Over the past 4 years or so I’ve been working on an orchestral piece with composer Dr Elizabeth Kelly for Leicestershire Music that has turntablists as featured musicians, and it had its debut performance at Demontfort Hall in Leicester on Tuesday earlier this week as part of the Out Of This World concert!
‘Space Scratch Symphony’ featured over 400 primary and secondary school students, including 6 young turntablists and is a 20 minute narrative piece that follows a group of astronauts on an adventure to space. The piece was complimented by some amazing visuals created by degree students from Leicester College‘s Immersive Academy course.
It’s been such a wonderful project to be involved in - Leicestershire Music have been teaching scratching as an alternative instrument in schools for many years now and to have a cross genre project with other ensembles in the area has been a truly amazing achievement. Seeing the young turntablists so excited about performing in the venue and the buzz and sense of achievement that was shining from them afterwards was wonderful.
Thank you to everyone involved - there’s way too many of you to list and I’m bound to miss someone out - but in particular all the musicians, all the team at Leicestershire Music, Brad Smith for bringing everything together, Mike Shaw for conducting, Tim Clay for being an actual super hero, Simon, Nicki and Emma for their work with their choirs, all the Leicester College students, and DJ Angelo & Algoriddim for being so supportive with their tech!
Photos by Shane Coles
