Abstract
From 2021 to 2023, Malone was a Co-Investigator and composer for the UK Climate Resilience Programme project "Community Climate Resilience through Folk Pageantry" (Creative Climate Resilience), funded by AHRC/Met Office (AH/V003186/1), https://creative-climate-resilience.org - @CreativeResMcr
Before “Our Green and Pleasant Land” was composed, Malone co-created an animated video ("Streets Like These") with director Harri Shanahan, a set of six “circle dances” with two parents of local young musicians, and undertook over a dozen hours of recorded interviews with residents of Miles Platting and Newton Heath, the most deprived ward in Greater Manchester. Malone also participated in puppet-making and script-writing workshops with residents. The workshop and recorded conversations yielded speech melodies and rhythms expressed in voices of residents, which formed the core musical material of “Our Green and Pleasant Land”, while the script structured the musical themes into a story told through large-scale puppetry about wealth and resource extraction driven by corporate and personal greed.
The premiere performance was 1 July 2023 at St Cuthbert’s Church, Miles Platting, Manchester, a last-minute venue since high winds prevented the pageant show from being held outdoors on the community green of Miles Platting Library. The Stockport Youth Orchestra was conducted by Timothy Crooks who worked closely with Malone every Friday night at rehearsals during school term time for 18 months before the premiere. The second performance with SYO and Crooks is scheduled at the Cosmo Rodewald Concert Hall, Manchester on 24 November 2024.
The score will be published by Composers Edition in Autumn 2024.
Before “Our Green and Pleasant Land” was composed, Malone co-created an animated video ("Streets Like These") with director Harri Shanahan, a set of six “circle dances” with two parents of local young musicians, and undertook over a dozen hours of recorded interviews with residents of Miles Platting and Newton Heath, the most deprived ward in Greater Manchester. Malone also participated in puppet-making and script-writing workshops with residents. The workshop and recorded conversations yielded speech melodies and rhythms expressed in voices of residents, which formed the core musical material of “Our Green and Pleasant Land”, while the script structured the musical themes into a story told through large-scale puppetry about wealth and resource extraction driven by corporate and personal greed.
The premiere performance was 1 July 2023 at St Cuthbert’s Church, Miles Platting, Manchester, a last-minute venue since high winds prevented the pageant show from being held outdoors on the community green of Miles Platting Library. The Stockport Youth Orchestra was conducted by Timothy Crooks who worked closely with Malone every Friday night at rehearsals during school term time for 18 months before the premiere. The second performance with SYO and Crooks is scheduled at the Cosmo Rodewald Concert Hall, Manchester on 24 November 2024.
The score will be published by Composers Edition in Autumn 2024.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Number of pages | 137 |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jul 2023 |
Keywords
- Climate resilience
- story-telling
- pageant music
- youth music
- puppetry
- community
- coproduction
