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A Performance for string quartet and multi-screen video projections
with music composed by Jocelyn Pook
and with visuals by Dragan Aleksic.
A classic quartet, four women, four witnesses. Speaking in Tunes is inspired by everyday sounds that become woven into the music of a string quartet as they take off on a journey driven by their thoughts, memories and dreams.
Brilliant film landscapes are mixed with fragments of interviews about music, performing, and the course of life. Falling carpets and junk shop violins, stories, a collage of notes, movement and shadows; portraits of the musicians and the inner workings of a string quartet in a performance that crosses theatre, music, and visual art. A glimpse of the passion, drive and circumstance that brings these performers together on stage.
Pook's 'Speaking in Tunes' is a captivating performance where inciting visual effects, a marvellous score and four authoritative personalities meet on stage, creating a multi-faceted and theatrical account of the creative process behind the making of music.
Performers: Anne Wood, Anne Stephenson, Jocelyn Pook, Kate Shortt
Director: Graeme Miller
Music: Jocelyn Pook
Visuals: Dragan Aleksic
Lighting Design: Chahine Yavroyan
Production Manager: Steve Wald
Sound: Gary Falkenthal
S E L E C T E D
R E V I E W S
Tron Theatre, Glasgow
*****( five stars)
The opening sequence of this New Territories recital neatly
encapsulates what most people would think of if you said‘classical
string quartet.’Jocelyn Pook and her fellow musicians
- all female, all doucely garbed in professional black - are
playing Schubert (I think). Two side screens flank them with
projected images of an elegant interior, heightening the sense
of a rarefied pursuit, practised by other-worldly types. But
then a page turns... and the scores they’re following
are all blank. Whereupon Pook and her colleagues embark on
a delicious reality check that is funny and touching, full
of everyday banalities, and sudden bursts of ‘why I do
this’ openness that reveal something about the individuals,
yes, but also pinpoint and celebrate music as a transforming
force in our lives. Pook’s own music is a powerful and
persuasive witness to that: there’s something blissfully
reassuring about the lush, romantic tunefulness that swirls
through the piece - yet it cleverly teases and intrigues,
with flurries of rhythm from other cultures, or mystic cadences
that follow unfamiliar modes. Loveliest of all, however, is
how she treats the women’s own recorded voices - and
the laughter, especially - like another instrument to be orchestrated.
And so, while Dragan Aleksic’s video footage frames the
space with off-duty glimpses of the women, their everyday
tales of misadventure - on and off the concert platform -
filter through alongside the memories and anecdotes that speak
of music as a passion, a wonderment, an intrinsic part of
their being. In every sense, and at every level, the women
- Anne Wood, Anne Stephenson, Kate Shortt and Pook herself
- inhabit this music. And by allowing us insights into the
ordinary aspects of their lives, they move and astound us
by the sheer beauty and opulence of their music-making. Definitely
an experience to treasure.
Mary Brennan, Glasgow Herald, 18th February 2004.
Gardner Arts Centre
University of Sussex, Brighton
Have you ever wondered what a musician is thinking about as
they play? Speaking In Tunes gave an honest and pertinent
insight into what inspired the four featured musicians, even
as they performed. A well constructed mix of multi-media,
it was the brainchild of Jocelyn Pook, best known for her
Golden-Globe nominated soundtrack to Stanley Kubrick's Eyes
Wide Shut and musical contributions to Martin Scorsese's Gangs
of New York. Pook herself played the viola, alongside cellist
Kate Shortt and violinists Anne Wood and Anne Stephenson.
This seemed to be a classic string quartet but when they turned
the pages, they found their scrolls blank. With no notes to
guide the women, our senses were soon absorbed into a world
in which music, film, movement and samples confidently interact.
Under the direction of Graeme Miller, the artistic presentations
appeared erratically around the quartet as if their own recollections
were laid bare for all to see. Throughout, images were projected
on to two large screens in a manner which both accompanied
and personalised the music and its performers. The screens
were used imposingly when silhouetting the quartet. The shadow
play was entrancing as it moved with the music. The cellist,
Shortt, even duetted with a video and audio recording of herself,
which, more than anything, looked jolly good fun. At one memorable
point, the screens changed from the familiar form of sheet
music to transparent paper, on which a huge, illuminated scribe
moved in interpretation of the music in a mesmerising, metamorphosing
doodle. Voice samples were also used, taken during meetings
the women held together to discuss their music and their lives.
These were touchingly and often humorously mixed into or played
over the music, with certain engaging words or sentences used
in repetition to become musical notes themselves. But perhaps
the most intriguing thing about these conversations was hearing
the musicians talk about the instruments they were playing
and how they came to own them. Rather than just hearing this
music, we learned the miscellany of its history.
Kay Mason,
The Argus, Thursday, March 18th 2004.
"Jocelyn Pook's ostensibly classical string quartet quickly put the music stands aside and quite literally, since they wandered around on the stage entered into Schubert's and Bach's music with their own personal narratives.
The musical use of language did the rounds of both the amusing and the tragicomic. The four women talked and played about themselves. The pulse was soft and minimalist. Melting, cohesive and musical in its repetitions and developments. Here the theme of repetition that the Austrian Bernhard Lang works with so dryly was brought to life. The video clips on the white cloth walls of the scenery were beautiful, and the four strings entered into a dialogue with them. With a mixture of recorded and live sound, the performance delivered just the kind of talking music that the title Speaking in Tunes promised... Pook's performance reached up or rather in to touch on much more important levels."
Thomas Michelsen, Politiken 05.06.03
"The four girls filled Turbinehallerne with a quiet poetry"
Søren Schauser, Berlingske Tidende 06.06.03
"...this show is both humorous and poignant and plays constantly with the audience's expectations.....I felt I had seen something very new, very exciting and highly enjoyable"
Mathew Gostelow, Bury Free Press
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2 0 0 2
Arts Council funded UK tour
16th & 17th May
ICA, London
19th May
Bury St Edmunds Festival
Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds
22nd May
QEH Theatre, Bristol
23rd May
The Phoenix, Exeter
25th May
Unity Theatre, Liverpool
26th May
Square Chapel, Halifax
2 0 0 1
UK Tour funded by Eastern Arts
1st February
Stamford Arts Centre, Stamford
2nd February
St Mary-In-The-Castle, Hastings
3rd February
Colchester Arts Centre, Colchester
6th February
The Gulbenkian Theatre, University of Kent, Canterbury
9th February
Old Town Hall, Hemel Hempstead
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