SALFORD: Hey! Manchester @ St Philip with St Stephen Church

Thursday 10th November, 2011

7:30pm

Event information

Hey! Manchester presents the first Manchester show by contemporary chamber ensemble North Sea Radio Orchestra.

North Sea Radio Orchestra is a unique chamber group that performs music of beauty and originality that has, at its heart, lyricism and melodic richness. Featuring wind, strings, percussion, guitars, organs and voices, theirs is a world in which melody and harmony abound.

In October 2002, composer and guitarist Craig Fortnam found himself walking through the City of London with a sackful of tunes slung over his shoulder, Dick Whittington-style. Now, as all music comes from the air, the sack was all that stopped Craig’s tunes from escaping and following the Thames out to sea. He got his wife, Sharron, to help. As she folded and kneaded these melodies, she began to sing, so her beautiful voice found it’s way into the expanding mixture.

When the music was almost ready, Craig called together twenty musicians and singers (North Sea Chorus) from all over the Metropolis and they all ducked into St Martin’s-within-Ludgate where the North Sea Radio Orchestra was born. As the clay music was still wet, and therefore somewhat fragile, the NSRO only performed in the City of London for the first while. Now, however, they are finally taking their various influences - Benjamin Britten, Vernon Elliot, Incredible String Band, Vaughan Williams – outside of the capital, promoting new album I a Moon.

‘The arrangements wear their classical and ancient folk influences so lightly that a track can find itself sounding like Neu! without need of drums nor electric guitars. The overall effect makes I a Moon feel like the world’s first baroque-Krautrock-folk-rock-Michael Nyman-madrigal-Kate Bush-electro-pop album. But more than all that, it is genuinely very beautiful.’ – BBC Music

‘It’s supreme orchestral chamber pop throughout. Berliner Luft sounds to me like Philip Glass playing the hits of The Cardiacs. The track builds beautifully with clarinets, oboes, strings intertwining and a strong rhythm section giving it a rock band dynamic. It’s just one superb moment in an album littered with them. Well worth your attention’ – Norman Records

St Philip with St Stephen is one of Greater Manchester’s finest Georgian buildings, dating back to 1825. The building’s Greek style is unique in Salford. It is situated just seconds from Chapel Street and less than a mile from Deansgate.

http://www.myspace.com/northsearadioorchestra
http://www.heymanchester.com/
http://www.salfordchurch.org/St_Philips.html
http://tinyurl.com/deansgatetostphils

Encombe Place
Salford
M3 6FJ

www.heymanchester.com/