Cave by Tansy Davies & Nick Drake (2017)

2017/18 SEASON londonsinfonietta.org.uk #UnfinishedBusiness

CAVE

A new opera by Tansy Davies and Nick Drake

PROGRAMME

“Nature can help us. If we can take care of it, understand it better and become closer to it, it will reciprocate” Tansy Davies

CONTENTS WELCOME 2 COMPOSER’S NOTE 4 SYNOPSIS 5 LIBRETTO

8–12 EXPLORING THE CAVE 14–16 BIOGRAPHIES

19–24 ABOUT THE LONDON SINFONIETTA 25 SUPPORTERS AND STAFF

28–29

The London Sinfonietta is grateful to Arts Council England for its generous support of the ensemble, as well as the many other individuals, trusts and businesses who enable us to realise our ambitions.

London Sinfonietta would also like to thank Mark & Grace Benson, Ariane Bankes, Susan Costello, Tony & Criona Mackintosh, Walter Marlowe, Robert McFarland, Allie & Patrick Morrison, Ruth Rattenbury, Tessa Solomon, Fay Sweet, Mark Thomas and Estela Welldon for their generous support of this production.

With the friendly support of

CAVE

Nature loves courage Terence McKenna Online Concert Printworks London Tansy Davies / Nick Drake Cave (world premiere; 2018) Mark Padmore Man/father of Hannah Elaine Mitchener Voice/Hannah Akilah Mantock young Hannah Shani Smethurst young Hannah Geoffrey Paterson conductor Lucy Bailey director Mike Britton designer Tansy Davies & Rolf Wallin electronics Jonathan Green for Sound Intermedia sound operator London Sinfonietta Timothy Lines clarinet/bass clarinet John Orford contra bassoon* Michael Thompson horn* Jonathan Morton violin* Enno Senft double bass* Helen Tunstall harp* *London Sinfonietta Principal Player Jack Knowles lighting designer Sound Intermedia sound design Sarah Dowling movement director Sydney Florence costume supervisor Ben Austin associate designer Theodora Tavener assistant director Natalie Marchant producer Erin Witton production manager Lucy Serjeant stage manager Hannah Bache assistant producer Charlotte Templeman orchestra manager Anna Lavender-Creagh assistant stage manager Alice Hardy make-up artist Bernard Robertson & Joseph Havlat repetiteurs Julia Phelan chaperone

Cave is performed by arrangement with Faber Music Ltd, London Produced by the London Sinfonietta in association with The Royal Opera House

WELCOME This project began with a conversation with Mark Padmore in 2015 who then agreed to be part of our 50th Anniversary Season and make something memorable with us. We are hugely honoured to have Mark and Elaine Mitchener’s remarkable vocal and performing talents to bring Cave to life. We are also proud to be working again with Geoffrey Paterson – a conductor we have developed a relationship with since he trained on our London Sinfonietta Academy in 2009.

Andrew Burke © Mark Allan

Welcome to these performances of Tansy Davies’ and Nick Drake’s new work Cave.

The project comes towards the end of our 50th Anniversary Season, and has added meaning for us because of this in many ways. Tansy is one of the composers we have supported from an early stage in her career – in fact she cites a visit from the London Sinfonietta to her school as one of the formative influences on her choice to become a composer.

The London Sinfonietta has had a long tradition of music theatre and opera performances, in the past in partnership with other companies such as Opera Factory and The Opera Group and in the future we are excited to be working with Music Theatre Wales. Cave is a London Sinfonietta own production, and we are hugely grateful to director Lucy Bailey and all of the creative team for their enormous work to realise this world premiere in the epic space of Printworks London.

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I would like to thank the supporters of this project – not least the support from Cockayne Foundation and Britten Pears Foundation. I am also hugely grateful to The Royal Opera, whose co-commission of the work has meant we can realise it in this landmark season. We could not have produced this project without the support of individuals who have donated to it, inspired by the leadership of Tony and Criona Mackintosh. And finally, thanks to Printworks London who have let us use their remarkable building.

We thank Arts Council England for their investment in our organisation – and also all those who play the lottery, which provides funding for many arts projects of different kinds across the country each year.

We hope you enjoy the performance, and will come again to London Sinfonietta events in the future.

Andrew Burke Chief Executive & Artistic Director

“It has to be daring - you have to push yourself to doing things you’re not normally asked to do” Mark Padmore

Mark Padmore in rehearsal for Cave © N Collins

COMPOSER’S NOTE

Nick Drake and Tansy Davies look over their early sketches for Cave © N Collins

BY TANSY DAVIES I have a long-standing relationship with the London Sinfonietta which stems back to my teenage years, when they visited my school.

Cave – commissioned as part of the ensemble’s 50th Anniversary Season – is one of my most ambitious works to date. It’s a thrill and an honour to write for this extraordinary group of players and musical thinkers, who Harrison Birtwistle once wonderfully dubbed ‘a composite virtuosity’.

Cave is a chamber opera on a relatively small scale, but one that I hope will feel epic in its journey and intention. There are just two singers who carry the arc of the piece, bringing Nick Drake’s arresting poetry brilliantly to life.

Mark Padmore and Elaine Mitchener come from quite opposite backgrounds, but they are both stepping into unknown territory in Cave. Mark, a world-renowned tenor often singing baroque and early music, will at times be pushed to physical extremes – edging into the realm of visceral rock/pop performer – whilst the 4

extraordinary scope of vocal/movement artist Elaine Mitchener ranges from tender lyricism to being a portal to nature’s ancient wisdom and the spiritual realm: the voice of the cave walls and the spirits that reside there.

Printworks London is the perfect setting for the piece because it represents a kind of urban cave where our protagonist finds refuge.

I feel a sense of urgency to address the problems society now faces in my work, and there’s no escaping the fact that climate change so clearly effects every single one of us. Cave is a kind of summons; a call to the nature within us all, to look out beyond our screens and out at the natural world and, in so doing, to see how connected we all are to it. Art and music have the power to reconnect us to our untamed natures and to build bridges back to things we’ve forgotten or lost.

