February marks the arrival of Black History Month and we are so excited to be celebrating with African musicians, Kinobe & Soul Beat Africa!

This week, Kinobe and his team will be visiting schools across the GTA providing cultural workshops on Drumming & Storytelling, Dance & Drumming, and Singing & Storytelling.  Each workshop is one-hour in length and accommodates a maximum of 30 students to guarantee an intimate, hands-on experience with these fantastic artists.

If you missed out on the outreach workshops, don’t fret!  Kinobe & Soul Beat Africa will be returning to the Living Arts Centre later in the week for our Relaxed Series on Thursday, February 17 at 8:00 pm and two school performances (one in English and one in French) on Friday, February 18 at 10:00 am and 12:30 pm.

Don’t miss your chance to see this captivating performer who fuses traditional and contemporary Ugandan sounds to make what the BBC describes and “some of the most exquisite music coming out of Africa today. Sublime and peaceful.”

One of the most captivating elements of our upcoming performance of Mermaid Theatre’s Swimmy, Frederick & Inch by Inch is the addition of an original musical score.

Each of Leo Lionni’s Caldecott Honor award winning books unfolds a rich and imaginative world and trying to create an equally unique musical composition to complement the story and characters is no easy task!

Check out this fascinating article from the production team on crafting an underscore (musical support for dramatic action), a feature (music that is part of the dramatic action), and all of the gradations in between.

Swimmy

The inspiration for the overall flavour of the music for Swimmy comes very much from the visuals of the book. The director, Jim Morrow, and I both felt that there was a resonance of Asian visual culture to the images, though not necessarily specific to one culture.

Taking this as a starting point, I tried to create a sound world that made reference to multiple Asian styles of music, but was still a unique sonic environment of its own for the story. Among the instruments in the score are several wooden flutes (with the Japanese shakuhachi being the most identifiable), and Burmese gongs.

Each of the creatures that Swimmy encounters has a particular sonic signature, created sometimes by a specific instrument, sometimes by a particular musical motif – and at times by a combination of the two.

I also created a particular kind of water ambience that is used in this story to simulate the feeling of being underwater, hearing the surf and waves moving overhead. The combination of this ambience and the unusual instruments helps to place the story in its own special world.

Frederick

For the character music, I chose mostly plucked string sounds. Pizzicato strings produce short, high energy sounds – a good match for a group of energetic little mice. The musical style itself draws some of its inspiration from the flavour of Eastern European folk dance, by using repeated rhythmic patterns and modal scales.

During winter, the plucked string palette begins to include harp; this keeps some consistency of sound for our mice, but places them in a gentler sonic space, reflecting the more introspective time of year.

There are two wind instruments featured in the score for this story; flute is used mostly during the happier times, while the more melancholy sound of the English horn helps create a change of mood as winter evolves and the supplies run out. I used an active birdsong ambience to help set the story in a pastoral location; the ambience fades out as the mice enter their winter quarters, but it returns again, symbolically, as Frederick warms their spirits with thoughts of sun and flowers.

Inch by Inch

Like Frederick, Inch by Inch called for the presence of natural ambience to help give the story some overall unification of place, but in this case I chose one that was much less active. This eliminated any potential sonic competition between the story birds’ music and the ambient birdsong.

The music for this story presented an interesting challenge. needed to create a theme that had strong rhythm, I particularly for the measuring sequences, and a strong and unique sense of character for the Inchworm – but also one which would lend itself to being merged in some way with the eclectic motifs and styles of the many birds he encounters on.

My solution was to use a quirky blend of pizzicato strings, muted electric guitar, and another style of guitar picking sometimes called ‘chicken picking’ (a combination of muting and sharply accenting) for the Inchworm’s music. Whenever he is doing his measuring, this odd little ensemble is also supported by bits of eccentric percussion.

Each of the birds he measures has its own musical style and motif. Often, there is an obvious connection between the visual mood of the scene and the music I created for it. In other cases, though, I confess that the creative decisions were considerably more intuitive – how else to explain steel drums for a toucan’s beak and a tango accordion for a pheasant’s tail?!

Source:

Taylor, Stephen. ‘Notes on Music for Mermaid Theatre’s Swimmy, Frederick and

Inch by Inch’. May 2008, p. 33-34. Leo Lionni: A Resource Guide for Teachers.

Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia drops in this month for not one, but two performances featuring unique adaptations of classic children’s books.

Earlier this month, this Canadian theatre company presented a stunning display of Eric Carle’s Little Cloud, Mixed-up Chameleon, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar all in French language!

Tomorrow, we’re excited to see them on stage again, this time with the adventures of Swimmy, Frederick, and Inch by Inch by beloved children’s author, Leo Lionni.

Interestingly enough, Eric Carle cites Leo Lionni as an inspiration in creating his work.  It will be intriguing to see how this influence is interpreted in the puppetry and production styles of Mermaid Theatre’s second show this month!

Founded in 1972, Mermaid Theatre has performed for over 4 million spectators on 4 continents, including performances in English, Spanish, Korean, Dutch, Japanese, Mandarin, and French.  Talk about a global sensation!  We’re delighted to be hosting this internationally respected theatre company and even happier to be supporting Canadian talent.

My name is Amy Ng and I am the School Sales Representative here at the Living Arts Centre.  Along with the rest of the education team, we hope to use this blog to keep you updated on all of the wonderful activities that happen inside our theatres and studios on a weekly basis.  But we also want to hear from you too!  If you have any feedback, comments or interesting ideas to share, please don’t hesitate to send them our way.