I've not long got back home after a stay over in Bangor, wherein I attended the second and final day of the Bangor Music Festival. The main draw for me was the presence of maestros Richard Barrett and Milana Zaric, though I also thought it would be nice to go back to Bangor where I got my music degree; Bangor I think has a special kind of atmosphere cut off, as it were, from elsewhere by the presence of rows of mountains which I think gives it its own microclimate. The festival, whose theme this year was improvisation, took place in a building called Pontio which wasn't there when I was a student, and which is very impressive. I watched and listened to a couple of concerts involving students, the latter of which included Barrett conducting his Codex XV (which was recorded for later broadcast on R3) and some student compositions, all based to more or less degrees of improv. After this I attended a free improvisation workshop which was interesting, putting aside my contribution (which was compromised, I felt, by a still under-developed right-hand technique which I am of course working hard to rectify!) it was interesting to play with a couple of electric guitarists (mine was steel-string acoustic) who had brought with them an array of effects pedals and one of whom had quite an impressively developed right-hand technique, as well as another acoustic guitarist (the guy, Phil Morton, actually running this workshop) though who played with some unorthodox techniques and implements (including a bow) a clarinettist and a few percussionists. All-in-all, quite fun. Then, following a Q & A and reception was the main evening concert. The setting for this I would say was close-to-ideal, or at least very splendid owing to the immersive quality of being surrounded by speakers, enabling the spatial elements of the music to be appreciated all the more. I was deeply impressed by the opening number, Barrett & Zaric's Mirage, whose improvisational elements I appreciated all the more for being very familiar with the version on the eponymous album. Other highlights included the world premiere of Barrett's electronic piece outsider, perhaps the piece where the spatial element was exploited the most, and Sara Pinheiro's Reticências where the listener is invited to appreciate the sensuousness of sounds derived from a broken radio. Barrett's concluding tendril came off nicely (some problems perhaps only noticed by the performers themselves notwithstanding 
) and was accompanied by some nice video-art courtesy of Biljana Djurdjević (again exploiting the size of the venue, being projected on the large back wall) which tied in nicely with the themes/inspirations (of forests and nature) of the piece and the larger work from which it comes - close-up. And afterwards we all went to the pub - I was very happy, having not had chance to get any dinner before the evening concert, that this pub sold food until 11! (I am not sure it did when I was a student). And so that was fun, hanging out with various maestros and having the opportunity to chat with Richard B. Today, I was led to believe that the train-replacement bus was leaving at 10:20 so I went to go at around 9:10 to check out what was happening at the train station (en route bumping into and chatting with my old composition lecturer Andrew Lewis) with the idea in mind to kill the time by taking an amble around the various nice places in Bangor, to soak up its special atmosphere - however when I got there there was already a bus there waiting and I decided to get on it for some reason; I suppose it does after all take around four hours to get from Bangor to Redditch. I was considering getting off the bus to take my walk but in the end I didn't... I was in two minds about that really, for the reasons given, and because of this I felt suffused with a sort of melancholy nostalgia travelling back along the North Wales coast, with its completely beautiful scenery and coastline, having not taken my walk. It was cloudy in Bangor, those low clouds that cover the peaks of the enveloping mountains, but fortunately that melancholy nostalgia I shrugged off by the really nice sunny weather as I walked back from the train station in Redditch.
) and was accompanied by some nice video-art courtesy of Biljana Djurdjević (again exploiting the size of the venue, being projected on the large back wall) which tied in nicely with the themes/inspirations (of forests and nature) of the piece and the larger work from which it comes - close-up. And afterwards we all went to the pub - I was very happy, having not had chance to get any dinner before the evening concert, that this pub sold food until 11! (I am not sure it did when I was a student). And so that was fun, hanging out with various maestros and having the opportunity to chat with Richard B. Today, I was led to believe that the train-replacement bus was leaving at 10:20 so I went to go at around 9:10 to check out what was happening at the train station (en route bumping into and chatting with my old composition lecturer Andrew Lewis) with the idea in mind to kill the time by taking an amble around the various nice places in Bangor, to soak up its special atmosphere - however when I got there there was already a bus there waiting and I decided to get on it for some reason; I suppose it does after all take around four hours to get from Bangor to Redditch. I was considering getting off the bus to take my walk but in the end I didn't... I was in two minds about that really, for the reasons given, and because of this I felt suffused with a sort of melancholy nostalgia travelling back along the North Wales coast, with its completely beautiful scenery and coastline, having not taken my walk. It was cloudy in Bangor, those low clouds that cover the peaks of the enveloping mountains, but fortunately that melancholy nostalgia I shrugged off by the really nice sunny weather as I walked back from the train station in Redditch.
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