Nature can help us. If we can take care of it, understand it better and become closer to it, it will reciprocate.

SYNOPSIS

1. THE LOST RIVER

Leaving the chaos and ruin of the near-future world.

Descending a dry underground riverbed into the darkness of a cave.

2. THE ECHOES A Man enters after a long, arduous journey. He has been here before with his daughter Hannah. He communes with the cave and its echoes.

He prepares a hallucinogenic brew.

3. THE CAVE OF BIRDS He drinks the brew. The dawn chorus of an enchanted forest rises – until the roar of a military jet overhead, destroys the vision.

4. THE MIRROR CRACKS The boundaries between worlds break down.

Agonised by grief, the man shape-shifts.

5. THE TREE OF SHADOWS A hot afternoon. At the top of a rocky canyon, a tree grows.

The Man and Hannah are together.

They talk about her plans and dreams. A church bell tolls…

6. THE STORM A storm breaks. Rain falls in the dark.

They sing together, as Hannah’s spirit goes.

7. THE RIVER The waters of a lost river rise and flow.

The Man returns to the world, Hannah’s voice entwined in his.

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“Cave is a journey of grief – and how that can be healed, how we move forward from suffering such a catastrophic loss” Director Lucy Bailey

Lucy Bailey in rehearsal for Cave © N Collins

“It gives us a dark womb of the earth – the audience will journey from the outside world into this almost alien space where anything can happen” Director Lucy Bailey on staging Cave within Printworks London

Printworks London, formerly the Evening Standard and Daily Mail printing house, Canada Water

“The world we once knew is never coming back. We are inevitably sending our children to live on an unfamiliar planet... But the opposite of hope is not despair. It is grief.”

Climate scientist, Kate Marvel

LIBRETTO

BY NICK DRAKE

For Hannah Cox (1995–2017) “Nature loves courage” Terence McKenna

1. THE LOST RIVER

The audience leaves the outside world, descending from light into the dark.

2. THE ECHOES A lone figure enters the space.

He calls out - sounding out the darkness.

A sound/voice responds - like the sound of water dripping on stone: pa pa pa...

VOICE Papa...

MAN Hannah?

VOICE Hannah...

MAN Hannah?

VOICE Hannah...

MAN Are you here?

VOICE Here you are – MAN Don’t be afraid –

I’m here –

I’ll wait –

I’ll talk…

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A buzzard tracked me – Trespasser – Up the empty road Past the abandoned trucks And the hollow church Through the burned-out woods – As I climbed the stone track Of the lost river Up to the mouth of the dark Where it lost contact –

We came here before Remember?

You loved it – The halls and galleries Mysterious in the dark And on the rock walls In the light of our torches

Astonishing The cavalcade of ancient animals – Red horses galloping, deer grazing The fields of rock – And the small shadow hands raised In clouds of ochre Greeting you Across time – And you sang out like a bird To the spirits in the rock Who answered...

You were never Afraid of the dark – It delighted you...

It is a year tonight Since you were lost In the Fear – So far away I could not bring you home –

I don’t know why I’m still alive – I am half-dead with nothing – - like a man with his shoelaces undone - like a crack in the wall - like a dog in the rain - with my heart melted like wax - with my bones out of joint - in the dust of death

But I am here Because we were here Before – Will you speak to me Once more My daughter With the beautiful hair – Hannah?

A thousand winters pass In the world But time takes no time In a story – So listen –

3. THE CAVE OF BIRDS MAN

One night we went to sleep And in the dark some tipping point occurred Some next to nothing Changed everything And in the grey dawn we awoke To a sudden winter – Our TVs broadcast snow And the park was on fire And the grass black And the bridges under water And the forests petrified And the coastlines redrawn And the harvest bleached By salt in the dew – And the satellites revealed A white sheet drawn over the sky And the phosphorous sun Turned a blind eye – And nothing grew.

So the last flowers Were pressed in vacuums And locked away In the vaults of banks And the last green trees In secret silos – And we gathered in the squares And glass towers and shopping malls Of our mirror cities With our clever devices Useless in our hands – And we held up our candles To mourn the extinction Of colour...

VOICE/ MAN

No – Tell me another story –

MAN

When the lights went out We held up our candles To the heart of our courage And our fear – Face to face Eye to eye In the dignity Of the future – And we understood We were made for each other –

VOICE/MAN

And we sang the dark’s song

Together – MAN

In the secret Labyrinth Of the inner ear’s Nest of bones A tiny pool Of inkling silence Waiting waiting For a whisper Of dawn rain To summon A bird bright In the tree of the mind Suddenly ascending Spirals of song Into the light –

VOICE

[bird song]

MAN

Have no fear – Sing with me – Come to my hands –

As he dances an enchanted forest rises… until the roar of a military jet overhead destroys the vision…

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4. THE MIRROR CRACKS

5. THE TREE OF SHADOWS

A rave of agony -

The shadow of a tree. Heat and peace.

Memory time, lost time…

MAN

A A A Ah shadow stick stuck cartoon burned alive in grief skin and my child is lost don’t leave me on the brink of augury in the relentless rain nil by mouth awkward squad stab in the dark and my child is lost don’t leave me down by the faulty dark sea crowd shadows shift coins on tongues under infrared sun phosphorous moon the birds awry modems screaming interference manifest of storm warning the alarm bell rings backwards and no ferry comes and my child is lost don’t leave me the crow arrests me for howling in my sleep and demands my heart and folds me close in its black wings –

HANNAH

[mirror words] HA A A A ym dlihc si tsol - wodahs kcits nootrac ni feirg niks ym dlihc si tsol - sseltneler niar lin yb htuom - ym dlihc si tsol - ni het ssenredliw - ym dlihc si tsol eht lleb seirc sdrawkcab - ym dlihc si tsol - eht worc stserra em - ym dlihc si tsol - ni sti kcalb sgniw

The MAN shape-shifts.

A vast shadow rises, cawing… then total darkness.

HANNAH

Wake up – Dad –

MAN

OK. I’m awake. I’m here -

HANNAH

Drink...

