Michael Nyman Band
NYman with a Movie Camera
Wed 20 Oct 2010 8pm
Butterworth Hall: £19.50, £22.50
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CloseMichael Nyman is one of Britain’s most innovative and celebrated composers. He’s also a performer, conductor, pianist, author, photographer and filmmaker. This evening we are lucky enough to see him as composer, pianist and filmmaker.
During the first half Michael Nyman and his band will perform music from the unforgettable, award-winning soundtrack to The Piano alongside two of his most notable scores for Peter Greenaway’s films The Draughtman’s Contract and Prospero Books.
This will be followed by NYman with a Movie Camera, a film by Nyman, screened with a live performance of his score by the Michael Nyman Band directed from the keyboard by Nyman himself.
The film presents a shot-by-shot reconstruction of Dziga Vertov’s iconic film, replacing the original sequences with footage from Michael Nyman’s own film archives shot over the last two decades.
Nyman‘s film attempts to capture the essence of our contemporary times through the lens of his own camera, creating a multi-sensory experience of time as it occurs and of life as it happens.
The footage is recorded by first hand observation and delivers an unscripted visual transcription of every-day life as recently documented by the composer in a collection of over 50 cinematographic works.
Butterworth Hall
With a maximum capacity of 2000 standing or 1500 seated this concert hall has an outstanding natural acoustic and is the home of our International Concert Series, as well as the majority of our music gigs and big name comedians. Butterworth Hall has recently had a £6.9 million redevelopment and reopened in autumn 2009 .
3 Comments
i REALLY want to go but none of my friends like Nyman.. :( i will have to go on my own!
Jack Minty at 3:58pm on Sat 2nd Oct 2010
I usually love Nyman's music, and thoroughly enjoyed the short first half of this concert, but the experience was very cold and distant. No word to the audience, just his back to watch as he played the piano, and for me, and my guests, one of which was young, and I wanted her to be introduced to someone I have felt was a giant of film music and his particular genre, the second half became an endurance test. Nyman is most definitely not Greenaway. I felt I needed a chatroom/debrief as I left the hall. Was I alone?
Theo Philcox at 11:33pm on Wed 20th Oct 2010
The first half was spoilt by audio feedback that was ear splitting at times. The musicians looked uncomfortable. Michael's sheet music had been balanced precariously on top of the piano and fluttered to the floor periodically. The lighting engineer did not seem to be aware that the first half had finished and the cellist sat alone for several minutes after the other performers had gone. I thought he was going to give us a solo but he eventually got up and left so we did the same. We did not return for the second half.
Mark Kordan at 12:23pm on Thu 21st Oct 2010