Tinderbox and S!nk Collaboration At Inverleith House Video
Liam Baker has made a fantastic video of our collaboration with S!nk at Inverleith House in April.
What a pleasure it was to work with such amazing musicians and videographers!
Liam Baker has made a fantastic video of our collaboration with S!nk at Inverleith House in April.
What a pleasure it was to work with such amazing musicians and videographers!
Luci – Programme Director
‘The Pianodrome is a state of mind’ says Tim Vincent-Smith, one of the Directors of the project and Saturday the Tinderbox Orchestra entered that state of mind. We were safely guided on our journey by the custodians of the Pianodrome, the amazing and improvisational band ‘Sink’. We were joined by a large group of young singers fresh off the coach from Fingal for their first experience of Scottish Culture. Fingal Youth Choir may have received a slightly unusual view of how we do things in Scotland, but they certainly got stuck in with the music.
It was a day of improvisation and movement. Goosebumps and big ideas. Separate projects all joining together to feel, very naturally, like one big project. People simply getting to know each other by experimenting though music. All the more enjoyable in the beautiful setting of Inverleith House in Edinburgh’s Botanic Gardens.
Once again I find myself saying, ‘this is what it’s all about’.
Watch out for video footage of the event coming soon.
As part of our upcoming film orchestra course (April – June), we had the pleasure of visiting the Scottish Film Archive with members of the band to select the films we’ll be scoring new music for!
We met with Emily of the SFA who took us through the film archives and gave us brilliant insight into Scottish film history. Here’s what sax player Sonia had to say about the visit 🙂
Today’s visit to Glasgow’s film archive proved to be both fascinating and inspiring. There we were shown a range of silent films that sparked our imagination for this year’s Tinderbox project. This visit gave us the opportunity explore ideas for the music and performance, by viewing a collection of amateur films and documentaries. In the end (although the decision is hard) a few films stood out to us that we will hopefully be able to work on in the near future!
For more soon make sure and catch our live performance to the films at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, June 2018!
Our new Orchestra Trailer goes live today!
The footage was all taken as part of the rehearsals and performance at Hidden Door Festival 2017. What a gig it was!
Thanks again to everyone at Hidden Door for everything.
We’ve had a lot of fun over the last few weeks visiting High Schools for our orchestra courses. The challenge in these workshops has been to collaboratively compose a piece of music for orchestra in 2 hours. The aim is that the piece will be interesting but also simple enough to be played by beginners. We started with improvising rhythms and used these to develop melodies and then bunged it all together to see what would happen. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and some great musical ideas came out of it.
Here’s Jed interviewing Tessa Martin of Craigroyston High and Maree Anderson at Balerno about the workshops.
Meet different members of the orchestra weekly! Our orchestra is your orchestra.
1. What instrument do you play and how long have you been playing with Tinderbox? I play Viola.
2. What is your first musical memory? Ha! Well, honestly.. it’s having to sing a solo of ‘I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas’ in my Primary 1 production of ‘Twas the night before Christmas’ I was quite shy. It was awkward..
3. Which record / band rocks your world at the moment?
I have 2. One is taking my boys to see Tinderbox collaborating with Conquering Animal Sound, after which Sam joined the Orchestra. And the other is playing Hidden Door last year and collaborating myself with the orchestra with my alter ego Brave Little Note. Fun. Times. 🙂
5. What’s your favourite track on the album?
Meet different members of the orchestra weekly! Our orchestra is your orchestra.
1. What instrument do you play and how long have you been playing with Tinderbox? I play the electric guitar and I’ve played with Tinderbox since 2014.
2. What is your first musical memory? Probably crying at the scary intro to Queen’s A Kind Of Magic (An album which I now adore)
3. Which record / band rocks your world at the moment? I currently can’t stop listening to Esperanza Spalding’s album Emily’s D+Evolution.
Either hearing the crowd erupt after playing Quetzalcoatl at Hidden Door in 2015 or imitating a group of birds with an elaborate back-story while recording Talking About Birds 2
5. What’s your favourite track on the album?
That changes but right now it’s ‘More’!
