In February, I made my first ever show at Britten Pears Arts with an amazing team of musicians, a visual artist and a dancer/camera woman. We turned our album into a live, immersive experience with amazing results…
Here is one audience member’s description…
“What a gorgeous, intimate, and exquisite experience – both musically and visually. I loved the way all the performers integrated with the young children – they didn’t alienate them, they included them. The singing and the music were just magical … it took me to all sorts of places I’d like to go to. I loved the set – the use of the bed and the idea of lullaby – that it’s gentle, and that it’s telling a story to get you to go to sleep. The projections were also lovely – at one point all of the letters were projected onto the screen and all of the children around said ‘oooo, letters!’ The project was being filmed at the same time and that was being projected too – my favourite bit was when the viola player turned into wolf… I thought that was a really lovely inclusion. All in all a very beautiful, powerful and intimate show.”
We are now working on the footage and looking for venues, festivals who will take the show on. We are happy to adapt it for different age groups, budgets and settings according to your needs.
Please contact me if you’d like to know more about the project via the contact page!
I’m thrilled to share that my new Lullaby album is now available on Yoto as part of their Creators collection! 😴
🔥 After a few years in the making it is now available on the Yoto website via the link here. 🔥🎧
>>> Update notice! The cards are currently available in US and Canada, and from mid-May, will also be available in Australia, Europe and the UK (again)! Please email me via my contact page if you’d like me to send one directly to you in the meantime, thanks. <<<
🥱 It’s a night-time mash up of folky-baroque tunes, with lots of poetry in a journey around Europe for all the family ! It’s a collaboration with my amazing Mum, Margareta Burrell – we have explored our Swiss-German roots, our connections with France and Sweden, and several other languages too. We have been collecting tunes, poetry and repertoire about sleep since the pandemic and together with some amazing musician friends, plus some local artists, we are now ready to share the music with you at last! There is a lot of magic in the night-time scenes but our message is also one of HOPE and REST and hope this can help you wind down when you need to.
This is such an exciting milestone for me as a musician, and I want to thank everyone for their incredible support along the way.
What is a Yoto Card? For those who may not know, Yoto Cards bring stories, music, and learning to life through the award-winning Yoto players – audio devices for children. It’s a wonderful way for kids to engage with stories in a screen-free, ad-free way, and I’m so proud to be part of this platform.
Don’t have a Yoto player? Grab one using this link .. or wait for the full album which is coming to you in 2025 via the normal platforms!
What is Noodle Music? My new channel for workshops, live events, releases! I used to be called ‘noodle’ as a child, and we are ‘noodling about’ on the album (i.e. improvising…) It captures the light-hearted and playful spirit which I believe in for making good music.
Thanks for listening, sharing, resting and sleeping! ♥️💤
It has been great fun to get concerts going in my house over the last 6 months. I kicked things off with duo partner, pianist and harpsichordist Jacopo Raffaele (aka Il Baskerville) playing Bach to Beatles and all sorts in-between. We have been developing this programme for several years and find that audiences really appreciate the variety of music and the chance to hear it in a homely environment. He drew this wonderful logo and things have developed since with more concerts and even taking it to other houses across Europe. If you would like to attend or host a concert, drop me a message on my contact page!
We will be a band of 10, and since we will be ‘off-book’ (from memory), we can be fully part of the action from drunkards to punky XR protesters. . Watch this space!
During the pandemic, one of the earliest goals – like many musicians – was to get a self recording set-up sorted out. I bought some basic gear and got on with it.
What then happened was ‘Liberté’ – my first project in sound design that was born purely out of experimentation and a love for text, language, improvisation and composition.
I asked myself some questions…
How might I use it to give people a voice?
How might I express my own voice through this medium?
Could it shed new light on an existing poem, speech or text in interesting and respectful ways?
How might it illuminate a text in another language for an English ear?
How much fun can be had with this?!
How can it bring relevance and meaning to works from the past?
So far I have explored the answers across a number of projects:
‘Liberté’ 2020
An exploration of the classic french poem about freedom, expressed by 21 women and children in French and English
‘A sheep’s life’ 2021
An interview with a shepherd before a showing of Acid and Galatea
(with Dan Samsa, Jonathan Darbourne and Vache Baroque Festival)
‘Paradise and Pandemonium’ 2021
An interview with a shepherd before a showing of Acid and Galatea by G.F. Handel
(with Dan Samsa, Jonathan Darbourne and Vache Baroque Festival)
‘The Pale Blue Dot’ 1990/2021
An exploration of the Pale Blue Dot speech by Carl Sagan
(with Clod Ensemble)
‘Promise and Oath’ 2022
An exploration of the basic elements of a promise and what philosophers, doctors, lawyers and detectives might have to say about it… before a showing of La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers by M.A. Charptentier
(with Jonathan Darbourne and Vache Baroque Festival)
The Royal Philharmonic Society asked me some questions – here are the answers…
How did you overcome any challenges?
