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Born in a Barn preview: Oxford Contemporary Music
2:31pm Wednesday 14th May 2008
Reaffirming music's roots outside the concert hall, the last two events in Oxford Contemporary Music's present programme, entitled Born in a Barn, take place in rural venues and involve in different ways an interaction between the music and the immediate environment.
Tomorrow, the Finnish composer and accordionist Kimmo Pohjonen will be at Park Farm, in North Aston, performing Earth Machine Music, work that has been specially written after an earlier visit in the spring when Pohjonen made recordings of the farm machinery and surroundings. An international musician, Pohjonen is known for his use of complex electronics and a high-energy style, often with classical players such as the Kronos Quartet, producing music that is visual, visceral, complex yet accessible.
The evening begins with a farm tour at 5.30pm, followed by music at 7.30pm. Go to wwwocmevents.org for the few remaining tickets.
Pandaemonium Picnic, "midsummer music, magic and mayhem", is the enigmatic title of the second Born in a Barn event that takes place in the Nuneham Courtney Arboretum. Tim Hill, known to many as a fine saxophonist and leader of the feisty band Tongues of Fire, has been commissioned to produce music and performance as part of a creative group known as Leviathan Whispers which includes Dave Young, Dan Fox and Martin West. Together, they will create an evening of sight and sounds within the Arboretum, exploring the sound potential of the landscape. Bring an early evening picnic and then "as dusk descends gather for a processional journey to welcome midsummer . . . Expect giant horns, musical machines, twittering things and a cornucopia of other sonic experiences". The evening will also include a performance by Horns of Plenty, an amateur marching band who have appeared at several events recently. Organised by Tim Hill and Pete McPhail, this band gives local Oxford musicians a chance to get involved in a marching band.
There are two performances of Pandaemonium Picnic on June 14 and 15. Both single and family tickets are available on www.ocmevent.org. This is an opportunity to have a midsummer picnic in the shade of giant sequoia and avenues of wild flowers surrounded by the musical mayhem of Leviathan Whispers.
Editor's choice
The Mole and Chicken, Easington, near Thame
One of the pictures on this page gives a good impression of the delights to be enjoyed at the Mole and Chicken on one of those sunny days that now seem as far as can be from our present situation.
Early taste of Christmas wine
Next week is The Oxford Times Wine Club Christmas Tasting and, with just four weeks to go until Christmas Day, it is an excellent opportunity to sample a specially-selected range of wines for the festive season.
Dylan Moran: New Theatre, Oxford
‘I was the first person to discover that if you infected a person with Marmite, he would stand up and bark at the moon.” “Everybody under the age of 35 has the intelligence of raspberry jam.” “Children can hear vegetables hiding.”
Sleeping Beauty, Chipping Norton Theatre
There’s nothing King Couer-de-Loup likes more than a good battle: “We’ll march on King Florizel’s wet and wicked army,” he proclaims. His Queen is not so sure, however. She would rather her husband stayed around: there’s the christening of their daughter Princess Aurora to arrange for a start. And he certainly can’t go out and fight looking like that: “Your chain mail’s got a ladder in it,” she wails.
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