MAN

What time is it?

HANNAH

Does it matter?

We’re on holiday – Look at the view – Look at the sea –

MAN

Wow – We climbed the canyon –

HANNAH Yes we did –

Up the rocks – MAN/ HANNAH

Up through the streams and pools –

HANNAH

And at the top – Amazing!

MAN

A tree growing out of the rock – How does that work?

HANNAH

Lichen to moss to grasses to seeds Add rain water Held in a crack – It’s called succession – Regeneration – If we left the world alone Then the forests would grow green again In time –

MAN

I’m proud of you –

HANNAH

Shut up – This is the best day –

MAN/ HANNAH

Ever –

HANNAH

Woh-woh-who-who-who...

She dances. He joins her, happy

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HANNAH

Oh no Not Dad dancing –

MAN

(Stevie Wonder) Isn’t she lovely?

HANNAH

You’re so embarrassing!

MAN

Isn’t she wonderful?

So tell me about the tattoo –

HANNAH

Oh, that –

She reveals a tattoo on her underarm.

MAN/ HANNAH

Courage –

HANNAH

I wondered when you would ask me!

MAN

Why did you get it?

HANNAH

For when I go away –

MAN

Courage –

HANNAH

It’s a message To myself –

MAN/ HANNAH

Courage –

HANNAH

I want to make A difference –

MAN

You will!

HANNAH

I want to do something About the disaster we’ve made/

MAN

You mean your parents have made!/

HANNAH

Of the planet – Synthetic, radioactive, acidified – This insane exploitation Of people and Nature – For what? So we can have 4x4s?

And holidays in the sun And peaches in the winter?

MAN

I know, love, but

HANNAH

We live like demanding gods, Maddened by life-style – We have to imagine A humbler way to belong together – We need new stories We need to listen To the other stories – We Earthlings should listen to Nature Because hers is the best story –

MAN

I love it when you talk like this To me –

HANNAH

I know, I get mad And then I get going – Do you think I’m dreaming?

MAN

No, but I think...

People are afraid – and selfish – They have enough to worry about Without the future –

HANNAH

Bullshit, Dad –

MAN

Is it?

HANNAH

We each have to make A decision To change things –

MAN

How? How can each of us Change anything? What power Do we have?

HANNAH

Everything we do Is connected to everything else – We just don’t see it –

MAN

So we turn off the lights But then the empty towers of the city Are blazing all night long –

HANNAH

Yes! And then what?

Throw up your hands In despair, and cry What can we do? It’s too late!

No – We have to imagine something better And then make it happen Together –

MAN

All I know is I believe in you – The future’s written in time Not stone – It’s written in you –

HANNAH

Oh, so poetic –

MAN

Sorry – I just don’t want you to go So far away –

HANNAH

I have to – I’m not afraid – Well, I am –

But so what –

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MAN/ HANNAH

Courage –

A church bell distantly rings the hour.

The light starts to break up.

HANNAH

Time to go –

MAN

Time flies...

HANNAH

I have to go –

MAN

No - don’t go –

HANNAH

Time to let go –

MAN

I want more time –

HANNAH

Time to let go And fall –

MAN

Don’t leave me –

HANNAH

Into the dream

MAN

It’s cold – I’m looking down Onto an ocean of time Moving beneath my feet – I’m afraid –

Thunder rolls, darkness grows…

6. THE STORM As the storm breaks, a lullaby: VOICE

In the house of the dark Hush, don’t cry, don’t cry – Hoa-ri-ri o-hu-o, bo-ho-hi, ho-hu-o – Sleep my darling, shhh...

VOICE/ MAN

Let’s walk to the river Hush, don’t cry, don’t cry – hoa-ri-ri o-hu-o, bo-ho-hi, ho-hu-o – Sleep my darling, shhhh...

Listen for the bird of dawn Hush, don’t cry, don’t cry – hoa-ri-ri o-hu-o, bo-ho-hi, ho-hu-o – Sleep my darling, shhh...

7. THE RIVER A new sound in the dark: running water…

MAN

When I walk out Of the mouth of the dark I’ll see with your eyes Perhaps the woods will be green again And the trees Rich with fruit – Perhaps the river will run Silver and blue over the stones – Perhaps there will be music On the radio – Perhaps there will be people On the roads – Perhaps...

And if not I’ll begin again With your voice In mine –

VOICE/ MAN Courage...

The lost river rises as the MAN departs…

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LONDON SINFONIETTA’S NIGHT AT THE LIBRARY Friday 21 September 2018 6.30pm–9pm, British Library Join us for an exclusive fundraising event at the British Library. Meet our world-class musicians, step inside our history and hear new music from the UK’s leading composers in this iconic building.

The evening will feature a silent auction with unique prizes, with proceeds from the event going towards the work of the ensemble – including commissions, touring, education work and concert performances.

To book please visit londonsinfonietta.org.uk/whats-on

This is a fundraising event on behalf of Sinfonietta Productions Ltd, registered charity no.255095

EXPLORING THE CAVE

BY TIM RUTHERFORD-JOHNSON Today there is a road up from the village of Niaux, a car park and a large, striking steel sculpture by the architect Massimiliano Fuksas that directs tourists towards the entrance.

But 12,000 years ago there was just a hole. A great maw in the steep-sided valley, exposed as the glacier that carved this valley slowly started to melt, its triangular shape echoing the surrounding hills. A possible shelter against weather or wild animals.

Except the Magdalenian huntspeople – for it is they who first explored this cave in the French Pyrenees – never used it in this way. We know they lived in another cave on the opposite side of the valley, because many of their tools and weapons have been found there. But none have been found in the Niaux cave. This place was used for something else entirely.

Tansy Davies first visited Niaux around ten years ago and has returned many times since.

