A n d r e w P o p p y PERFORMANCE BIOGRAPHY DISCOGRAPHY WORKS LIST SCORES PRESS CONTACT “Bewitching, beautifully crafted and highly addictive.” The Wire “Gloriously abundant in cascading cycles of notes and noises” The Guardian solo performance at Chelsea Theatre and Lewis Arts Lab 2009 Since the late 70s composer Andrew Poppy has made solo performances and devised different sized ensembles to perform his music. From recent solo club dates at Lewis Arts Lab and a salon in Düsseldorf to the large scale performance installations at Museum of Science & Technology in Paris these events explore different ways of presenting a unique brand of contemporary concert music. As a solo performer he plays piano and keyboards, supported by speaking parts, electronics and video projection. Sustaining Ensemble is the most recent version of work with other musicians which toured UK in the autumn of 2009 Andrew Poppy’s SUSTAINING ENSEMBLE is Andrew Poppy: piano, keyboard, bass guitar and voice Genevieve Wilkins: marimba, vibs, glock and percussion Jez Wiles: vibraphone, glock and percussion Kate Halsall piano and keyboard Martin Langthorne: Lighting Julia Bardsley video Oxford Contemporary Music Oxford Dec 09 performance and CD ‘. a n d t h e S h u f f l e o f T h i n g s ’ is inspired by Francis Bacon’s thoughts about the urge to collect things. Dark ambient grooves, Schubert and the funk, classical piano and some oscillators accompanied by enigmatic stories of lost submarines and the head of Orpheus as a football. Compositions, improvisations and songs without singing. in previous episodes Performance for the opening of the Ambassadors Theatre London French National Museum of Science &Technology. La Villette Paris. Voices : Sheila Smith, Udo Scheuerpflug Saxophone : Jo Pretzel. Trombone : Ashley Slater. Percussion : Maritz Oswald Keyboards : Glyn Perrin, Schaun Tozer, Alex Maguire Piano : Andrew Poppy Voices : Sheila Smith, Udo Scheuerpflug Saxophone : Jo Pretzel. Trombone : Ashley Slater. Percussion : Moritz Oswald Keyboard : David Owen Piano : Andrew Poppy Sound Engineer : Bob Krausar THE LOST JOCKEY Conductor: John Barker Voices: Sue Bickley, Frances Lynch, Jeremy Birchall, Mary Wiegold, Allen Belk, Angela Tunstall Violins: Elliet Makreel, Steve Jones, Ross Lorraine Viola: Julia Eisner Cello: Ali Robinson, Caroline Verney, Glyn Perrin Flute: Charlie Seaward Saxophones: Andy Blake, Martin Ashwell Bass Clarinet: Rory Allam Roger Heaton Marimba: Simon Limbric Piano & Keyboards: Andrew Poppy, Lucy Wilson, Schaun Tozer, Orlando Gough, David Owen, Sound Engineer: Gareth Jones ALMEIDA MUSIC FESTIVAL A selection of chamber opera/music theatre productions IMPROVEMENTS ON NATURE: a double act AVALANCHE THOUGHTS OPHELIA/OPHELIA BABY DOLL THE URANIUM MINERS RADIO ORCHESTRA PLAY SCENES FROM SALOME'S REVENGE THE SONGS OF THE CLAYPEOPLE MUSIC THEATRE 1983-2009 As an extension of his concert music Andrew Poppy makes an experimental music theatre somewhere between performance art and opera. Since 1989 he has developed a collaborative partnership with visual and theatre artist Julia Bardsley Improvements on Nature (09) Baby Doll (93) This is a meditation on the double act. Bardsley and Poppy are semi- When business is bad; burn the competition Two males muster their stuff scientists who take the image of the heroic, benignly beautiful horse and using all available techniques fight to the death and a prize. The and in a derelict laboratory grow a new version of the animal both savage Charms of innocence: Baby Doll. Set up as a beguiling tale of revenge, and cannibal. The two performers are sandwiched between two sample Tennessee Williams screen play, wades into the minefield of sexual slides and through a series of acts, images, sounds, music and texts they property and power, ruthless competition and bigotry struggle with the mutations of a genetic code. For his opera Andrew Poppy distils the structure, drama and poetry from a Commissioned by Sacred 2009 Produced by Bardsley Poppy Projects detailed shooting script into a music theatre work for four characters. Music articulates the drama of a kitchen sink terrorism presented in hyper-real Avalanche Thoughts (02) style. A hybrid and heterogeneous work which sews together the experience of Commissioned by National Theatre Studio and Leicester Haymarket the gallery, the theatre and the concert hall; balancing video projection, live and recorded music, photographic and sculptural books, text as The Uranium Miners Radio Orchestra Plays Scenes from Salome's object and sound. Revenge (89) Commissioned by GAle GAtes New York & New Moves Glasgow 2002 The Salome Myth restaged and retold by a music theatre company of uranium miners. John the Baptist is an anarchic radio presenter obsessed Ophelia/Ophelia (94) with the (for-) telling of disaster. Broadcast from a mining disaster. A fragment of Hamlet. Or a version of Hamlet where all the characters Commissioned as part of the Royal Opera House's Garden Venture accept Ophelia are ghosts. Ophelia as a double with an absent twin. A character expressed in fragments