London Viola Player, Violinist & Arranger For Hire

Martin Ash LTCL

Monthly Archives: November 2020

Fever-ish activity

For the last few months, Flux Ensemble‘s performances for Fever London have effectively constituted my music career (ignoring my efforts to prepare for a degree-level viola diploma anyway). They’ve also been intensely busy compared to the general state of the entertainment industries, and provided a sort of narrative barometer of the regulations applying to live performance in London.

Back when I last posted about the group, indoor performances were still a novelty (and a welcome one as our initial outdoor run had stretched well into September!). Soon after that post, we appeared on a Thames cruise boat, playing Chopin transcribed for string quartet (our last amplified gig to date, boosting us over engine noise through a rather constrained acoustic). That gig came on the first weekend after a 10pm curfew was introduced on alcohol sales, and all musicians whose gigs are in effect subsidised by the bar take discovered how civilised it is to leave the venue by 10:30 and be able to get the train home rather than a night bus …

That was followed by finding what seems to be a more settled home, at Grand Junction (the function-space brand and business of what is also the parish church of St Mary Magdalene in Little Venice). Arguably it’s even more spectacular in daylight than candlelit mood lighting, but either way atmospheric and with an excellent acoustic for chamber music to boot (not mentioning big enough to fit in a profit-making audience with two-metre gaps between each household group, which in practice usually means a couple … ):

Interior of Grand Junction; photo taken from their website (see main text)

Our first offering there was a repeat of the seemingly indestructably film music, but we moved on to a Halloween event that was popular enough to eventually be performed five times over two days.

Halloween (or Halloween-een, I can’t remember which night we took the photo now)

Wondering what a string quartet plays for Halloween? Well, you can get one sample on our Soundcloud account, but we also included versions of Danse Macabre, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, In the Hall of the Mountain King … and The Murder from Bernard Herrmann’s Psycho soundtrack … and Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’, complete with me declaiming Vincent Price’s closing monologue. From the pulpit.

The first week of November was overshadowed by the announcement of an impending England-wide lockdown, but as fluke would have it, our next gig (another film music set) was the night before it came into effect.

The night before lockdown. Leah Leong ably covering for an ailing Ruby Moore (who tested negative for Covid-19 the following day) on cello.

There, of course, the situation has rested – as I write, the lockdown still has four more days to run.

But, now that the next steps of pandemic restrictions have been committed to, it seems just about safe to write about what we’re doing next without fear of jinxing it (even while parallel performances in Birmingham, Bristol and Manchester I was helping organise are all on hold due to tier 3).

London will go back into tier 2, and the next review of tier position isn’t due until the 16th of December. That means we will be able (with the same precautions as before) to do three early December dates at Grand Junction: another evening of film music, and two nights of classical Christmas favourites, the latter built around the Nutcracker Suite (entire, arranged for string quartet), with some more Tchaikovsky ballet numbers, Prokofiev and carols to round out the programme.

We’ll also be making a return to the even grander and more reverberant (but much older and arguably more architecturally tasteful!) surroundings of Southwark Cathedral for two nights of Christmas pop and jazz songs, in collaboration with fabulous singer (and one of my best friends) Lauren Lucille.

That should see us through to the end of the year. Beyond then, we’re keeping all digits and anything else crossable crossed for live music being still ‘on’ in January and February, as we prepare a new set entirely of John Williams film cues; an evening of Mozart ‘greatest hits’; a ballet selections performance with live dancers; and brush up our serious classical chops for an evening of Beethoven string quartet movements.

Not my best camerawork, but these are Henle urtext edition parts to Beethoven’s string quartets opp. 18, 59, 74 and 95.

Keep up to date with scheduled performances in the gig list on our webpage, and I hope we see you at something soon!

The Wren River record

Back in September, when the world was a more innocent place, I played my first gig in a trio led by singer-guitarist-songwriter Zoë Wren (on mandolin and, rather more on my own initiative, viola; the trio rounded out by Jonny Wickham, double bass).

Sadly, the end of the world as we knew it has conspired to defer, repeatedly and at present indefinitely, a second live performance. However, I was able to record viola parts to several of Zoë’s original songs late last year (professional studio recording of solo overdubs is still possible and was only not permitted in the UK for about 3 months, but it was a lot easier then, especially in small studios without separate control rooms!), and I’m very pleased to say that the fruits of those sessions will be released later this month.

Two advance singles are already available: ‘What If’, on which I played mandolin (you might have to listen quite carefully or take my word for it on that, it isn’t the most prominent line in some expansive production!), came out first and raises funds for (and was inspired by Zoë’s work as a student for) charity Sing Inside, which runs singing workshops in prisons. [edit on listening to the album: I was pretty sure I could hear some bits of my mandolin playing on the single version of this track released earlier than the album, but I don’t think it’s on the album track] You can see Zoë’s lyrical territory is hardly restricted to that typical of ‘folk music’ (if that term still has any real meaning) or singer-songwriters (a phrase which tends to imply more restriction than it states); and with stated influences including Joni Mitchell’s alternate tunings, a musicology degree and classical piano training, and a penchant for the two-handed tapping technique more often associated with the late Eddie van Halen than acoustic guitarists grounded in the folk club circuit, the same can be said of her musical span!

Second single ‘Welcome Here’ is also a socially conscious and questioning song – this time born of the hard graft of London busking, which (primarily on the much-coveted Underground station circuit) paid Zoë’s rent pre-pandemic – as a sometime London busker myself, this is a substantial testimony to work ethic and strength of character. The song jumps off, not from the strain of being either ignored or seen as public property (both of which are the busker’s common lot), but from the comparison between the comparatively secure right to work of (for lack of a better word) ‘respectable’ street performers and those often assumed to be using a front of performance as cover for begging.

Confusingly, there is mandolin on this track, but played by David Delarre, not me (who I think played all the mandolin on the album mixes) – but my viola gets a gratifyingly prominent spotlight, especially in the opening instrumental melody of the number. Again, not part of your typical folk instrumentation!

The album as a whole is entitled Reckless River and numbers some 10 tracks, 9 originals plus an atmospheric reworking of the British traditional song ‘Let No Man Steal Your Thyme’. The release date is Friday 20 November and I’ve only heard the two advance singles, but the album can be pre-ordered (as download, physical CD with booklet, artwork etc. or both) now from independent music releasers’ darling Bandcamp. I look forward to hearing the whole body of work, and hopefully getting to play live with Zoë again in a more congenial climate for live music!