Music is an obsessive compulsive disorder. At least that’s the way it seems to me especially where La Banda Europa is concerned.I started thinking about creating a pan European orchestra when I was working on a movie called Festival by Annie Griffin. The music brief was to create the atmosphere of an international festival…Annie had been given a CD of a Semana Santa band from Seville and she had the idea that I should write a score to incorporate one. These Semana Santa bands are made up of Cornetas ( kind of single valve bugles dating back to the beginning of the 20th century) Fiscornos (flugel horns)and drums. Chris Young, the films producer, was keen to incorporate bagpipes into the score so it seemed obvious to me that I had to try to combine these two ideas. I wrote a score and we flew the Kirkliston Drambue pipe band over to Seville and recorded them along with the 80 piece Semana Santa band, La Banda Tres Caidas. It wasnt easy what with the language issues and the pipers love of whiskey but it was incredibly rewarding. The resulting combination set me off on the journey I am now on with La Banda Europa, currently a 35 piece pan European orchestra. Take a look at the ABOUT section for details of la Banda Europa.
In March 2006, I was awarded the ‘Creative Scotland Award for artists of distinction’. It is one of the richest arts awards to an individual in Europe. This allowed me time to begin research into available musicians and instruments and to write the music for this dream orchestra that could make the unique sound of Europe.
Before the Wolf
Working together with UZ Events, ideas were developed for a show BEFORE THE WOLF, incorporating such an orchestra. Over the winter of 2006-07, I started putting La Banda Europa together and writing the music. This was to be a large-scale, theatrically presented outdoor production.
As well as La Banda Europa we incorporated a thirty piece choir, a twenty piece drumming group and two boy sopranos from the Vienna Boys’ Choir into the production. The production itself was directed by Hilary Westlake (previously with Lumière and Son, and more recently Euro Disney).
Marseille residency
In December 2007 La Banda Europa was offered a week-long residency in Marseille, by Lieux Publics, France’s National creation centre for performances for public spaces. The residency involved rehearsals, master classes and conference.
This was a great opportunity to forge and reinforce strong bonds across national borders as well as nurturing and sustaining our developing cultural collaboration. The residency was such a success that it has become an objective of La Banda to organize residencies more often. The intention is to hold two or three residencies a year for small sub-groups of La Banda and one residency a year for the full band.
Celtic Connections
This concert at Celtic Connections, Glasgow in January 2008 included two new pieces especially commissioned for the event. The concert was fantastically well received by an audience of 1200 people who treated La Banda to a five minute standing ovation at the end. Both the Scotsman and the Herald five star reviews! BBC2’s Culture show invited La Banda onto its programme as a result of seeing the concert.
We are currently working on funding and sponsorship for future projects with lots of interesting ideas on the go. I’ll do my best to keep this blog going as well as opening it up to members of the band to make their own postings.
Watch this space!
Check out this youtube video of La banda europa in action
Slainte! Jim Sutherland
