HAWKWOOD Artist Residency Programme 2018 Supported by The Francis W Reckitt Arts Trust “Engaging for the heart and soul – loved it. Phenomenal harmonies, touching stories beautifully conveyed, and a powerful message for today.” Audience member on the show Truth, created at Hawkwood Artists Residencies 2018 Impact Report 1 The 2018 residency programme at Hawkwood, supported by The Francis W Reckitt Arts Trust has had an incredible impact on the artists we have supported and has enhanced Hawkwood’s reputation as a place to come and create work. This report gives an overview of the artists and projects which have been developed in 2018, supported by The Francis W Reckitt Arts Trust and Hawkwood. In the last year, we have worked with individual artists as well as groups of artists who have come together. We have welcomed a broad range of creative people from diverse backgrounds working on extraordinary projects and have partnered with regional and national organisations. 109 artists supported 41 musicians 49 devised theatre practitioners 4 dancers 6 writers 2 costume designers 3 puppeteers 2 visual artists 1 rapper 1 cross disciplinary artist 14 new works created 4 national tours In addition to the artists mentioned in this report, we also welcomed five former Mount Pleasant artists. We delivered the programme by working with excellent organisations known for supporting new work including Strike A Light, Bristol Old Vic, The Royal Court Theatre and The London Theatre Consortium. Approximately 14 new works were created with many groups coming together for the first time. Some works were at a more advanced stage and four of these went on to be performed nationally including performances at The Cheltenham Music festival, Strike A Light and performances in London via English Touring Opera amongst many others. In addition several other projects will be touring in 2019, sharing work which was initiated at Hawkwood. Further impact The impact of this programme has also encouraged other organisations such as Complicite Theatre Company, Battersea Arts Centre and Julie’s Bicycle to join us at Hawkwood on a paid basis as they now value Hawkwood as a place to create work. At the end of some of the residencies we encouraged local audiences to see the works in progress and to offer feedback – this received a good response from artists and audience and is something we’d like to develop further next year. In addition, in recognition of the residency programme work, Dame Emma Kirkby, DBE and Simon McBurney, OBE have joined us as patrons of the programme endorsing our work. 2 Digital sharing of work The works created have also been shared digitally and you can view the outcomes on the works on YouTube and Vimeo. A few of the short films / showcases can be seen here: Thomas Hewitt-Jones - orchestrated this work at Hawkwood https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9JxmgzHbQI&feature=youtu.be Sally Dean and Charlotte Ostergaard - created several short showcase films at Hawkwood https://vimeo.com/257249444 Helen Chadwick - composed Truth at Hawkwood https://vimeo.com/275601836 Eddie Parker - talking on what it meant to be at Hawkwood creating work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Kdq_Bq0KLc Challenges of the 2018 Artist Residency Programme The residency programme has brought innumerable benefits to the artists which have been supported and to Hawkwood’s reputation. However, there have been some challenges this year which is mainly down to staff capacity. It takes an enormous amount of time to manage all the applications and the administration around the application process, look after the artists while they are here and follow up with the artists after their visit. We are therefore seeking further funding to be able to support a post to manage this programme. We are applying to the Arts Council and hope to have submitted the application early in January 2019. We are also hoping to be able to seek support for PA equipment to enable the artists to work with amplified sound. Finances The total programme costs were £70,950. This year the Reckitt Arts Trust generously supported us with £39,300 of funding and Hawkwood provided £19,650 towards the residencies plus £12,000 administration costs. During the year and due to additional demand, Hawkwood crowd funded to raise additional funds for the residency programme. This was a challenging and time consuming exercise but brought further recognition to the programme of work and launched a fund for social entrepreneurs as well as artists. To see the campaign please click here: https://chuffed.org/project/hawkwood Residency Project Highlights 3 Helen Chadwick: Truth Helen spent 5 days at Hawkwood working intensively on her new work Truth, which was commissioned by Birmingham Rep and Arts Council. Helen’s residency enabled her to spend time writing the commission and working with other artists she invited to try the work. The piece then