Midsummer Festival

Midsummer Festival is a free one-day festival celebrating arts and culture in the West Midlands.

Featuring a collection of many West Midlands theatre, dance, music, artists and venues, Midsummer Festival will mark the Summer Solstice with a wide range of live, archived and pre-recorded cultural activity available online. The day will include performances which have never been seen before from companies including the Royal Shakespeare Company, ACE Dance and Music and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.

Part of the Midsummer Festival, a free one-day festival celebrating arts and culture across the West Midlands.

An inspiring collection of digital shorts- Some with song, some with soundscape, some personal stories- all unique and made in Brum. Supported by The Space and BBC Birmingham.

https://www.makeitwm.com/inspire-me/whats-on/digital-shorts-by-birmingham-opera-company-p1368421
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zMmJ0uFXkI

Wednesday from Light – Orchestra Finalists video

Wednesday from Light/Mittwoch aus Licht had it’s world premier in Birmingham from 22-26th August. The 6-hour opera was the final opera from Karlheinz Stockhausen and, until recently, gone unperformed in its entirety. Did I mention that it includes helicopters?

For one section of the opera, Orchestra Finalists/Orchester-Finalisten, Birmingham Opera Company, together with Ember Television, asked 10 people to make films that responded to each piece of this section in some way. I made one for “Tuba amongst flocks of birds and swarms of bees”

I was originally under the impression that this was going to be shown online only. Much to my surprise the video, along with the others, got a screening at the actual performances, as this screenshot from the live stream of the performance shows

Wednesday from Light - Orchestra Finalists video

It’s somewhere in the back

Shooting and editing this video was both a great deal of fun and a great challenge. I have been involved in the production of videos before, usually providing editing of post-production support, but I have never taken the lead on the conception and direction of a video.

Wednesday from Light - Orchestra Finalists video

I’m thankful to the support of Ember Television who quickly turned my vague ideas into something more concrete. Also, thanks to Nathan for allowing us to film him

Wednesday from Light - Orchestra Finalists video

More photos about the video can be seen on Flickr. The other videos can be seen here

Othello

The production of Othello is going really well. We’re four performances in and have already received positive reviews from the Guardian, Telegraph and Times and generally positive reviews from friends and attendees.

opera-49 (by Katchooo)

Othello chorus. Photo by Fiona Cullinan

Unless you have bought a ticket unfortunately there’s no way to see it as all of the tickets have now sold out, but that only reiterates the popularity of the productions by the Birmingham Opera Company.

I’ve been to their last two productions (La Traviata and Idomeneo) and, after a bit of coaxing from friends and loved ones, I decided to take part in Othello. So, why am I doing it? I’ve been known to dabble in acting occasionally but this venture requires an additional set of skills that I’m not really known to have. There’s one main overriding reason why I’m doing it:

It’s fun.

Sure, it looks good to have Birmingham Opera Company on my CV, but in my overall goal to become more of a software/digital artist I feel being part of the opera only indirectly helps. If you’re an aspiring performer or singer then you should already know why you should be part of this 😉

My main point is that regardless of what background you’re from there’s a lot to be learnt and a lot of fun to be had. You’ll meet a great range of people, learn what goes into making a production and may discover a hidden singing or acting talent.

So, I’ll see you at rehearsals for the next production next year!