Composer Q&A - Peter McGarr

Ensemble Bash have had a long association with the unique and brilliant Peter McGarr. You can find his lockdown piece he wrote for us ('The Acoustics of Morecambe Bay') on our WATCH page.

Read his lovely words about writing for percussion and Ensemble Bash below.....

How would you describe your music?

If I Imagine my music to be an artist’s landscape ……...some pieces would seem like oil paintings that have been smudged before dried, so the moonrise finishes on the moor and the dry-stone wall in the clouds - like a Turner backcloth with Lowry figures scattered across the sunset.

In what way is it different writing for percussion instead of other instruments.

It’s the endless possibilities of sound, movement and theatre - the liberating sense of freedom at being able to use an unrestricted imagination with such open-minded performers. It’s a real joy.

Who or what influenced North Mythologies?

From a practical level I knew there was a good chance Richard had the musical resources to perform the piece, he would be interested and would know exactly what I was trying to achieve. From a creative level I felt I needed to write a large percussion piece that referenced a lot of what I’d written in the past. Much of the theatre derives from various sources : a surreal take on children’s games of the 1960’s, Tai Chi movements, Tarot card readings, making a pot of tea, Pace Egging ritual dances and of course, the basic percussive gestures themselves.

What combination of instruments have you never written for that you’d like to write for?

1. A percussion concerto : I’d just love to develop this sense of drama and ritual between the two forces. 2. An art gallery installation : my imagination would be unbridled. How important are your Artworks in your music. I’ve never thought about it, they just seem to suggest themselves – the covers are a bit of fun after struggling with the music, a reward for getting to the end of a piece: I get out the scissors, glue, old books and stick and cut until I come up with something. It’s such a pleasure to mess about with whatever shapes come to hand. What inspires the theatrical elements I’m fascinated by the actual movement of musicians, the secret drama enacted in every performance; you could almost take the music away and see it as a silent event. I see percussion itself as pure theatre. Every gesture lends itself to drama. Every note to theatre.

You’re hosting a heavenly dinner party for your six favourite composers – who’s coming to dinner? And who is definitely not invited.

I’d love to know what Music Hall was really like, so I’d invite Dan Leno and Marie Lloyd. Next to them I’d have George Formby (and of course his wife, Beryl, in case George got too interested in Marie) who could entertain us with his risque songs. Les Dawson, from the wild clubs of the North, could add a bit of class to the evening with his own re-written version of Gregg’s Piano Concerto. And then for pure international glamour, we’d finish with Dolly Parton having everyone in tears with her supreme ‘I will always love you’. MC would be Eric Morecambe who’d be sure to make us feel at home. And sitting in the corner would be Walter Sickert, painting the whole get-together. But the dinner party doesn’t end there…….an exhibition is mounted at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester called ‘Sickert, the Last Dinner Party’, where all his sketches and paintings of the evening are shown. As you enter there’d be a musical collage featuring the entertainers and in one room the reconstruction of a Victorian Music Hall, with the events of the evening constantly being performed and developed by improvising actors. Archive film would occasionally appear, to give a sense of the distance of time and to close the entire event.

Who is definitely not invited?

Everyone’s invited!

Musically, who’s your North Star?

More a constellation than a single star – all the sounds I knew as a child : the folk songs and majestic hymns of church and school, the Salvation Army band heard distantly marching through the streets, the echo from rusty wheels of rail waggons, family get-togethers playing mouth organs and singing sentimental lullabies, the twang of out of tune electric guitars drifting from the ‘Cabaret Club’ at the end of the street – all this, a history of vanished sounds.

Do you have any advice for other composers who are asked to write for percussion?

Hear it as a lyrical ensemble - the absolute beauty of cymbal harmonics and tam tam vibrations. The multitude of endless mallets that create a sea of colour are hard sounds to better.

What one piece of music could you not live without?

If music is sound, then the sound of wind across the Pennine hills.