toured nationally to Birmingham, Salisbury and The South Bank. Food Bank: Hungry Nation Wiltshire Creative and Strike A Light worked on a new touring show about food banks, food poverty and stories of the 10,000’s of people who regularly use foodbanks in the UK. Their residency involved research and development whilst working with a creative team including a director/writer/musical director and three actors with the ambition for the show to tour nationally in 2020. Early Music residency with Emma Kirkby Emma brought together 12 young singers and lutenists for a two and a half day residential to work on repertoire for concerts. The residency included the young professional singers being coached by Emma and David Miller (paid for by Hawkwood), resulting in a show case performance attended by 50 members of our local community. The residency was invaluable for working on repertoire and honing technique. These are just a few examples…. The rest of this report showcases the artist in more detail. Hawkwood like to extend its grateful thanks to The Francis W Reckitt Arts Trust for all that it has enabled this year and for the wonderful working relationship. It is a pleasure to work with David Stoll and the Reckitt board of trustees. 4 Artist Profiles and Project Details 2018 Thomas Hewitt Jones 08/01/18 - 13/01/18 http://www.thomashewittjones.com/ @thewittjones Thomas Hewitt Jones is an award-winning composer of contemporary classical and commercial music. Winner of the 2003 BBC Young Composer Competition, his music has been published by Boosey & Hawkes, Oxford University Press, Banks Music, the RSCM, Encore Publications, Universal Music, and is frequently heard on radio, TV and the cinema in the UK and abroad. Thomas has written three ballets which toured the UK in 2008–2011 with Ballet Cymru, most notably a dance setting of Dylan Thomas’ masterpiece Under Milk Wood. His choral and instrumental music is frequently performed worldwide. He has also written numerous Christmas carols, including What Child is This? (OUP, 2012). Recent large-scale works include Wildflower Meadows, a song cycle commemorating the First World War, and the Christmas cantata Incarnation, released on Regent Records, both with words by regular collaborator Paul Williamson. Feedback I just wanted to write to say a huge thank you to you both for having me at Hawkwood this week. I have managed to orchestrate a huge amount of my new ballet, and it has been a very musically fruitful and satisfying time! Here is the work that was orchestrated at Hawkwood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9JxmgzHbQI&feature=youtu.be Thanks again for having me this week. If I may, I would really love to come again sometime and write a Hawkwood-inspired piece for publishing, perhaps with Hawkwood in the title... 5 English Touring Opera 15/01/18 - 19/01/18 http://englishtouringopera.org.uk/ @ETOpera Alex Groves, Rebecca Handbury and the team creating a new show at Hawkwood Rebecca Hanbury and composer Alex Groves have been working together since meeting in Bristol in 2010. They were united by a love of theatre and live music so started exploring new and exciting ways to combine them. They spent the first couple of years experimenting with real-life stories, electronic sound and vocal music, searching for ways to incorporate the music we loved into stories that needed to be told. This time of exploration is the bedrock of our collaboration and underpins everything we make today - check out our short works to find out more. They now create everything from installations to theatre shows and songbooks to immersive performances, and have worked with a bunch of brilliant partner organisations including Sky Arts, Ovalhouse, Spitalfields Music and Bristol Old Vic. Their future projects are being developed at Snape Maltings, where they are resident artists on their Open Space scheme thanks to the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. Alex Groves, Composer Alex is a London-based composer working across both acoustic and electronic music, often combining live instrumentalists and singers with richly textured electronics to create hypnotic and all-enveloping soundworlds. His music has been commissioned by the Union Chapel, V&A, Royal Opera House and East London Dance, and supported by Bristol Old Vic, Ovalhouse, Spitalfields Music and Snape Maltings. He is currently Composer-in-Residence at Handel & Hendrix in London and also an Associate of the LSO Soundhub scheme. His recent work has included pieces for organist James McVinnie, violinist Daniel Pioro & viola da gamba player Liam Byrne through his concert series SOLO and larger scale works for the London Contemporary Orchestra and Crash Ensemble. In theatre, Alex works with a variety of companies to create sound design and original music. His 6 work on Remnants by Erratica was nominated for the Best Sound Design award at the 2017 Off West End Theatre Awards and Sister.