Experimental composer Dick Lee tells Rob Adams about his latest marriage of apparent opposites
In Richard Brautigan's Sombrero Fallout, a story, having been discarded, begins to write itself. Talking about the music he has contributed to Alex Rigg's triptych A Language of Others, Dick Lee gives the impression that he wishes his composition had been similarly obliging - and if it had rehearsed itself too, he'd have been doubly chuffed.
''I'd like to say it's been a labour of love for all of us. But let's just say it's been a labour,'' says Lee, his tone betraying his enjoyment. Whether the countless hours that have gone into producing 20 minutes of music have been well spent, Tramway audiences will be able to judge for themselves this week. Whether they like it or not, though, there's little chance of them being able to say that they've heard it all before because neither composer nor musicians, McNaughton's Vale of Atholl Pipe Band, are what you might call conventional.
They can be. When Lee plays with the jazz band Swing 98 you get straightforward swing-style clarinet and saxophone; but you'll also hear that previously most unjazzlike animal, the sopranino recorder. Similarly, although the pipers and drummers from Pitlochry compete on the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association circuit (than where there is no greater reverence for convention), their own concerts are a riot of musical barrier leaping - samba piping, anyone? - or more often just a riot. The trouble for Lee is that although his musical interpretation of Rigg's brief didn't write itself, it still seems to have had a mind of its own. ''The idea for my sequence is that a solo dancer bursts out of his skin towards the future,'' he says. ''So the music starts with not much movement then goes into a lot of movement and there are lots and lots of changes in time signature. These are not complications
for the sake of complication, because I used to write like that in my student days and I've tried very consciously to get away from that style. It's just the way the music came out.''
Having previously written a concerto for bagpipes and jazz orchestra and compiled a book of pipe music, The Cat's Pyjamas, as well as playing in a duo with piper Hamish Moore, Lee is well-versed in the cans and can'ts of the chanter - it was the four-strong drum corps (bass, tenor, and snare drums plus congas) whose wrath he risked incurring.
''Pipe band drummers like to play a continuous line, whereas I've incorporated quite a lot of rests as well as time changes,'' he says. ''But the band are very open-minded and extremely able. They really are the ideal band to play a piece like this.
The piece is one of two firsts for Lee this year, the other being a saxophone concerto for the Meadows Chamber Orchestra in Edinburgh. ''Although I'd written pipe tunes and pieces for solo pipers, I'd never written for a pipe band before and I've never been commissioned to write for an orchestra before, either. So it's turning into a good year - I'm in danger of becoming an overnight sensation at 47.''
n A Language of Others
is at Tramway, Glasgow,
from tomorrow.
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