It’s going to be a blast: why 100 tubas are heading for a garden in Haddington

Faced with a new concert venue – a vast and beautiful walled garden – John Harris and the Lammermuir festival had to decide how to fill it with sound.

Anthony Braxton’s colossal composition was the irresistible solution.

Working in contemporary music, I am used to eyebrows being raised by friends and family when I answer their seemingly innocent dinnertime question, “What are you up to at the moment?”.

My responses over the years have ranged from “staging an opera about alien abduction underneath Concorde ” to “ensuring that a soprano can get a tattoo live on stage while she sings”.

However, I’ve never previously experienced anything like the familial spluttering in response to my most recent answer – “putting on a concert with 100 tuba players in a garden outside Edinburgh”.

I do understand some of their surprise, but to be honest 100 tubas seemed like such a logical solution to the problem I was given that I’m not sure I understand it entirely! James Waters, artistic director of the Lammermuir festival in East Lothian, Scotland – and regular partner-in-crime for some of Red Note Ensemble’s wilder productions, including the aforementioned opera under Concorde – phoned me one day last year to say “I have found an interesting – and very beautiful – place to put on a concert.

I just don’t have a clue what music to do.

Come and have a look!” Continue reading...