Brookfield Meadow - Launch Event
“I want to make work that connects people to the world around them ... encourages people to experience places like this more deeply”
Listen to the River Ching was launched at Brookfield Meadow on Wednesday 6 May and we were delighted by how many people popped by during the afternoon and the lovely response to the music. People of all ages took the opportunity to slow down, pause for a moment to listen and wander by the river. This project is hyper local for me and there really is a lot of love for this district in NE London.
Some visitor feedback
‘Lovely to see this previously neglected corner come to life. The music and words are beautiful and moving. Thank you for a wonderful project’
‘Beautiful moving music … the most incredible way to connect with nature’
‘What a lovely thing to have on our doorstep. Thank you – the music is lovely’
‘Music was magical and so lovely to sit on a toadstool and listen under the trees by the river’
‘Made me experience the place in a different way’
New Release
New single - out 6 May
“Ellie Wilson’s Listen to the River Ching gives voice to this magickal watercourse, featuring field recordings, composition and readings the Ching speaks to us through Ellie’s enchanting creation. Such a beautiful tribute to this essential capillary of London”
Listen to the River Ching is a project taking place at Brookfield Path in Highams Park E4, funded by a ‘Make It Happen’ grant from London Borough of Waltham Forest.
This new music composition grew from a series of workshops led by composer Ellie Wilson for pupils with vision impairment at Joseph Clarke School. They visited the River Ching to explore the landscape through sound and collaborative listening. Together, they captured a sonic portrait of the environment using hydrophones and microphones.
The resulting composition combines percussion and whispered voices (water spirits) captured in the classroom with field recordings of the riverbank and its underwater world. This is combined with violin, synthesiser, piano, percussion and sound design for an immersive experience, evoking the flow of the river as it meanders through Epping Forest and slips quietly past back gardens, playing fields and allotments.
A reading from Henry Hawkins’ 1895 book Epping Forest – London’s Great Legacy (from a copy that belonged to Ellie’s great-grandfather) is incorporated into the piece, connecting past and present through place, memory and listening.
Ellie Wilson composer, violin, hardanger fiddle, voice, sound design
Pupils from Joseph Clarke School whispered voices, shakers
Thom Ashworth mix, master, sound design
Ryan Pearce cover image and video
A lesson in listening
Pupils with vision impairment worked with Ellie to pick some of the sounds used in the piece.
This new music composition grew from a series of workshops with pupils with vision impairment at Joseph Clarke School. We visited the River Ching to explore the landscape through sound and collaborative listening. Together, we captured a sonic portrait of the environment using hydrophones and microphones.
The resulting composition combines percussion and whispered voices (water spirits) captured in the classroom with field recordings of the riverbank and its underwater world. This is combined with violin, synthesiser, piano,percussion and sound design for an immersive experience, evoking the flow of the river as it meanders through Epping Forest and slips quietly past back gardens, playing fields and allotments.
Working with the students was a lesson in listening for me too as many of them rely on their ears (and touch and smell) to navigate their surroundings. They were so enthusiastic and I enjoyed working with them.
Here’s a word cloud with some of their answers to the listening survey I gave them.
New single: Delta + Music Video
Music video for new single Delta
Delta is the second single from my solo album Memory Islands, released on Bigo and Twigetti 29 September.
Ellie says “Delta was created entirely on my violin with pizzicato chopped up and spread across drum sample pads, allowing me to play patterns that wouldn’t have fallen naturally under my fingers. It was inspired by my father’s recovery from a coma after a cardiac arrest (he thankfully made a full recovery). As his brain fired up, memories were replayed as if happening for the first time, then filed away in the right places. In Delta, I was thinking about the electrical pulses that transmit this information around the brain. Memories returned slowly at first but then the floodgates opened. It reminded me of a TV documentary I’d seen where a dried-up riverbed filled with water after a monsoon; the water found its way through all the previously carved chasms and cracks in the bed (not dissimilar to the grooves on the surface of a brain) and then into a large river.”
The music video was made by my brother Mark Wilson. He explains the techy stuff much better than me …
“The animation in this music video is the output of custom developed Python code. The application samples audio chunks of Delta in real-time and evolves and adapts the evolution and appearance of lines, intersecting triangular formations and background gradients in response to pre-defined grouped frequency band intensity thresholds. Due to an element of randomness in vector calculation, the line animation will evolve differently each time the application is executed, so this video represents one of many possible interpretations of the audio stream.”
