Imps Play to the Gallery
Macbeth, no tragedy for Imps!
Yorkshire Imperial Urquhart Travel Band will be taking brass band music to the doyens of the avante garde art world over the next few months thanks to a collaborative project which Imps’ Musical Director, David Lancaster and the internationally renowned artist Rory Macbeth have undertaken in recent weeks.
Macbeth’s work is to form a key element in an exhibition called Rank: Picturing the Social Order 1615-2009 which is to open in Leeds City Art Gallery from 14th Febuary to 26th April before moving on to Leipzig and Wiesbaden in Germany.
Listeners to Radio 4’s arts programme Front Row may hear a review of the exhibition in the coming days and since the band is the only sonic event in the exhibition, Imps’ players are hoping their music gets used on air.
David Lancaster explained “the music is compiled from many sources, including several marches, some improvised sounds and a transcription I have made of the sound produced by the Mosquito device, a rather nasty piece of kit which emits very high pitched noises to keep ‘hoodies’ from congregating in shopping centres!”
The sound elements were recorded in Imps’ band room a few weeks ago in the presence of Rory Macbeth who was so enthusiastic about hearing the band in action and was clearly highly delighted with the band’s contribution.
Rory commented “the band sounded amazing, I’m so excited about it all now!”
According to David Lancaster, he wanted to be involved in this project in order to take the sound of the band in front of new audiences and into new and very different settings. He is hoping to develop other artistic collaborative projects in future.
David added “It is so good for the band members to be taken outside their comfort zone from time to time and so important for us to dismantle the barriers which keep brass band music separate from the other arts.”