When she and Nick Drake began work on Cave, their second operatic collaboration, they went together with an idea to create something that was both very ancient and very modern. Drake vividly describes stepping into the cave itself: ‘You put on your hard hat, grip your torch, and walk down into the dark along what would once have been a river bed – the flow of the lost waters are still visible in the rock.’ The limestone walls on either side are smooth and clear, the cavern is broad and high. For several hundred metres the walk is impressive but not spectacular. But then a rockfall narrows the path dramatically, and in order to progress any further you must squeeze past this wall of boulders – ‘a weirdly angled space like the deck of a wrecked ship’ – before stepping out into a vast cavern. This is the Salon Noir, or Black Hall, an echoing, domed auditorium, and the reason the Magdalenians, and Drake and Davies, tripped and groped and forced their way through the dark.

An image from Nick and Tansy’s trip to visit the Niaux caves © Nick Drake

Cave paintings in Niaux

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“For Davies, the cave in this story is a vast inner space of

the spirit and of the imagination, an interior cosmos, a place for questioning and questing”

This womb-like passage is rich in metaphor: an inner journey, a struggle against adversity, a ritual threshold.

In the early stages of their work on Cave, Drake and Davies spent a week together improvising elements of the opera in chalk on a scroll of brown paper. ‘Nick and I play together really well’, says Davies. ‘It helps us access our child-selves, which helps to cut away baggage and ego.’ It is striking the extent to which motifs of corridors opening onto wide spaces recur across the scroll. ‘We find it really enjoyable to make a picture’, says Drake. ‘We discover the opera in the process of drawing it.’

The Magdalenians lived in an era of climate change, on the retreating edge of Europe’s last ice age. As the glaciers withdrew, so too did the animal herds on which the Magdalenians relied.

The images, and the cave itself, must have been significant, but what that meaning was is as lost to us as the glaciers themselves.

Inside Niaux, there may well have been music as well as art, and the mysterious echoes of the space would only have added to the reverberating sensory experience.

Images are what make the Black Hall famous.

Its floor is engraved and its walls are painted with dozens of them – reindeer, bison, ibex, horses. The paintings, in black manganese dioxide and red iron oxide, are some of the finest examples of cave art in the world, exhibiting a high degree of sophistication in materials and brushwork. Many of the images appear to have been painted over and over, layered on top of each other as though part of some repeated ritual. This is clearly a special site.

Lucy Bailey during rehearsals for Cave © N Collins

Tansy and Nick review the chalk drawings that began their Cave journey © N Collins

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Mark Padmore and Elaine Mitchener rehearsing Cave together © N Collins

Drake notes that in the acoustic of the Black Hall, ‘You just want to make noises, sing and play with the space.’ A cave can be a temple, a theatre or a gallery.

It can also be a time machine. Deep underground, away from daylight, trees and birds, external time stops. Marks on the walls – such as the eerie hand stencils found in La Cueva de las manos in Argentina and in caves around the world – instantly collapse thousands of years of distance between ourselves and our ancestors. Ancient Instagram.

Cave’s protagonist, played by Mark Padmore, is also trying to alter time. He enters the cave first to stop the future: to escape the climate catastrophe that is unfolding outside. Inside, however, he goes further and tries to reverse time’s flow by performing a ritual for his lost daughter. For Davies, the cave in this story is a ‘vast inner space of the spirit and of the imagination, an interior cosmos, a place for questioning and questing’. Director Lucy Bailey sees the cave as a place of healing, from suffering catastrophic losses such as the loss of a child, and more broadly, our relationship with nature.

Entering the post-industrial space of Printworks London – walking through steel security gates, past the printing presses off which the London Evening Standard used to roll 24 hours a day – is an altogether more modern experience than Niaux. This cave is made of iron beams and plastic cladding. Director Lucy Bailey describes it as ‘a sort of alien space, where anything can happen’ – the perfect setting for this spiritual journey of discovery.

The human impulses articulated in the caverns of Niaux, for sanctuary and meaning, for sensory extremes and a reconnection with nature’s primal forces, are no less powerful today. We face similar climate challenges as the Magdalenians and we need similar things. All that is different is the language.

Tim Rutherford-Johnson is author of Music after the Fall: Modern Composition and Culture since 1989 (University of California Press).

Cave set model by designer Mike Britton © N Collins

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Early sketches for Cave by Nick Drake and Tansy Davies Š N Collins

“For both of us, finding our relationship as father and daughter – that process has been quite emotional” Elaine Mitchener

Elaine Mitchener in rehearsal for Cave © N Collins

TANSY DAVIES

© Rikard Österlund

COMPOSER

Tansy Davies studied at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and Royal Holloway. In 2004, her London Sinfonietta commission neon – a gritty collage of twisted funk written for the Composers Ensemble – became her calling card and since then her music has been championed by the likes of New York Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, Asko|Schönberg, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra and London Symphony Orchestra and festivals including Ultima, Présencesthe and Warsaw Autumn.

Davies’ work has been inspired by sources such as Zaha Hadid (Spiral House) and Anselm Kiefer (Falling Angel). Her fascination with the Troubadours finds expression in Troubairitz, the 2010 song cycle that gave its name to a portrait disc on Nonclassical. 2012 saw the premiere of the piano concerto Nature by Huw Watkins, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and Oliver Knussen, and the release of Spine, an all-Davies disc on NMC. Between Worlds – a bold response to the events of 9/11 to a libretto by Nick Drake – was premiered by ENO in 2015 in a production by Deborah Warner, and was later awarded the 2016 British Composer Award for Stage Work. Recent projects include Re-greening for large singing orchestra premiered by NYOGB and Forest, a concerto for four horns and orchestra premiered by Philharmonia Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

2017 saw the premiere of Song Horn at the Berliner Festspiele and a new work for 10 players premiered by the Crash Ensemble. What Did We See? will be premiered at the 2018 BBC Proms by the BBC Philharmonic and will travel to Oslo’s Ultima Festival in September. Davies is an Associate Professor of Composition at RAM.

NICK DRAKE

© Lisa Tomasetti

LIBRETTIST

Nick Drake is a poet, screenwriter and dramatist.

Recent work includes: All the Angels, Wanamaker Theatre at Shakespeare’s Globe, text published

by Faber. Between Worlds, libretto for the opera

by Tansy Davies. Message from the Unseen World, a poem commissioned by United Visual Artists and Future Cities for a permanent public artwork in Paddington Basin dedicated to Alan Turing.

