Take three orchestral musicians, twelve young people with a wide range of musical interests, a band of hi-tech interactive musicians, some amazing innovative software, a sound artist and a web developer, connect them up to a large PA system and shut them in a converted church/night club for two days: what do you think the resulting music will sound like? Well it won't be what we usually think of as 'classical' music anyway. That was the plan for 'Declassified' - this unique combination of musical and technological talent not only aimed to produce amazing music in innovative ways, but to generate out of the material produced during the project a musical gift for Electric December, the world's foremost online community arts festival.
Live Project Dates were the 11th & 12th October 2004 - at the Trinity Community Arts Centre, Bristol (www.3ca.org.uk)
Transformation
The theme of this year's Electric December is transformation and the Declassified musicians used computer software called I Am The Mighty Jungulator to help transform the sounds of their instruments and to cretate new pieces of music. Musicians from the IATMJ band played with the young participants to pass on their experience of creating and playing music with the software.
(Find out more about I Am The Mighty Jungulator).
The project was led by sound artist Duncan Chapman who combined the skills of the professional musicians with the musical talents and creativity of the young participants. Together they explored new musical languages and harnessed the power of IATMJ to generate spectacular interactive compositions.
Listen to the music!
You can now listen to some of the recordings made during the project and come back again soon to hear and see more.
The Web Present
During the two day project web and multimedia developer Tim Lee was working on developing the musical content into a musical 'web present' which will appear during December on the Electric December website.
Without giving too much away, the present will enable creative musical transformations of sounds and use the material recorded by the young participants during the Declassified project.
Remix
Remix is a wonderful Bristol based organisation who support and organise a wide range of creative music projects in the Bristol area. The Declassified project is the result of Remix teaming up with the Philharmonia Orchestra to see if we could provide something new for young people in the area. Remix suggested we might do something creative with the exciting musicians of I Am The Mighty Jungulator under the wing of the Watershed's Electric December project. Thus a new creative team was forged and one that has produced some really exciting results for the young participants, the professional musicians and the online audience.
(Visit the Remix website)
Further Info
Find out more about the background to the project.
For more information about Declassified or other projects involving the Philharmonia Orchestra please contact us.