CAA & ONE is More @ Katowice, Poland / 27th January 2017

Filharmonia Śląska, Katowice, Poland

On Friday, January 27th, CAA's celebrated visualisation of Darius Milhaud's ballet, La création du monde was screened in Katowice, Poland, with live accompaniment by the musicians of the Filharmonia Śląska.  Milosz Kula was their conductor, and in the grand surroundings of their concert hall, our sixteen minutes-or-so cascade of shape, colour and form illuminated the fascinated faces of a full house. 

This is the sixth screening for our animation, which began life as a multi-participant speed paint challenge, in which the students, alumni and staff of Computer Animation Arts were invited to visualise Milhaud's jazz-inspired ballet as a series of abstract digital paintings. CAA alumni Tom Beg and Jordan Buckner then worked with the resulting paintings, translating them into moving image. In common with previous screenings, the experience of watching the animation accompanied by the full bombast and beauty of a live orchestra was magical and transformative. Many thanks to Keith Burden of Clever Projections, who ensures our screenings run smoothly.

La création du monde was screened in Katowice as part of the ONE is more programme: An Orchestra Network for Europe – ONE - is a distinctive network of classical symphony orchestras initiated by Orchestre de Picardie in 2003. Since 2005, it has received support from the European Union under the Culture Programme for 4 cultural projects. Its successive periods of activity have been called ONE, ONE - a new dimension, ONE step further and from June 2011 to 2015 ONE goes places. In 2010, under the title ONE is more, it prepared an application under the Creative Europe programme of the EU. For this bid, the University for the Creative Arts joined the partnership.

Inside the Filharmonia Śląska concert hall #1

Inside the Filharmonia Śląska concert hall #2

Inside the Filharmonia Śląska concert hall #3

The pianist practices in a quiet moment

The instruments await their musicians

Preparing for the first rehearsal

Milosz Kula conducts at the second rehearsal #1

Milosz Kula conducts at the second rehearsal #2

Milosz Kula conducts at the second rehearsal #3

Milosz Kula conducts at the second rehearsal #4

Milosz Kula conducts at the second rehearsal #5

Milosz Kula conducts at the second rehearsal #6

La création du monde / Tom Beg & Jordan Buckner

CAA & ONE is More @ Zilina / 6th December 2016

Simon Chalk conducting the Slovak Sinfonietta during a rehearsal for the screening of La création du monde 

On December 6th, CAA's celebrated visualisation of Darius Milhaud's ballet, La création du monde was screened to a full house at Zilina's concert hall, Slovakia, with live accompaniment by the musicians of the Slovak Sinfonietta.  Simon Chalk was their conductor and master of ceremonies, and following a short presentation explaining the provenance of our animation, the lights dimmed, the musicians began to play, and shapes and colours began pulsing across the screen.

This is the fifth screening for our animation, which began life as a multi-participant speed paint challenge, in which the students, alumni and staff of Computer Animation Arts were invited to visualise Milhaud's jazz-inspired ballet as a series of abstract digital paintings.  CAA alumni Tom Beg and Jordan Buckner then worked with the resulting paintings, translating them into moving image. In common with previous screenings, the experience of watching the animation accompanied by the full bombast and beauty of a live orchestra was magical and transformative. Many thanks to Simon Chalk, for all his fizz and enthusiasm for the project, and to Keith Burden of Clever Projections, who not only ensures our screenings are faultless, smooth and gremlin-free, but who also drove the three thousand mile trip to Slovakia and back in the short space of four days!

La création du monde was screened in Zilina as part of the ONE is more programme: An Orchestra Network for Europe – ONE - is a distinctive network of classical symphony orchestras initiated by Orchestre de Picardie in 2003. Since 2005, it has received support from the European Union under the Culture Programme for 4 cultural projects. Its successive periods of activity have been called ONE, ONE - a new dimension, ONE step further and from June 2011 to 2015 ONE goes places. In 2010, under the title ONE is more, it prepared an application under the Creative Europe programme of the EU. For this bid, the University for the Creative Arts joined the partnership.

Keith Burden of Clever Projections readying the projector

La création du monde / Tom Beg & Jordan Buckner

La création du monde @ Hirson, France / December 9th 2015

On December 9th, our animation, La création du monde, was screened twice at the Salle de l'Eden, Hirson, as part of the ONE is more programme of cultural activity. Created originally as part of the ACT/CAA collaboration, the animation was animated and art-directed by course alumni, Jordan Buckner and Tom Beg - but its imagery was 'crowd-sourced' from the entire CAA creative community as part of an innovative, large scale collaboration.

We were reunited once more with conductor, Arie van Beek, and the musicians and backstage crew of the Orchestre de Picardie. With the orchestra in place - and the audience in their seats - our animation was rear-projected onto the stage of the theatre, as the musicians played Darius Milhaud's 1923 ballet. Behind the scenes, Keith Burden, of Clever Projections, had installed and synched a powerful projector to a bank of computers, enabling us to keep the animation in-synch with the live performance of La création du monde. 

This venue was more intimate than Abbeville, without the formality of a proscenium arch or other theatrical trappings.  In some ways, these performances captured perfectly the underlying philosophy of the ONE is more initiative - that sense of classical music and the visual arts being encountered by new audiences in alternate spaces.  As the lights dimmed, and the orchestra began to play, and the first flurries of form and colour materialised on screen, the Salle de l'Eden was transformed, and its audience transported.