. Opening with an expansive, über-romantic solo from the pianist in free time, the piece unfolded quite beautifully with the layered introduction of Yuri Goloubev's bowed bass, James Maddren's understated percussion and Klaus Gesing's haunting soprano sax.
Both bassist and drummer are members of Simcock's trio that features on his new double album, Blues Vignette. Goloubev, a former bassist with the Bolshoi Opera and Yuri Bashmet's elite Moscow Soloists, produced a tone of special magnificence while Maddren, currently studying jazz percussion at the Royal Academy of Music, was the epitome of restraint, favouring the delicate timbres of brushes and soft sticks.
The main work on the programme was the London premiere of Simcock's I Prefer the Gorgeous Freedom. Originally commissioned by Norfolk and Norwich Festival for the community choir, The Voice Project, this large-scale, five-movement choral work took the subject of freedom as its fons et origo. Deftly juxtaposing the improvised with the composed, it proved a sumptuous, affecting score that continuously worked its way under your skin.
From the simple, yet extraordinarily powerful, block harmonies of the opening movement - a setting of the Aleksandr Blok poem which gave the work its title - to the fourth movement's pared-down vocal quartet arrangement of Billy Taylor's “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free”, Simcock proved a master in varying texture and mood.
Serving to confirm this music's endless capacity to surprise, both choir and Simcock's quartet rocked out in a concluding movement which saw the unlikely dovetailing of Emily Dickinson's “No Rack can torture me” with Siegfried Sassoon's celebration of the signing of the Armistice, “Everyone Sang”.
All of the performers - including vocal soloists Sianed Jones, Rebecca Askew, Jeremy Avis and Jonathan Baker - covered themselves in glory. But a particular word of praise must be given to the 70-strong choir and their conductor Sian Croose, who not only learnt the 45-minute work by ear but also sounded as if they believed in every word.'

Written by Peter Quinn The Arts Desk November 2009