Meet different members of the orchestra weekly! Our orchestra is your orchestra.
1. What instrument do you play and how long have you been playing with Tinderbox? Guitar, Banjo, Mandolin and voice. I’ve been involved for about 5 years.
2. What is your first musical memory? Having a shot at the piano with the drunken old jazzer that used to play at a pub my Grandparents took me to.
3. Which record / band rocks your world at the moment? Foghorn Sting Band
Playing Jordan’s song, “Love Is Just A Little Number”, at Tinderbox fest. It was an amazing atmosphere and a turning point for a lot of people I was involved with at the time.
5. What’s your favourite track on the album?
Bethany Lane of course!
We’re well chuffed to be playing Doune the Rabbit Hole Festival on Friday 18th August(6pm – Jabberwocky Stage)!
Come join us and check it out: http://dounetherabbithole.co.uk/
Sun 4th June, 7pm – Hidden Door Festival, Edinburgh.
Featuring Kathryn Joseph, Dawanggang & The Black Diamond Express
Info & Tickets here. Facebook event here
Sat 27th May, 7pm – Theatre Royal, Dumfries.
Featuring Taggan, Kate Kyle, Gracefell & Matrons of Music choir.
Info & Tickets here. Facebook event here
Sun 9th June, 7pm – St Lukes, Glasgow.
Featuring Kathryn Joseph & Dawanggang
Meet different members of the orchestra weekly! Our orchestra is your orchestra.
1. What instrument do you play and how long have you been playing with Tinderbox? I sing and I have been involved in the Tinderbox Project since Autumn 2014.
2. What is your first musical memory? Watching my older brother playing the piano when I was younger. This encouraged me to take my first piano lessons.
3. Which record / band rocks your world at the moment? That’s a good question! There are a few good albums I have listened to a lot lately, such as Somi’s Petite Afrique, Beady Belle’s ‘On My Own‘. There is one track in particular that rocks my world at the moment: This is Masterpiece (Mona Lisa) by Jazmine Sullivan.
Performing at the Meadows Festival in 2015. I remember that it was a very windy day and it was difficult to breathe while I was singing. The music sheets were flying around the stage! I don’t know how I managed to sing along with the others. This gig was fun! 🙂
I think that this is probably ‘Bethany Lane’. I have seen how much work Jack and Luci put into getting everybody recorded on this track, and maybe that’s why I think this is a very special song!
Meet different members of the orchestra weekly! Our orchestra is your orchestra.
1. What instrument do you play and how long have you been playing with Tinderbox? I play the oboe, and I’ve been playing with Tinderbox since 2013. I tend to rehearse/conduct the band nowadays though!
2. What is your first musical memory? Some of the strongest are playing in a recorder ensemble when I was very wee, and noticing Danse Macabre by Saint-Saëns in the Jonathan Creek TV theme intro – which sparked an interest in orchestral music.
3. Which record / band rocks your world at the moment? Recently I’ve been enjoying In Love With A Ghost’s Let’s Go EP for its lush harmony and crispy beats.
One that stands out is a Frontiers concert we’d arranged a couple years ago – it was a point in the project where it felt like it was starting to gain traction and seeing the progress a lot of the young people involved had made was really moving.
Many of the recording sessions for the album too – especially the choir/vocal/rap ones, those seem to be the silliest and most entertaining 🙂
Also, hearing the orchestra recently rehearse my piece Rimo has been incredibly humbling and meaningful too. They play it so beautifully!
It’s so hard to choose! I’d probably have to say Talking About Birds though ultimately. The energy and imagination Song Yuzhe (DaWangGang) brings to everything he does is incredibly inspiring, and I love the power and wackiness of it.
Meet different members of the orchestra weekly! Our orchestra is your orchestra.
1. What instrument do you play and how long have you been playing with Tinderbox? Alto sax; been with Tinderbox for a year.
2. What is your first musical memory? Probably singing along with The Proclaimers in the car!
3. Which record / band rocks your world at the moment? Getting back in to Elton John and Billy Joel.
Hanging around the Meadows Festival last year after we played, it was such a sunny day with good vibes and great music, and was a great chance to chat to everyone.