His first collection of poetry The Man in the White Suit (Bloodaxe 1999), won the Waterstone’s Forward Prize for Best First Collection. His second collection, From the Word Go (2007) was followed by The Farewell Glacier (2012), a collection which grew out of a journey to the Svalbard archipelago to observe climate change in the Arctic.

Nick was commissioned by United Visual Artists to create the text for High Arctic, an installation at the National Maritime Museum which ran through 2011, and has been nominated for many awards. He wrote the screenplay for Romulas, My Father, starring Eric Bana and Kodi Smit McFee, directed by Richard Roxburgh, and produced by Arena Films (2007). It won four awards at the Australian Film Institute Awards, including Best Film. To Reach the Clouds, an adaptation of Philippe Petit’s high-wire walk between the Twin Towers, premiered at Nottingham Playhouse in 2006. Success for the National Theatre Connections Project was performed in the Olivier Theatre and around the country.

His new poetry collection, Out of Range, will be published by Bloodaxe in November 2018.

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© Marco Borggreve

© Dimitri Djuric

MARK PADMORE

ELAINE MITCHENER

Mark Padmore has an international career in opera, concert and recital. He has worked with directors Katie Mitchell, Deborah Warner and Peter Sellars (his performances as Evangelist in Sellar’s staged St Matthew and St John Passions with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle attracted worldwide acclaim). Operatic work has included leading roles in Birtwistle’s The Corridor and The Cure (Aldeburgh Festival and Linbury Theatre); Captain Vere in Britten’s Billy Budd (Glyndebourne Opera) and Third Angel/John in George Benjamin’s Written on Skin (ROH). He will appear in the world premiere of Thomas Larcher’s The Hunting Gun at this year’s Bregenz Festival.

Mark was 2016/17 Artist in Residence with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and holds the same position with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra for the current 2017/18 season. He works closely with the OAE and Britten Sinfonia on a variety of different concerts and projects.

In recital, he works with Paul Lewis, Kristian Bezuidenhout and Till Fellner and regularly collaborates with Julius Drake, Roger Vignoles and Andrew West. Harmonia Mundi releases include the Schubert cycles with Paul Lewis (Winterreise won the 2010 Gramophone Vocal Solo Award), Schumann’s Dichterliebe with Kristian Bezuidenhout (2011 Edison Klassiek Award), and Britten’s Serenade and Nocturne and Finzi’s Dies Natalis with the Britten Sinfonia (ECHO Klassik 2013 Vocal Solo Recording Award).

Mark Padmore was Musical America’s Vocalist of the Year for 2016. He is currently the Artistic Director of the St Endellion Summer Music Festival.

Elaine Mitchener is an experimental vocalist and movement artist whose work encompasses improvisation, contemporary music theatre and dance. Elaine studied voice at Trinity College of Music, London and currently studies with Jacqueline Bremar. She has performed at numerous UK and European festivals and venues including Aldeburgh Music, London Contemporary Music Festival, Café Oto, 56th Venice Biennale, London ICA, Ultima Festival Oslo, and SAVVY Berlin amongst others. She has worked with an array of leading musicians and artists including Deborah Warner, Christian Marclay, Irvine Arditti, George E. Lewis, Sonia Boyce, Rolf Hind, Tansy Davies and Dai Fujikura.

Elaine is co-founder of the experimental jazz quartet the Hawkins/Mitchener Quartet and a regular vocalist with the ensemble Apartment House. Elaine Mitchener Projects has developed and produced a number of special projects, most recently John Cage’s SongBooks for London’s Poetry In The City Festival and SWEET TOOTH in partnership with Bluecoat Liverpool, Stuart Hall Foundation and the International Slavery Museum. Described as ‘a vital black British addition to those seminal creative statements of resistance and defiance from the African Diaspora’, it was subsequently broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s Hear and Now. Future engagements include Of Leonardo daVinci (London premiere) directed by choreographer Dam Van Huynh, in collaboration with David Toop and Barry Lewis (Purcell Room), and an orchestral commission for the 2018 London Contemporary Music Festival.

TENOR

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MEZZO-SOPRANO

SHANI SMETHURST

AKILAH MANTOCK

21, 22 (mat), 23 (eve) June Shani Jai Smethurst is a playful nine year old who has been singing, dancing and acting from an early age. She attends Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance, is a member of Dominique Moore Arts Elite Group, and is represented by Daisy & Dukes. She is thrilled to be appearing in Cave.

20, 22 (eve), 23 (mat) June Akilah Mantock is a charismatic ten year old from Southwark with considerable performing experience. She already has an online presence, interviewing celebrities as part of a presenting duo and is staging a kid’s talent showcase.

Akilah has recently sung for Prince William, at the opening of the new London Bridge station, and has had her poetry published. She is represented by UK Talent Train.

YOUNG HANNAH

YOUNG HANNAH

TAKING CAVE TO SCHOOLS John Webb composer/workshop leader Lucy Wakeford harp Alexandra Caldon violin Schools: Alfred Salter Primary, Albion Primary, St Johns’ Catholic Primary The London Sinfonietta has a long-standing tradition of accompanying major new artistic work with participation and learning projects in schools and communities. In this instance, John Webb, a composer and workshop leader, worked alongside a small team of musicians to take the concept of Cave into three primary schools local to Printworks London.

The young participants learned about how professional composers approach the creation of new work and discovered many of the different ways in which music can be used descriptively. They also explored some of the musical elements of the piece and its topical environmental theme.

Working side-by-side with the London Sinfonietta team, the children became composers, devising their own short, simple pieces inspired by Cave.

These new creations were showcased in a ‘sharing’ session at Printworks London, in which each class performed their pieces to each other and joined forces to sing We Have The Power, a song written by John Webb encouraging the children to be environmentally responsible.

