Past: An evening of music and film (1st helping)

As brother Jacques has so rightfully pointed out, it's really time I updated this here web-diary. I thought I should take this opportunity, therefore, to say 'thank you' to everyone who helped made the Evening of Music & Film a success hitherto unparalleled by any other mortal achievement.

A Cardiff-based, multi-BAFTA award-winning composer came up to me afterwards and told me that Gruff and I should enter the Turner Prize with On Decorum. HE SAID THIS WITH A STRAIGHT FACE GUYS.

Anyway! For those of you who couldn't make it due to 1) ineptitude, 2) forgetitude, 3) not-really-bothereditude, 4) being in another country.. I've copied out the programme notes after the break. I've also handed over a couple more pieces from the night into the care of the nice gentlemen and ladies at youtube: watch them here!

Right, here are the aforementioned programme notes (including handy clickable links if you fancy watching those elements of the night that have made it onto youtube):

a Programme of Features of particular
interest to those attending;

“AN EVENING OF MUSIC AND FILM”

curated by Edward Robert Millington
Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama
16 March 2010, 7.30pm

“Introduction" 
(being an attempt to ‘set the scene’, as it were)

music by Edward Millington

set to an excerpt from Dreams that Money can Buy (dir. H. Richter / M. Duchamp, 1947)


1. “the Girl with the Prefabricated Heart”
(being a touching love-story, set in the basement of a modern-day department store)

music by Edward Millington

set to an excerpt from Dreams that Money can Buy (dir. H. Richter / F. Leger, 1947)


2. “How to Out-Psyche the Psychos who Sucked out your Psyche” (youtube)
(being a short lecture on Duty, with special concern for the ever-present threat of global communism)

music by Edward Millington

set to excerpts, edited by Edward Millington,
    from The Responsibilities of American Citizenship (National Education Program, 1955)


3. “on Decorum” (youtube)
(being a meditation on the meaning of the word ‘decorum’, with particular attention given to the antics of those involved in the burgeoning moving-picture business)

music by Gruffydd Johnston

set to excerpts, edited by Edward Millington,
    from the output of Thomas Edison’s ‘Black Maria’ Studio.
   
including...    Fred Ott’s Sneeze (1894)
                        Boxing Cats (1894)
                        Hadj Cheriff (1894)
                        The Leonard-Cushing Fight (1894)
                        Glenroy Brothers, No. 2 (1894)
                        Sandow (1894)
                        Baby Washing (1896)
                        Pillow Fight (1897)


4. “Ladies on Bicycles” (youtube)
(being a short expose of the activities of a certain group of athletic young women)

music and sound design by Edward Millington

set to Musical Ride by Ladies - Wheeling (Hepworth & Co., 1899)


5. “The Calligrapher”
(being a BBC 2 ident that was never broadcast)

music and sound design by Abigail Foulkes

set to The Calligrapher (dir. The Brothers Quay, 1991)


6. “Emile Cohl Shorts”
(being examples of the work of a famous animator)

music and sound design by Alexander Davies

set to The Hasher’s Delirium (dir. E. Cohl, 1910) and Fantasmagorie (dir. E. Cohl, 1908)


7. “Beautiful Underwater Frond Pond” (youtube)
(being an aquatic adventure, featuring the exploits of a group of Greek-American sponge divers)

music by Edward Millington

set to an excerpt from Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (R. Webb, 1953)


8. “Females are we” (youtube)
(being a short news item exposing the activities of a second group of athletic young women)

music and sound design by Edward Millington

set to Quite Unfit for Females (Topical Budget, 1921)


9. “Stille Nacht I: Dramolet”
(being the adventures of a stuffed rabbit)

music and sound design by Abigail Foulkes

set to Still Nachte I: Dramolet (dir. The Brothers Quay, 1988)


10. “Pumffor” (youtube)
(being a classic tale of the ungodly and the evil)

music by Gruffydd Johnston

set to excerpts, edited by Abigail Foulkes,
    from The Fall of the House of Usher (dir. J. Svankmajer, 1980)


11. “Ghosts before Breakfast” (youtube)
(being a film involving, to a greater or lesser degree, some men, a clock, a duck, a hose and some hats)

music by Edward Millington

set to Ghosts Before Breakfast (dir. H. Richter, 1927)


12. “The Fall of the House of Usher”
(being the unfortunate tale of a brother and sister fated to live under a horrible curse)

live music written and performed by the Gruff Collective:
    Helen Bellringer        Abigail Foulkes
    Gruffydd Johnston    Dewi Jones
    Matthew McDade    Edward Millington
    Jack Melham             Ceri Roberts

set to The Fall of the House of Usher (dir. J.S. Watson / M. Webber, 1928)


The organisers would like to take this opportunity to express our most dear wish, that those present were amused, delighted and entertained, if only for a short while, by our little programme of kinematophonic entertainments. We most humbly thank you for attending our show here tonight.

Please leave promptly by the same door through which you entered.

The college bar remains open for business.