Sung Eucharist + Sarah Brand's PhD gig

Monday 7th January 2020
Canterbury Cathedral and St. Gregory's Centre for Music, CCCU

A strange, slow, sorrowful day, feeling rather freaked out about the Iran situation. It was Epiphany, and I decided to go to Evensong to seek solace in hearing some William Byrd sung beautifully in the Cathedral. It turned out to be a sung Eucharist, which was rather unsettling in its ritual formality (although the Byrd was celestial, as expected).

From there I wandered over to St. Gregory's to hear Sarah Gail Brand play her PhD concert (the viva for her thesis was the next day). Extraordinary, the sounds she gets out of a trombone!

This Monday come to @C3UMusic (St Gregory's) at 7pm for a live improv show featuring Sarah Gail Brand (trombone), Steve Beresford (piano and electronics), John Edwards (double bass), and Mark Sanders (drums). pic.twitter.com/0AoEDM5f7o

— Free Range (@Free_Range_) January 3, 2020

And I like her attitude. She got the PhD, I'm glad to hear (the research behind the thesis "The Impact and Affect of Ensemble Interrelationships on Performances of Improvised Music – a Practice Research Study" is described here).

Back home, I spent a few hours listening to Raven Bush's first "Theta OSC" series. This comprises seven sonic creations he's put together for a loosely themed project, something which he's asked me to do some collaborative writing for. I got into a real flow with some creative writing that night, looking forward to developing that.