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LUCY BAILEY

GEOFFREY PATERSON

Lucy Bailey studied English at Oxford University where she directed the world premiere of Lessness by Samuel Beckett in consultation with the author. She is co-founder of The Print Room in Notting Hill Gate and its artistic director from 2010–2012. Shows she has directed include Fabrication, Snake in the Grass, Kingdom of Earth and Uncle Vanya with Iain Glen. Lucy was also the co-founder and co-artistic director of gogmagogs (1995–2007), a music theatre company comprising of seven string players.

Theatre credits include Witness for the Prosecution (London’s County Hall), Love From A Stranger, Gaslight (Royal & Derngate); Comus, A Masque In Honour Of Chastity (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse), Titus Andronicus, Timon of Athens, Macbeth, As You Like It (Shakespeare’s Globe); The Graduate, Great Expectations, The Postman Always Rings Twice (West Yorkshire Playhouse/West End/UK tour); The Importance of Being Earnest (Harold Pinter Theatre/ UK tour); Fortunes Fool (The Old Vic); King Lear (Theatre Royal Bath); The Winter’s Tale, Taming of the Shrew, Julius Caesar (Royal Shakespeare Company/Roundhouse/The Armoury, New York); The Night Season (National Theatre); Don’t Look Now (Crucible Theatre/Lyric Hammersmith).

Opera and music theatre credits include world premieres by John Tavener, Mary of Egypt (Aldeburgh Festival); Let Us Begin Again (Norwich Cathedral); The Fool (Queen Elizabeth Hall); Gudrun Fier Sang, (Copenhagen Dry Dock); Jenufa (ENO); Cheryoumushki 1958 (Lyric Hammersmith); Il Barber di Siviglia, Mitridate (Wexford Opera Festival); Madame Butterfly (Vancouver Opera) and Noyes Fludde, Triptych (Aldeburgh Festival).

The young British conductor Geoffrey Paterson is admired for his impressive grasp of detail, responsiveness to musicians, and his ability to shape and make music from the most complex scores, with natural authority. Last season Paterson made his Bavarian State Opera debut with Menotti’s The Consul, returning this spring for a Max Richter/Saariaho ballet project. He has conducted La bohème for Opera North, Die Entführung aus dem Serail for Glyndebourne on Tour and HK Gruber’s Gloria von Jaxtberg at the Bregenz Festival and the Royal Opera, where he was on the Jette Parker Young Artist programme and where he has since conducted Massenet, Julian Philips and a Birtwistle premiere.

He recently conducted the OAE in a scaleddown Rosenkavalier with film at Southbank Centre and Vienna Konzerthaus. Next season he returns to Music Theatre Wales with the London Sinfonietta for Dusapin’s Passion, and to the Royal Danish Opera for productions of Fledermaus and Prokofiev’s Cinderella. Symphonic highlights of this season include debuts with the Danish National Symphony, Orchestre National de Lille, National Orchestra of Belgium and Basel Sinfonietta and concerts with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Paterson appears regularly with the London Sinfonietta in a range of projects and has recorded with them for the NMC label.

Geoffrey studied Music and composition with Goehr at Cambridge and conducting at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, winning First Prize and Audience Prize at the 2009 Leeds Conductors Competition, and subsequently assisting Petrenko at Bayreuth for two seasons.

DIRECTOR

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CONDUCTOR

Cave set model by designer Mike Britton

SOUND INTERMEDIA

MIKE BRITTON

Launched in 1996 by Ian Dearden and David Sheppard, Sound Intermedia revels in the challenge of bringing new work to its audience.

Renowned for sophisticated sound designs for live events, they have worked in concert halls and opera houses around the world, collaborating with many of the preeminent creators and performers of new music of the last 70 years.

Their experience is sought when exceptional events go beyond established paradigms. They have devised and curated installations and performances in museums, art galleries and a myriad of unusual spaces around the world - from Venice Beach California to Aldeburgh beach in Suffolk; from the tunnels of London Underground to helicopters over Paris.

They plan to revisit outstanding works of electronic music and perform them with technology specially built to sound and feel like the original. Their aim is to motivate and infuence musicians, technicians and composers through authoritative performance and to pass on their ingenuity to the next generation, better to serve the music of the future.

Mike Britton is an acclaimed designer working across, theatre, television and film. Theatre credits include Love From a Stranger, A Tale Of Two Cities, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, To Sir With Love (Royal & Derngate/ Touring); All The Angels, The Merchant Of Venice, Holy Warriors, Macbeth, The Taming Of The Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, Antony & Cleopatra (Shakespeare’s Globe); Abigail’s Party, Broken Glass (West End); Statement Of Regret (National); The Winter’s Tale, Pericles, Madness In Valencia (RSC); Hero, The Vertical Hour, That Face (Royal Court); The Late Middle Classes, The Promise (Donmar); Period Of Adjustment (Almeida); The Deep Blue Sea, Nijinsky (Chichester); Therese Raquin, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Candida, Abigail’s Party (Bath); The Graduate, Dial M For Murder (West Yorkshire Playhouse/ Touring); Great Expectations, Tis Pity She’s A Whore, Hay Fever (West Yorkshire Playhouse); The Absence Of War (Headlong/ Sheffield); Don’t Look Now, The Comedy Of Errors, Bird Calls (Sheffield); The Tales Of Ballycumber, The Three Sisters (Abbey, Dublin); A Kind Of Alaska, Krapp’s Last Tape (Bristol); Henry V, Mirandolina (Manchester); Wuthering Heights, The Lady From The Sea (Birmingham); Season’s Greetings, Aristocrats (Clwyd); The Hypochondriac, Noise’s Off, The Morris (Liverpool); Les Liasion Dangereuses, Arsenic And Old Lace (Salisbury); Judgement Day, Fabrication (The Print Room); Glass Eels, Comfort Me With Apples (Hampstead); Plenty (Public, New York); Shakespeare At The Bowl (Hollywood Bowl); The Crucible, Romeo & Juliet (Tokyo/ Osaka); and Rudolf (Vienna/ Tokyo).

