Spoken Word – Living Sound

On Sunday 6 March I will be performing Zarina’s Orchard with the wonderful early music band Joglaresa at Turner Simms Concert Hall, Southampton. Joglaresa, and their director Belinda Sykes, play an enchanting repertoire of early music from the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean.

In traditional culture, the storyteller usually accompanies themselves with a stringed instrument or percussion. But sometimes a whole band supports the teller. Musical structures allow tellers to shift between spoken prose sections, and sung verse sections. The spoken sections carry the narrative action, moving the plot forward. While sung sections slow the plot down, carrying poetic description, dialogue, and images. This is the origin of opera. Music can reveal the deep structure of a story, through themes, variations, and returning rhythmic patterns. The teller can float images and emotions inside the music.

The ways in which music can create a sound world for a story is one of my passions. It  is something I have been exploring for many years, from making a new version of the Finnish Epic The Kalevala with Helen Chadwick, to creating three stories for the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Zarina’s Orchard is a dramatic story from Central Asia.  Joglaresa intersperse the tale with thrilling songs, unusual musical instruments and vibrant rhythms from the Middle East.  For this interactive performance, Joglaresa introduce their instruments and teach the audience a Judeo-Arabic song, rhythms and sounds, which will accompany the tale. The audience then help create the sound world for  Zarina’s Orchard, conjuring a brave heroine, a demon, a firebird, dust storms, and a pomegranate tree….

Zarina’s Orchard  – A tale with music

for children over 6 and their families

Belinda Sykes – voice, bagpipes, mey, shawm

Tim Garside – darbuka, bendir, sehtar, nay, percussion

Sally Pomme Clayton – spoken word

Sunday 6 March. 3:00 pm

Turner Simms, Highfield Campus, The University of Southampton.

Find out about booking tickets