Opening Party at Colston Hall, Bristol

After a few days of listlessness at the beginning of last week I had to wind myself up to fire on all cylinders for the Friday night opening party of Colston Hall. I think I did pretty well as the cause of the apathy was one of those events that have knocked me sideways in the past, the first time about 16 years ago left me unable to write any music for a couple of years.

Anyway, I was asked to play cello with Cirque Bijou‘s aerial performance over the outside of the building with amazing projection from video artist Kathy Hinde. The cello along with male aerialist/wall walker, Alex, representing the old building and the incredible Bellatrix and the Boxettes and female aerialist, Robyn, representing the new. The story unfolding so that the two sides of the building come together.

This was massive, it never quite dawned on me how massive until after we had finished, when I looked out over a couple of thousand spectators looking up from the street. We started with the old spirit of the building moving along the top of the building, my first and solo note(s) were a major second and the music I had written had a lot of space and seemingly simplistic, if you are a musician you will understand how exposed this is, it shows up everything. If you play one note it has to be perfect. I held my nerve and I was somehow in a zone. The music I played was a balance between the melodic and the discordant and hopefully poetic. I wanted this to be in contrast to the bang up to date virtuosity of the Boxettes. So this was a true marriage of opposites.