Sounds of the Field
In what was almost certainly a first, a whole afternoon and evening was devoted to the humble Field Cricket whose summer song has returned to the heathlands of Surrey.
On the 1st June 2019, near Farnham, Laurence Rose was joined by violinist and composer Peter Sheppard Skærved in a unique collaboration between artists and ecologists to celebrate the sounds of the heath and this miniature sound-maker in particular.
Peter and I had been keen to collaborate for some time, and over the past year we have been focusing in on the Field Cricket, Gryllus campestris, as a possible subject. Once nearly extinct in Britain, it is now the subject of intensive effort as part of the Back from the Brink programme, funded by National Lottery Heritage Fund. For a musical response, Peter hit upon the idea of slowing the call of the cricket down by 250 times, to discover minute sonic details no human could appreciate. He has been using this as material for a new composition, 6 Calls, which premiered on the 1 June, when he was joined by Peter’s fellow member of the Kreutzer Quartet, Mihailo Trandafilovski, visual artist Emma Burt and Farnham Heath warden Mike Coates.
Laurence Rose
BftB Change Manager, writer and composer.
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