SOUND DESIGN

DESIGN

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JACK KNOWLES

SARAH DOWLING

Jack trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Recent theatre work includes Machinal, They Drink it in the Congo, Boy, Carmen Disruption (Almeida); Happy Days, Parliament Square (Bush Theatre), Our Town, Twelfth Night, A Streetcar Named Desire, Wit,There Has Possibly Been An Incident (Royal Exchange); Dan and Phil: Interactive Introverts, The Amazing Tour is Not on Fire (World Tours); Instructions for Correct Assembly, 2071 (Royal Court); Caroline, or Change (Chichester Festival Theatre/Hampstead Theatre); Circle Mirror Transformation (Home MCR); Wonderland (Nottingham Playhouse); Beginning (National Theatre/Ambassadors Theatre); Barber Shop Chronicles (National Theatre/West Yorkshire Playhouse/Australian Tour); Committee (Donmar Warehouse); 4.48 Psychosis, Reisende auf einem Bein, Happy Days (Schauspielhaus, Hamburg); Junkyard, Pygmalion (Headlong); Winter Solstice (Actors Touring Company); Watership Down (Watermill Theatre); The Forbidden Zone (Salzburg Festival/Schaubühne, Berlin/Barbican); Kenny Morgan (Arcola); The Massive Tragedy of Madame Bovary!

(Liverpool Everyman/Peepolykus); Lungs, Yellow Wallpaper (Schaubühne, Berlin); Moth (Hightide/Bush Theatre); Say it with Flowers (Hampstead Theatre); Night Train (Schauspiel, Köln/Avignon Festival/Theatertreffen); In a Pickle (RSC/Oily Cart); Ring-A-Ding-Ding (Unicorn Theatre/New Victory Theatre New York/Oily Cart); Kubla Khan, Land of Lights, Light Show, There Was An Old Woman, The Bounce and Mr & Mrs Moon (Oily Cart).

Sarah Dowling is a movement director who works in film, opera, theatre and music videos. This is Sarah’s third production with Lucy Bailey after Julius Caesar at The RSC and Great Expectations at WYP. Sarah’s most recent film work is on Mary Queen of Scots starring Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie.

Sarah’s other theatre productions as an MD include My Brilliant Friend (Melly Still), Boys will be Boys (Headlong), Waiting for Godot starring Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart and The Fairy Queen with opera director Thomas Guthrie.

Sarah is also an independent choreographer and performer and has worked as a performer with Punchdrunk for the past 15 years.

LIGHTING DESIGN

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© Pari Naderi

MOVEMENT DIRECTOR

LONDON SINFONIETTA

© Domizia Salusest

TONIGHT’S PLAYERS Timothy Lines clarinet/bass clarinet John Orford contra bassoon* Michael Thompson horn* Jonathan Morton violin* Enno Senft double bass* Helen Tunstall harp* Jonathan Green for Sound Intermedia sound operation *London Sinfonietta Principal Player The London Sinfonietta is one of the world’s leading contemporary music ensembles.

Formed in 1968, our commitment to making new music has seen us commission over 400 works and premiere many hundreds more. Our ethos today is to constantly experiment with the art form, working with the best composers and performers and collaborating with artists from alternative genres and disciplines. We are committed to challenging perceptions, provoking new possibilities and stretching our audiences’ imaginations, often working closely with them as creators, performers and curators of the events we stage.

Resident at Southbank Centre and Artistic Associate at Kings Place, with a busy touring schedule across the UK and abroad, the London Sinfonietta’s core eighteen Principal Players, are some of the finest musicians in the world.

Holding a leading position in education work, we believe that arts participation is transformational to individuals and communities, and that new music is relevant to all our lives. This belief is enacted through primary and secondary school concerts across the UK, interactive family events, and the annual London Sinfonietta Academy; an unparalleled opportunity for young performers and conductors to train with our Principal Players.

The London Sinfonietta has also broken new ground by creating Steve Reich’s Clapping Music app for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, a participatory rhythm game that has been downloaded over 200,000 times worldwide. Recent recordings include George Benjamin’s opera Into the Little Hill (Nimbus; 2017), Benet Casablancas’ The Art of Ensemble (Sony Classical; 2018), David Lang’s Writing on Water (Cantaloupe Music; 2018) and Philip Venables’ debut album Below the Belt (NMC; 2018). londonsinfonietta.org.uk

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DISCOVER THE LONDON SINFONIETTA’S 2018/19 SEASON From stunning operas by Pascal Dusapin and Karlheinz Stockhausen to Steve Reich’s mesmerising Music for 18 Musicians, Richard Ayres’ quirky new concert work and thought-provoking new music from Olga Neuwirth, Mark Bowden, Colin Matthews and Oscar Bianchi.

PASCAL DUSAPIN: PASSION Saturday 13 October at 7.30pm, Queen Elizabeth Hall A co-production by Music Theatre Wales and NDCWales, created in collaboration with the London Sinfonietta and EXAUDI ARMISTICE MAUDITE SOIT LA GUERRE Thursday 1 November at 7.30pm, Queen Elizabeth Hall Silent film with live score

K R LA

CONNECT: THE AUDIENCE AS ARTIST Saturday 16 March 2019 at 4pm, Queen Elizabeth Hall

T R E V AD

RICHARD AYRES: THE GARDEN Wednesday 17 April 2019 at 7.30pm, Queen Elizabeth Hall STOCKHAUSEN: DONNERSTAG AUS LICHT Tuesday 21 & Wednesday 22 May 2019 at 6.30pm, Royal Festival Hall

SAPIENS Friday 7 December at 7.45pm, Purcell Room

TIME UNWRAPPED: ON THE HOUR Saturday 20 October at 7pm, Kings Place

NEW MUSIC INTERNATIONAL: LONDON SINFONIETTA Thursday 17 January 2019 at 7.30pm, Queen Elizabeth Hall

TURNING POINTS: IANNIS XENAKIS Saturday 3 November at 6pm, Kings Place

STEVE REICH: MUSIC FOR 18 MUSICIANS Tuesday 12 February 2019 at 7.30pm, Royal Festival Hall