Download/stream single: https://bfan.link/ew-delta
Album CD/DL/Stream: https://bfan.link/memory-islands
New Release - Dominion of the Sword: Henry VI and Richard III
EP featuring selected incidental music and speeches from Shakespeare’s Globe 2019-20 productions of Henry VI and Richard III
This time last year I was frantically writing music for Shakespeare’s Globe 19/20 productions of Henry VI and Richard III. Working long hours with a bunch of inspiring colleagues to create something I was proud to be a part of. It all feels so removed from the world we currently find ourselves in.
This new release is a celebration of what we acheived and has been specially created to support Shakespeare’s Globe at this difficult time, with all proceeds donated to their unique theatres and education facility. #supporttheartsUK
Photo: Sophie Russell (Richard III) and Jonathan Broadbent (Henry VI): (c) Marc Brenner
Dominion of the Sword: Henry VI & Richard III
elliewilson.bandcamp.com
Release date: 6 November 2020 CD I DL + Booklet PDF
This EP features a selection of incidental music along with speeches by some of the Globe Ensemble actors, plus a specially written booklet note by Shakespeare's Globe research assistant Hailey Bachrach.
The music was hailed as ‘impressive … this season’s most memorable’ (Fringe Review) and described as ‘melt[ing] seamlessly into the drama’ (The Guardian) and ‘tonally akin to a Scorsese film’ (What’s On Stage).
Folk songs Adieu to Old England and Dominion of the Sword rub shoulders with 1960s country-rock hit For The Good Times which becomes an ironically haunting theme song for Richard III himself, accompanying his murders as a symbol of his world’s growing desensitisation to violence; and closing number, When the Roses Bloom Again. These are stitched together with cinematic underscoring, creating a doom-laden, unsettling world as the plays become more bloody and horrific.
“By pulling songs from across time we sought to explore how Shakespeare’s vision of a troubled, chaotic England spoke not just to his time or to our own, but could represent the wide and messy history of the whole nation.”
Tracklisting:
1 Henry VI ‘Was ever king that joyed an earthly throne / Woe above woe’
Jonathan Broadbent (Henry VI - Part II, Act IV Scene IX / Part III, Act II Scene V)
2 Dominion of the Sword
3 York ‘Now, York, or never, steel thy fearful thoughts’
Colin Hurley (Henry VI - Part II, Act III Scene I)
4 Henry VI ‘This battle fares like to the morning’s war’
Jonathan Broadbent (Henry VI - Part III, Act II Scene V)
5 Doom Adieu
6 Clifford ‘Here burns my candle out; ay, here it dies’
Nina Bowers (Henry VI - Part III, Act II Scene VI)
7 Adieu to Old England
8 Queen Margaret ‘What, were you snarling all before I came’
Steffan Donnelly (Richard III - Act I Scene III)
9 For the Good Times
10 Richard III ‘Give me another horse! Bind up my wounds!’
Sophie Russell (Richard III - Act V Scene III)
11 When the Roses Bloom Again
Globe Ensemble Actors: Nina Bowers, Jonathan Broadbent, Steffan Donnelly, Colin Hurley, Sophie Russell
The Globe Band (Bastard Feudalism):
Ellie Wilson violin, saw, vocals
Thom Ashworth lead vocals, percussion, guitar, mandolin
Jay Chakravorty piano, harmonium, guitar, EBows
Midori Jaeger cello
All music written/arranged by Ellie Wilson
Music recorded in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare’s Globe, London, December 2019
Speeches recorded in actors’ homes 2020
Edited and mixed by Thom Ashworth
Mastered by David Lefeber
℗ & © 2020 Ellie Wilson
Shakespeare’s Globe is an independent charity that receives no regular government subsidy and generates 95% of its income from theatre tickets and other on-site activities. Due to the 2020 pandemic, it is losing nearly £2 million a month. They need support more than ever to get through this most challenging time.
This release has been specially created to support Shakespeare’s Globe, with all proceeds donated to their unique theatres and education facility. It is available from my Bandcamp page only. elliewilson.bandcamp.com