On Thursday 10 March 2022, the London Sinfonietta will give the world premiere of the extended version of Cathy Milliken's Night Shift. In an evening of collaborative listening and performance, the piece involves music by chance as the audience are invited to make sounds and music with the performers. Much like the wall that separates Shakespeare's ill-fated lovers in A Midsummer Night's Dream, the imaginary wall that separates the audience from performers will prove to be a mere illusion.
Not sure what to expect? We caught up with Cathy and members of Sing Tower Hamlets to ask what we can expect from the concert, the audience's role in the performance and how it feels to take part in a new piece of music.
About Night Shift
The piece is embedded in various themes and parts of A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare, and within that both musicians on stage and the audience will make contemporary sound and music together. There is a great democratic nature to the piece as the actions are spread out between those on stage and those watching and listening from their seats, so it really is about everyone in the hall making music together and breaking that imaginary wall that separates the audience and performers.
...when 500 people do a small sound and it's taken over an amount of time and it's coordinated and choreographed by the conductor, that's when it actually starts to get magical and becomes music. Cathy Milliken
It really is about everyone in the hall making music together, a huge democracy. There's no one sound of a cello that is more important than the sound of a piece of paper right in the far left corner. So it's about getting rid of that wall that's dividing. Cathy Milliken
The audience's role
So what does the participation side from the audience entail exactly? When people enter the Queen Elizabeth Hall, they will find a bag full of materials and objects that they make sounds and music with as an audience group, and in a way making it a performance like no other. The exciting thing is that the audience won't know what to do with these sound-making objects until the day of the concert.
However, you can just sit and listen if you'd prefer. You are free to choose whether to take part from start to end, join in some parts or simply relax and enjoy the array of sounds and music!
Get a flavour of what you might expect with photos from the premiere performances in Berlin (by Ensemble Modern) and Porto (by Remix Ensemble Casa da Música) last year!
Photos from the Berlin performance by Astrid Ackermann
Photos from the Porto performance by Remix Ensemble Casa da Música
There are elements of the performance that we don't know how they will go but the audience will determine how it goes with their answers and they're filling in our poetry... Jonathan Stockhammer
Bringing the community together
The performance wouldn't be complete without the forces of two choirs from London - the City Lit Inclusive Choir and Sing Tower Hamlets. Members from both choirs took part in creative workshops with Cathy to develop materials for the concert in March. We asked them how it feels to take part in the creation and performance of a new piece of music.
It's great honestly. It's so different to what I usually do on a day-to-day basis and it feels very, well it is creative and just doing it with a bunch of people and knowing that the song will exist sometime in the future and will be able to perform I think it's really great. I'm happy to be a part of this. Alexandra, Sing Tower Hamlets
About CONNECT: The Audience as Artist
Night Shift is a commission created as part of CONNECT, a project where at the heart of it is the notion of involving audiences as artistic participants who take an active role on-stage alongside professional musicians. It is supported by ART MENTOR FOUNDATION LUCERNE in collaboration with four contemporary music ensembles in Europe - London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Modern, Asko|Schönberg and Remix Ensemble Casa da Música.
In this video created by Ensemble Modern, Cathy Milliken talks about the CONNECT programme and how she incoporated the idea of forging a better connection between the audience and performer in her music.
Night Shift
Thursday 10 March, 7.30pm
Southbank Centre's Queen Elizabeth Hall
Join us for an unforgettable night of collaborative listening and performance as we explore Cathy Milliken's score with conductor Jonathan Stockhammer, the City Lit Inclusive Choir and Sing Tower Hamlets, and soloists Michael Schiefel and Helena Rasker.
Buy ticketsPublished: 24 Feb 2022
