Flood Warning!

Update!

Harvey Brough has reported that he has finished writing Ona's Flood, the companion piece specially commissioned to receive its WORLD PREMIERE in July alongside our production of Noye's Fludde.

All of us at Barnstorm HQ are thrilled that the muse has clearly not been stuck in the blizzards or in the gym mid-detox, and are extremely excited for the event on February 18th for the first hearing of this new and never-before-heard work!

Here's a little more information if the above excitement, exclamation marks and water-based puns are not enough to whet your appetite to attend on the 18th.

Harvey Brough, composer, is one of the UK’s most diverse and accomplished musicians, having worked with artists and ensembles ranging from The English Concert Orchestra, Liane Carroll, the Dankworth Family, Soul II Soul, Mark Padmore and the Brodsky String Quartet. He is passionate about working with young people and with non-professional musicians and singers. In performance his work is secular in feel, rhythmically interesting, accessible, heartfelt and often moving. His work is an intriguing combination of influences: jazz, choral and early music, often marrying the ancient with the modern.

Clara Sanabras, the librettist for Ona's Flood, is a versatile musician and performer as well as being an exceptionally original songwriter. She writes in a variety of English, Spanish, French and Catalan, telling spellbinding stories in the languages in which they feel most natural and authentic. Harvey writes: “Clara’s ideas for this project were exactly in line with what I wanted – like Britten’s medieval text its subject is a flood. A subject which, when considered nowadays, raises some very modern questions about how mankind has changed the world we live in. And her extraordinarily varied musical experience and knowledge of anything from medieval music to Björk is key in her understanding of what I need for this project."

Ona’s Flood, a brand new work written specially for us to receive its world premiere this July, has been conceived as a modern counterpart to Noye’s Fludde by Benjamin Britten. Ona’s Flood is a suite of song texts set to music. A fictional 21st Century tale, the story unfolds as a premonition to a catastrophic world flood by a young female character, Ona, who is on a tourist outing to the site of a man-made lake and submerged village in Catalonia, where the extraordinary sight of the Romanesque church spire can been seen in the middle of the lake when the water level is low. The characters and their roles are contemporary, but not dissimilar to those in the early 15th century Mystery play that Britten used as his source.

Find out more about the Launch event on February 18, and about how to book tickets at www.bradfordbarnstorm.org.uk