Being someone who has worked almost exclusively with live sound until 2020, there were some real ‘technical mountains’ to climb at times. By keeping the passion of the speaker or author in mind, this really helped me keep going. It was a real driving force for me – the more passionate the interview or material, or the more ‘unheard’ the voice seemed to me, the more it drove me to see the project through with detail and precision!
I took a short course in sound design course with CLOD Ensemble and guidance from producers and composers such as Melanie Wilson, DJLeoLeoLeo, Sarah Angliss, Sophie Cotton and Dan Samsa.
The Vache Baroque Festival provided an invaluable opportunity to engage with real live audiences and interesting briefs to work towards which has been crucial as playing work took over again.
What have you learned?
To set mini deadlines for each part of the project and stick to them!
Not to collect too much material.
To be extremely focused about what content and style the piece will have.
Not to become too emotionally attached to the material as it doesn’t always fit the piece!
Find your balance of working on the shape vs the detail and try and be methodical in switching between the two.
Going forward, I would like to write my own text more and use my singing voice more than I have previously. I would like to make more connections between my views and opinions and my output as I have tended towards others’ voices thus far.
Any practical advice, guidance or tips?
In my opinion, don’t start with a course – first find and hone an idea or message and then try and work out how you want to say it as it’s much more fun when you learn tech with a clear vision!
YouTube usually has the answer..
Invest in a powerful enough computer as soon as you can so that you’re not fighting the tech.
Any useful leads, contacts, resources and links that others may benefit from?
To festivals, composers, producers, actors and directors:
Melanie Wilson, DJ LeoLeoLeo, Dan Samsa, Sophie Cotton, Clod Ensemble and to all those who contributed their voices and instruments with fun, joy and skill!
In the pandemic I did some violin/viola d’amore and voice sessions for composer Chris White. Here is the trailer for a new film featuring me on viola d’amore!
Arts Council Award: Develop Your Creative Practice… I am over the moon to have be awarded this funding to allow me to focus on my musical endeavours during 2021 and I am now also helping many others with their applications! You can read more about the award here: https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/DYCP
Shobana Jeyasingh Dance / I Fagiolini – UK / Sadler’s Wells Tour 2022 – I am currently working with SJD and Robert Hollingworth on an exciting new dance production for next year. Monteverdi’s ‘Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda’ opens the work, followed by a new work by Kareem Roustom. This has already opened up exciting new avenues such as arabic tunings and rhythms, and getting to know my way round electronics more intimately! https://www.shobanajeyasingh.co.ukhttps://www.ifagiolini.comhttp://www.kr-music.comhttp://edlyon.info
English Touring Opera Spring 2021 – Our plan is for a UK tour from April to May of Handel’s Amadigi with Jonathan Peter Kenny conducting a stunning piece which he has performed countless times, worldwide as a counter tenor. We very much hope this can go ahead in these difficult times. https://englishtouringopera.org.uk
Guildhall ‘Leaders on Stage’ course in Mentoring and Coaching… In October/November 2020 I took part in a short course on mentoring and coaching from a leadership perspective. Participants ranged from leaders of orchestras and section principles to managers. It was an amazing insight into new ways of thinking and working with others and I am really excited to see how this infiltrates my work and to help be a part of a changing atmosphere within the music profession. I will be taking this work further with RNCM students in the spring to gain my ECMM qualification and making my first steps into the field.
Thrilled to be in this new online opera for 3-5 year old, composed by Noah Mosley and curated by English Touring Opera. Do share with families with little ones! https://englishtouringopera.org.uk
Despite these strange times, I’ve been lucky enough to record two Handel discs – one in the UK and the other in Germany.
The first was with La Nuova Musica, with the extraordinary singers Lucy Crowe, Iestyn Davies and Christine Rice – however, unusually it was putting the solo instrumentalists namely Leo Duarte, Thom Gould and Joe Qiu, at centre stage as the ‘Unsung Heroes’ for a cracking set of arias directed by David Bates.
More recently, I’ve been back out to Germany at last to play with Il Gusto Barocco, a baroque orchestra in Stuttgart, directed by Jörg Halubek. You can hear our streamed concert here: https://www.halubek.com/ilgustobarocco/media/streams/
As we emerge from a quiet time, lots of exciting things are emerging including filming a music video in 18th Century costume with a rock band! In a secret mansion in London, 5 string players met Filous, an upcoming Austrian artist and The Kooks. Watch this space for the release later this month..
Naomi Burrell 