For full details and to book visit londonsinfonietta.org.uk

SUPPORTERS London Sinfonietta would like to thank the following organisations and individuals for their generous support of this production: Ariane Bankes, Mark & Grace Benson, Britten-Pears Foundation, Cockayne – Grants for the Arts, Susan Costello, Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, Tony & Criona Mackintosh, Walter Marlowe, Robert McFarland, Allie & Patrick Morrison, Ruth Rattenbury, Tessa Solomon, The London Community Foundation, Fay Sweet, Mark Thomas, Estela Welldon We would also like to thank the following organisations and individuals for their ongoing support of our work: TRUSTS AND FOUNDATIONS Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne, Arts Council England, The Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust, The Boltini Trust, British Council, Britten-Pears Foundation, Chapman Charitable Trust,The John S Cohen Foundation, Cockayne – Grants for the Arts, The D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust, Ernest Cook Trust, Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation,The Fenton Arts Trust, Garfield Weston Foundation, Help Musicians UK, Hinrichsen Foundation, Idlewild Trust, John Ellerman Foundation, Jerwood Charitable Foundation, London Music Fund,

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The London Community Foundation, The Michael Tippett Musical Foundation, Newcomen Collett Foundation, The Nugee Foundation, PRS for Music Foundation, The RVW Trust, The Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation CORPORATE PARTNERS Lark (Group) Limited HONORARY PATRONS John Bird Sir Harrison Birtwistle Alfred Brendel KBE ENTREPRENEURS Mark Benson Sir Vernon Ellis Annabel Graham Paul Penny Jonas Tony & Criona Mackintosh Robert McFarland Michael & Patricia McLarenTurner Sir Stephen Oliver QC Matthew Pike Nick & Claire Prettejohn Paul & Sybella Zisman The London Sinfonietta Counci

Sinfonietta Circle 1968 David Atherton OBE & Nicholas Snowman OBE 1970 Frank and Linda Jeffs 1972 Robert McFarland 1973 Dennis Davis 1974 Camilla & Anthony Whitworth-Jones 1975 John Bird 1976 Patricia McLaren-Turner 1977 Janis Susskind OBE 1978 Walter A. Marlowe 1979 Tony Bolton 1980 Mark Thomas 1981 Michael McLaren-Turner 1982 Rosemary Gent 1984 Robert Clark & Susan Costello 1985 Louise Mitchell 1986 Stephen Williamson 1988 P.E. Duly 1990 Stephen & Dawn Oliver 1991 Régis Cochefert & Thomas Ponsonby 1992 Stephen Morris 1997 Rosie Oliver & Cathy Haynes 1999 Penny Jonas 2000 Tony & Criona Mackintosh 2001 Ruth Rattenbury 2002 John Hodgson 2003 Philip Meaden 2004 Professor Sir Barry Ife CBE 2009 Susan Grollet in memory of Mark Grollet 2010 Lucy de Castro & Nick Morgan 2012 Trevor Cook 2013 Antonia Till 2017 Paul & Sybella Zisman 2018 Lark (Group) Limited

LEAD PIONEERS John Bird Robert Clark & Susan Costello Régis Cochefert Tony Mackintosh Belinda Matthews Stephen Morris Sir Stephen Oliver QC Antonia Till ARTISTIC PIONEERS Anton Cox John Hodgson Nicholas Hodgson Walter A. Marlowe Julie Nicholls Simon Osborne Ruth Rattenbury David & Jenni Wake-Walker Margarita Wood CREATIVE PIONEERS Ian Baker Ariane Bankes Andrew Burke Jeremy & Yvonne Clarke Rachel Coldicutt Dennis Davis Richard & Carole Fries John Goodier Patrick Hall Chris Heathcote Andrew Hunt Frank & Linda Jeffs Philip Meaden Andrew Nash Frances Spalding Iain Stewart Mark Thomas Fenella Warden Jane Williams Plus those generous Lead, Artistic and Creative Pioneers who prefer to remain anonymous, as well as our loyal group of Pioneers.

PRINCIPAL PLAYERS Michael Cox flute (supported

by Michael & Patricia McLarenTurner) Gareth Hulse oboe Mark van de Wiel clarinet (supported by Régis Cochefert) John Orford bassoon Simon Haram saxophone Michael Thompson horn (supported

by Belinda Matthews) Byron Fulcher trombone Alistair Mackie trumpet Jonathan Morton violin 1 (supported

by Paul & Sybella Zisman) Paul Silverthorne viola (supported

by Nick & Claire Prettejohn) Tim Gill cello (supported by Sir Stephen Oliver QC) Enno Senft double bass (supported by Tony Mackintosh) Helen Tunstall harp David Hockings percussion David Sheppard Sound Intermedia (supported by Penny Jonas) Ian Dearden Sound Intermedia (supported by Penny Jonas)

LONDON SINFONIETTA STAFF Andrew Burke Chief Executive & Artistic Director Craig West General Manager Elizabeth Davies Head of Finance Natalie Marchant Concerts & Projects Manager Hannah Bache Concerts & Touring Coordinator Lindsay Wilson Projects Manager Sean Watson Participation & Learning Officer Sam Delaney Development Officer Rosanna Haas Marketing Manager Niamh Collins Marketing Officer Adam Flynn Administration & Recordings Officer Chloe Kwok Professional Placement Trainee

LONDON SINFONIETTA COUNCIL Paul Zisman chairman Andrew Burke Régis Cochefert Ian Dearden Annabel Graham Paul Alistair Mackie Belinda Matthews Jonathan Morton Matthew Pike Sally Taylor Ben Weston

FREELANCE & CONSULTANT STAFF Hal Hutchison Concert Manager Lesley Wynne Orchestra Personnel Manager Tony Simpson Lighting Designer Maija Handover sounduk

LONDON SINFONIETTA AMBASSADORS Tony Mackintosh Robert McFarland Philip Meaden Sir Stephen Oliver QC Penny Jonas

The London Sinfonietta is grateful to its auditors and accountants MGR Weston Kay LLP.

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Keep in touch londonsinfonietta.org.uk @Ldn_Sinfonietta @londonsinfonietta

Image: La Cueva de las Manos in Argentina

@londonsinfonietta