The Royal Shakespeare Company maintains a commitment to have live music in it’s theatrical productions and from the perspective of a musician, it is a wonderful and extraordinary performing environment. Being a theatre company, much of what we take for granted in our normal musical work setting is not present and we have to adapt ourselves to a very different way of functioning. It can be challenging but it is always immensely rewarding – we can find ourselves working alongside many of the finest actors, directors and creatives in the English-speaking theatre.
and the Swan Theatre
The musicians have to be flexible, imaginative and brave! – playing in the studio, in the theatre itself, or on-stage in costume, on a variety of instruments which, in my case are Horn, Natural Horn, Wagner Tuba, Alphorn, a bewildering array of animal horns, conch shells, hunting horns and more……
The music is always newly composed for each production and can take the form of a continuous score which plays through the entire production, or songs and blocks of music to support the drama and fill scene-changes, or brief bursts of music to announce the arrival or departure of various characters – often played off-stage which usually requires some high-speed running around back stage, finding the right “mark” in semi darkness and being ready to play on a cue light. The range is enormous and each production is unique.
From the beginning of each production through to the first performance the music will be constantly revised, expanded, re-scored, cut, re-instated and so on as the production is brought into focus, and the musicians need to be adaptable and quick!
This is a cow-horn that I sourced and played in the 2017 production of “King Lear”, it was used to signal the return of the eponymous king from an afternoon’s hunting.
marksmithhorn.com 