Vicky and Albert

Vicky and Albert at Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival 2018

Vicky and Albert is being performed next week, on Wednesday 8th August, at RADA Studios as part of Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival.

Tickets on sale at  https://www.tete-a-tete.org.uk/event/vicky-and-albert/

I successfully upgraded in July 2017 but unfortunately have had to interrupt my studies over the past year. This hasn't completely stopped me, however: Vicky and Albert was composed in Summer/Autumn 2017, using sound sourced from my London visits over the previous few years, workshopped at Dartington Space Studios in October 2018, and premiered at The Bike Shed Theatre, Exeter, on 26 January 2018.

Upgrading...?

Have put in my upgrade submission over the last few days which has taken up a lot of my spare time.

Now resuming work on the second piece of three for my PhD, namely Vicky and Albert, a romantic comedy (perhaps) about a young woman and her love affair with an app on her phone... in this piece I am concentrating particularly on the use of sound design to define immersive and focused spaces and to create rhythmic dialogue between the live and electronic elements within the scenario.

Her Face Was of Flowers

I have written my first opera using sound design as part of my PhD project.

It's called Her Face Was of Flowers and it's a one act chamber opera for 3 singers, clarinet, harp and cello, with an electronic soundtrack consisting mostly of sounds recorded around my home on Dartmoor.

The story is a retelling of the story of Blodeuwedd from the Mabinogion, a collection of Welsh myths that lies at the heart of the Welsh storytelling tradition. She is made as a wife for Lleu Llaw Gyffes out of flowers, but she doesn't love him and she ends up being cursed and transformed into an owl.

Do get in touch if you would like more information about this work, or my research in general. Some audio samples are available on my soundcloud page https://soundcloud.com/elfyn-jones. I'm hoping to put it into production at some point but at the moment I'm too busy....

Since I last blogged quite a lot of water has flowed under Hexworthy Bridge and all the other bridges over the Dart!

The case studies I chose were the short Pixar film Lifted, the play I Am Yours, and the performative installation Stifters Dinge. I learnt a huge amount from all of them about the use of sound design integrated with other media and modes of expression.

Thanks to Gary Rydstrom, Ross Brown, and Heiner Goebbels for your correspondence and for all your help.

Welcome to my blog

This is the weblog that I intend to use for the thoughts and ideas that I'd like to share while I'm undertaking my PhD research. I began as a part-time PhD student at Goldsmiths College London last September with a particular interest in finding new ways to compose opera and music theatre by looking at the practices of composers and sound designers working in theatre, cinema and sound art installations. 

So far I have done some background reading, and gone some way towards identifying case studies for my research.