in the original text.. The Songs of the Clay People (83-87) a work about fragments, and found objects and the creative process,. Commissioned by ICA theatre London and Impact Theatre IMPROVEMENTS ON NATURE: a double act IMPROVEMENTS ON NATURE is a report on what happens when Mary takes Charles to her bed for true science and publishes the details of their union as a series of boxed amputations. For true science. Or what she thinks is the truth of science. And because it is for science that makes it all right; because science is real and everything, everything else is just the imagination. It’s the scientific enquiry of Charles Darwin incubated by the traumatised imagination of Mary a performance by Julia Bardsley & Andrew Poppy Shelly. concept Andrew Poppy and Julia Bardsley costume, objects, video, settings Julia Bardsley Commissioned by Sacred 2009 Produced by Bardsley Poppy Projects text, music, electronics, toy piano, voice Andrew Poppy AVALANCHE THOUGHTS Concept by Andrew Poppy and Julia Bardsley Video images, objects and settings by Julia Bardsley Music, texts and electronics by Andrew Poppy Piano in New York and Glasgow Tania Chen Commissioned by GAle GAtes New York & New Moves Glasgow 2002 AVALANCHE THOUGHTS is a hybrid and heterogeneous work which sews together the experience of the gallery, the theatre and the concert hall; balancing video projection, live and recorded music, photographic and sculptural books, text as object and sound. AVALANCHE THOUGHTS are moments that teeter on the edge of disaster. Wilful and erotic thoughts that tease and tempt us into the abyss. Chaotic, statistical and overwhelming textures obliterate objects of security, moments of clarity and identity. They may be situations of fate or beds of our own making. Whatever, we lick the rim of a particular pleasure: the cusp between rational knowledge and the instinctive destructive impulse that put things into the danger zone and beyond control THE SONGS OF THE CLAYPEOPLE First performed at Leeds University Theatre Studio 1st May 1984. PART 1 THE AMUSEMENT Directed by Pete Brookes. PART 2 GOODBYE MR G Concept, music and texts by Andrew Poppy. PART 3 THE SEQUENCE PART 4 45 IS Performers: Heather Ackroyd, Niki Johnson PART 6 MORE AMUSEMENT Steve Shill Richard Hawley PART 7 THE PASSAGE PART 8 THE OUTRAGE OF THE FISHERMAN IS WIDELY SHARED Fairlight Mk music computer, keyboards and piano AP Some sections were later recorded in new versions for the CD Alphabed. Voice Elise Lorraine Musicians for these were as follows. Voices: Annette Peacock, Sheila Smith, Joie Favier, Dee Lewis, Production made in collaboration with Impact Theatre Co. Udo Scheuerpflug, Ashley Slater. Saxophone: Jo Pretzel. Trombone: Ashley Slater. Percussion: Maritz Oswald, Leroy Williams. Piano, synths and programming: Andrew Poppy THE URANIUM MINERS RADIO ORCHESTRA PLAY SCENES FROM SALOME'S REVENGE Presenter/Mr Baptist: Andrew Bailey Herod/Minister of Education/Joe the miner : Peter Sidhom First performed at The Donmar Warehouse London May 17th 1989. Herodius/Wife of Minister : Susannah Self Salome/Joelle, daughter of Minister : Tamsin Dives Concept, music and text : Andrew Poppy Conductor : David Syrus Designer : Simon Vincenzi Oboe : Joseph Saunders Director : Julia Bardsley Saxophone : Edward Pillinger Trumpet : Julian Poore Trombone : Siggi Thorberggson Violin : Elisabeth Wexler A radio presenter and reincarnation of the prophet John the Baptist presents his radio Bass : Sarah Haynes show. A disaster-athone. Real distaster as voyeuristic pleasure. He invited sponcers to Harp : Isobel Frayling-Cork save Joe the Miner. Mr Baptists world is The Salome myth in a contemporary variation in Percussion 1 : Simon Limbrick which Herod’s court is the The minister of Education's incestuious and ruined family. A Percussion 2 : Martin Allen fictional strand also encloses the orchestra . Piano : Mark Daver BABY DOLL First performed at the R.N.T. Cottesloe Theatre 5th May 1993. Baby Doll : Fiona O'Neill or Margaret Cameron Archie Lee : Simon Masterton-Smith from a screen play by TENNESSEE WILLIAMS Silva : John Upperton Libretto in 9 Scenes adapted by ANDREW POPPY Aunt Rose : Diana Payne-Myers Director : Julia Bardsley Banjo/electric guitar : Ben grove Designer : Simon Vincenzi Violin : Anna Hemery Conductor : Bernard Lafontaine Clarinet/bass clarinet : Sarah Homer Trombone : Bob Price When Business is bad, burn the competition.Two males muster their stuff and using all Piano : Dominic Saunders available techniques fight to the death for survival and a prize: the charms of the innocent Baby Doll. Meanwhile this young woman has her own agenda and ways of getting what she wants. Set up as a beguiling tale of revenge, Tennessee Williams screen play, treads the minefield of sexual property and power, ruthless competition and bigotry. OPHELIA/OPHELIA Theatrical Options 1. Ophelia/Ophelia is Hamlet played as Ophelia's memory at the moment of her death. Or as a premonition of her end. The weight of the present or past tense shifting from moment to moment and this shift expressed visually.