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York Wanderings

And Lo. I returneth from York. Where I ate my first pasty*, and walked around the Minster embarrassing Simon of Lantern Music by talking loudly into a microphone. The music for Nightwalk York is almost complete, so we took it up to York to test out a couple of possible routes, get a feel for the place, and capture enough that I can carry on the writing process from home. The music is absolutely beautiful, and I’ve got a little taster here for you, complete with some of the images I took whilst wandering around the routes. See if you can spot Simon looking not at all embarrased *stares at the sky*.

Do listen/watch in HD – the sound quality is much better.

To find out more, and to attend #NightwalkYork, follow the hashtag, visit the site at http://nightwalkyork.tumblr.com and join/invite people to the facebook event.

Writing continues, and is somewhere, I think, between a love letter to late Autumn, and a revision of the bad press that darkness gets… I have a feeling the piece will start with a match strike. Fun recording session that I think will involve fireworks to come too. Stay tuned, and do share the piece if you know anyone up North who might be interested.

*cheese and onion, since you ask, and yes I chose an odd place to do so.

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Nightwalks, Talks and Live Art.

Greetings all, hope you’re enjoying the cooling down of the weather and the reddening of the trees. Autumn always gets me excited, not just because I can make crumbles and gravy dinners with more than usual impunity, or because it means the approach of my birthday, but also because it feels like the beginning of new endeavours. School years, university; Autumn makes me want to purchase stationary. And in the spirit of new endeavours, I have three very exciting things to tell you about…

One: I will this Saturday (25th September) be performing a piece of Live Art in Stoke Newington Airport’s Live Art Speedating as part of Fierce, Birmingham’s Interrobang. Lots of words there that might not make sense to everyone. Go look at the poster, and check out this video, for more on what it’s all about…

Two: I shall also be talking at the Coventry Pecha Kucha on the 12th of October on Theatre in the Age of the First Person. 20 slides of 20 seconds each. See here for more info. Other talks, too, I’m particularly intrigued by the ‘safe sex with robots’ one.

And three: I’m very excited to announce a new soundwalk! Nightwalk; a guided walk through the light and dark of York will be happening on Wednesday 27th & Friday 30th October at 7pm. The event will be free, and is happening as part of the Take Over and Illuminating York festivals. I’m especially thrilled because this will be my first collaboration with real music-making people, the brilliant Lantern Music. Hopefully it will mark the beginning of a beautiful collaborative relationship. The site for the piece is http://nightwalkyork.tumblr.com – do share it, and join/invite people to the Facebook Event. And follow me and @umbrellaproject on Twitter for whisperings from the writing process.

So there you go, lots of exciting things to lead me up to the beginning of November, and the prospect of launching a very exciting country-wide project come next Spring… but you’ll have to wait to hear about that.