It honestly changes everyday, but right now it’s probably ‘More’.
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Meet different members of the orchestra weekly! Our orchestra is your orchestra.
Cello – I’ve been involved with Tinderbox since the very first rehearsal! That’ll be over 6 years now.
Being in a music class when I was 5 and getting kicked out for giggling
Rachel Sermanni – Tied to the Moon or Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings – The Harrow & The Harvest.
Playing at the Queen’s Hall, and conducting and hearing Tinderbox play my arrangement. Recording the album was pretty fun too! Also Mike Kearney’s suggesture stuff was always super fun.
Meet different members of the orchestra weekly! Our orchestra is your orchestra.
I play the oboe and i have been playing with tinderbox since Summer 2014 I think.
Theres always been music playing in my house, but I remember my sister teaching me how to play ‘Wild Mountainside’ on piano before i knew what the note names were.
The first gig I played with tinderbox – Journey of a thousand wings 2014. I gained so much musical confidence, met a group of brilliant and passionate people, improvised for the first time, and just had such a great time.
I think it has to be ‘Live Free or Die’. It’s just so happy and motivating. Like “yeah! Go live your life and win everything!”
Meet different members of the orchestra weekly! Our orchestra is your orchestra.
Hmm….Quetzalcoatl
Meet different members of the orchestra every week! Our orchestra is your orchestra.
We’re delighted to be providing acoustic orchestral music at the Open Door Cafe Fundraiser on Friday 2nd December!
We’ll also be joined by the wonderful Jellyman’s Daughter.
For more information on the event, click here to go to the Facebook event. Tickets can be purchased in advance here.
Tinderbox’s “Alternative Orchestra Night: Room to play” will be coming to the Electric City at Hidden Door Festival this year, on Monday the 30th of May. Check out the line-up & info below…
6-11pm, £12/£10 advance
Tickets available here
Facebook event here
More info at www.hiddendoorblog.org
THE LONG ROOM
9.45-11pm: Tinderbox Orchestra
Closing the night Edinburgh’s famous Tinderbox Orchestra will bring together bands, artists and poets and take you on an orchestral journey through new collaborations and compositions!
“Rave Culture meets last night of the Proms” The Herald
“An Orchestral Revolution” Edinburgh Evening News
**** The Guardian, **** The Scotsman, **** The List
8.15-8.35pm: Room to Play
Room to Play is an exciting new creative course exploring interactive live and digital processes in music, art, performance and game-development. A team 13 emerging musicians, visual artists, game developers and other professions have come together to work with award-winning musician, sound-designer, game developer and sonic artist, Yann Seznec (British Composer Award for Sonic Art, 2015), as well as Edinburgh’s Tinderbox Orchestra, to develop a series of interactive musical and orchestral performances and installations. These will be on display in the daytime plus this feature slot with the Tinderbox Orchestra for a brand new experiment! More info here
6.30-7.15pm: Mantra & Niall Moody
Film, game, and media music band Mantra have teamed up with games developer and sound designer Niall Moody on their live interactive game music production Dance of Whispered Truths – where audience members can control the band and visuals through a custom console in an aesthetic-generative game atmosphere, through group musical and visual improvisation. Facebook page here.
GARAGE SPACE
7.20-8pm: Jellyman’s Daughter
“The Jellyman’s Daughter sound like they’ve come down from the same cold mountain as The Civil Wars or Grammy-winning duo Robert Plant and Alison Krauss… [Graham] can make his cello as percussive as a drum, as grounded as a bass or as sweet as a fiddle… when Kelly and Coe sing together, their harmonies squeeze the heart.” The Herald Scotland. www.thejellymansdaughter.com
8.45-9.25: Brave Little Note
Brave Little Note is the alter ego of composer and multi instrumentalist Jacqueline Irvine. She makes lovely noise using electronics alongside real instruments and vocals. Amongst other projects this year, she has collaborated with King Creosote and a talented bunch of female musicians on his gorgeous album The Queens of Brush County. She will also be collaborating with Tinderbox Orchestra later in the evening. She rarely performs live so catch her while you have the chance! Listen on soundcloud here
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