Valleys Kids

On the morning of July 25th I was facing one of the greatest musical challenges I have experienced in my 30 year career; I had to step into a room for two and a half hours and create a symphony together with whoever else was in that room; instrumentalists, singers, younger, older, experienced, beginners, interested and the simply intrigued. We would be filmed at the end of our session and whatever had been created would be uploaded onto youtube for the world to see and hear.

Our project has been running for just over a year and, within that time, we have been predominantly working on building our community choir. Over the last year the choir have made several short performances with actors (both youth theatre and professionals) to explore our final goal, a piece of multi-media theatre aimed at building artistic links and collaboration between South Wales and South Africa, looking at the shared history and the different histories through the lives of two individuals. We have also hosted several musical roadshows, inviting instrumentalists to join the project.

So&. back to the morning of the event, here I was, in the early stages of this project, still not quite knowing who may be turning up! Wishing to arrive early for a coffee I realized that I faced another big personal challenge, how to fit 2 double basses (albeit one 1/8 size), a cello, a guitar and two people into the car! We made it and all instruments and passengers were safely delivered.

After a welcome coffee, people assembled and Laurence Allan (writer) read a brief piece, encapsulating the story which was to be the inspiration for our piece(s) of music.

I saw about 40 faces looking at me. I was also looking, wondering what sort of sounds we might collectively make. There were guitarists, lower strings, percussionists, a flute, saxophone, a squeeze box, bass guitar, keyboard and choir. What were the possibilities of this unusual collection &.

My first request was that everyone play and sing freely, as if warming up for a concert. I was lucky,  in my endeavour to hear the timbral and textural possibilities in the room, I got much more; I heard a room full of people saying Yes! The sound was amazing, and, so much more - there seemed to be no inhibitions. Everyone participated.

The next stage was to work from silence and build to a programmatic/theatrical soundscape representing the mists and memories of our Llanwonno Mountain. I was overwhelmed with the response of our singers to use their voices in new ways,  pure sound, no notes, no words& instrumentalists joined, again fearless it seemed.

Serious musical work followed, putting together themes and accompaniments, grooves and tunes; finally words - with Laurence providing a rap over an unobvious choral piece.

I hope that our piece reflects the themes of our project, fusing ideas from different continents and generations - the final performance was 13 minutes 4 seconds. You will be able to see our work on this day on youtub, there is much more to come in the next two years!

Paula Gardiner - Composer/Musical Director