In darkness and light at Royal Festival Hall

Date
 May 5, 2017
two terrifying blackouts enhance the enthralling soundworld of Haas’s In Vain
***** The Guardian

Last week I was lighting a concert with a difference at RFH – much of it was performed in pitch black. The players had to learn the music for the dark periods, and for the last section of the piece the lighting acts as conductor. IN VAIN by Georg Friedrich Haas was performed by London Sinfonietta, a resident orchestra of the Southbank Centre.

I want to express myself. Every composer wants to express himself or herself. Darkness is one of the possibilities to give the audience – and the performers – new and intense artistic adventures.
G F Haas (in interview with I Care if You Listen)

Light has a line in the score like the other instruments, with specific directions (in German) and detail essential as it becomes responsible for replacing the conductor. Lighting is obviously crucial for the piece, but I was particularly pleased to be credited by London Sinfonietta in the programme with the other ‘players’!

“The London Sinfonietta were often flying blind, yet their performance was grippingly urgent, and glowingly beautiful.
The Telegraph, 2013

I first lit this piece for Sinfonietta in 2013 at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, and so was pleased to be asked back, and even more pleased that I still had the notes and precise timings from last time, based on feedback that the Composer had given me.