No, of course we didn't travel to London, the wonders of t'internet brought Hannah and the orchestra into Old Nisthouse.
We would have loved to have been there, what a brilliant gig.
Kicked off with Paraorchestra playing a new piece by their associate musical director Lloyd Coleman. Not having listened to this orchestra before the piece was a revelation. Re-inventing the orchestra for the 21st Century.
On to the main item, The Unfolding. The album is available on Spotify as you've missed the gig. This is not as immediately accessible as some of Hannah's other work, it was influenced by a book, The Underland by Robert Macfarlane, his response to her music was published in The Quietus:
After writer Robert Macfarlane learned that his book Underland had been an influence on Hannah Peel's album The Unfolding, he wrote the following in response
What unfolds in The Unfolding? Life – life unfolds. The first time you meet it, if you can, listen to this music from beginning to end, in one long sitting, one great swoop. For it is a cosmogony, really: a vast, deep-time telling of the birth of the universe, through the creation of matter, to the extraordinary, mystical emergence of cellular life, to our own implausible materialisation, before, at last, evaporating up into the clouds – from where the whole epic cycle begins again. Here Hannah Peel answers in music Leibniz’s unforgettable question: ‘Why is there something and not nothing?’ ( https://thequietus.com/articles/31327-hannah-peel-robert-macfarlane )
The Unfolding is a true collaboration with the Paraorchestra, Hannah developing the music with each of their remarkable musicians.
The encore (more!) was a piece from Fir Wave, Emergence in Nature, a favourite.
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