Some Call It Home
a multi-media music drama
Theatre Royal Plymouth - 4th and 5th May 2021
Created, produced, and directed by Robert Taub
A collaboration between The Arts Institute, University of Plymouth and Theatre Royal Plymouth
A multi-media music drama commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ Atlantic crossing that focuses upon the central issue of humans’ relationship to the land: stewardship vs. dominion. Conflict over land began immediately upon the Pilgrims’ (and other Europeans’) immigration to America and has grown as human influence over the planet increased as humans became ecological and geological agents. The critical issue of stewardship vs. dominion of our land continues today, with climate change influencing migration on a world-wide scale.
Narrative material for this drama includes archival Pilgrims’ writings, documents regarding land use, and multi-media resources focused upon current issues about human immigration and the life of our planet. Important historical quotations are set to music, and additional programmatic music throughout dramatizes key points. The work brings to life issues that started with the Pilgrims and Native Americans from which we can all learn, and which affect us on a global basis today.
Performers: ensemble of nine musicians, two international singers/narrators (soprano, baritone), children’s chorus, conductor.
Music composed by Jonathan Dawe (NYC) and Jane O’Leary (Galway, Ireland)
Featuring Erika Baikoff, soprano and Matthew Buswell, baritone
Musical ensemble of Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Mark Forkgen, conductor
Plymouth Performing Arts Academy Childrens Chorus
Beethoven: Innovator - a 250th Celebration
“Who makes the rules!”
- Beethoven to his friend Ferdinand Ries when the latter questioned the parallel fifths in the String Quartet in C minor, Op.18 no.4
An unceasing innovator, Beethoven was never content to conform to expected norms of musical composition. He led the vanguard of new music. Driven obsessively by his compelling artistic vision and his belief that creativity is the highest aspiration of mankind, Beethoven sought an all-embracing musical continuum. His ever-expanding concepts of musical perception, perhaps partially engendered by his deafness, enabled him to pursue his Inner Ear unencumbered by pre-conceived limitations of the possible.
Beethoven’s music burst upon the musical world, changing it forevermore. His thirty-two piano sonatas – the earliest of which he wrote as vehicles for himself as both composer and pianist – were his most immediate and intimate crucible of musical experimentation. He forced forward demands placed upon pianists, upon pianos themselves, and upon listeners. His sixteen string quartets often took these experiments of musical perception to further new levels, which in turn were further refined in his nine symphonies.
In a celebration of the 250th birth year of Beethoven, we bring new life to some of Beethoven’s most innovative works. We will elucidate his creative processes – obsessive musical writings that resulted in thousands of pages of sketches and autograph scores imbued with deep personal musical iconography – and will animate the dancing black dots on the pages of some of his most personal and transcendent works. In addition, we are selecting Beethoven’s musical sketches for his last String Quartet (Op.135) and commissioning Jonathan Dawe, a leading international composer, to create a new composition for string quartet that brings these sketches to life through the lenses of our 21st century.
Much of Beethoven’s music was revolutionary. It can sound new and innovative today if we immerse ourselves in understanding how his music was created and why, and then play his works as if the ink is barely dry on the pages. That is what we will do.
Thursday 30th September, 7:30pm
“Beethoven – Adventurous, Heroic, Transcendent”
An informal lecture and music demonstration with Robert Taub, pianist and Jonathan Dawe, composer
Friday 5th March, 7:30pm
Concert: Beethoven Piano Sonatas
Robert Taub, pianist
Beethoven Piano Sonatas Op. 2 no.1, Op.53, Op.111
Saturday 6th March, 3pm
Open rehearsal – Ruisi Quartet
Rehearsing Beethoven Op.59 no. 1, Beethoven Op.135, Dawe String Quartet based on Beethoven sketches for Op.135
Saturday 6th March, 7:30pm
Concert: Beethoven String Quartets (including premiere of new composition inspired by Beethoven’s own musical sketches)
Ruisi Quartet
Beethoven String Quartet Op.59 no.1, Dawe String Quartet based on Beethoven sketches for Op.135 (world premiere), Beethoven String Quartet Op.135