In the four weeks leading up to A/am/ams, an evening of music and words in Elgol Hall on 2 October, we invite you to tune into the voices and instruments from across the project, slowly gathering below, on social media, and at OVER /AT (opens in new tab).
Stories and Sharing
Multiple times:
10 September — 2 October 2021
Free to attend
13th Sep, A/am/ams audio sharing
Achilles on the Beach, a new audio work and introduction to A/am/ams by Rufus Isabel Elliot (20 mins).
17th Sep, A/am/ams Responsive text by Cass Ezeji and Rufus Isabel Elliot
A new text by Rufus Isabel Elliot which imagines a new mouthful-of-sand future-language of the North West Highlands, spanning Older Scots and Middle English, presented alongside a new, specially commissioned Gaelic interpretation of the text, by Cass Ezeji.
Cass Ezeji is a singer, writer and linguist from Glasgow. As a Gaelic speaker, she seeks to fill the historical voids that omit the experiences of Gaels of African heritage. She has written for Scottish Affairs journal, Map magazine and Mother Tongue.
22nd Sep, an interview (transcript) with Josie Vallely, Rufus Isabel Elliot and Ainslie Roddick
Newly released A/am/ams, in conversation with Josie Vallely, Rufus Isabel Elliot and Ainslie Roddick, exploring their creative practices, sources of inspiration, finding your voice and ways of knowing and being in a place. Find it here In conversation with Josie, Rufus & Ainslie (opens in a new tab).
Quinie, aka Josie Vallely, is based in Glasgow. She sings primarily in Scots, with a style inspired by the traditions of Scottish Traveller singers Lizzie Higgins (1929-1993) and her mother Jeannie Robertson (1908 –1975). Quinie’s experiments with composition and vocal techniques create a dialogue between pipe music and voice. Her work engages with themes of seasonal rhythm and gendered narratives. It has a strong sense of place rooted in an imagined Scotland. Recent work includes ‘Thyme Piobaireachd’, which was released on Cafe Oto’s Takuroku Label in April. The piece builds on her work exploring the vocalisation of piping traditions. Working in collaboration with percussionist Laurie Pitt on snare drum, the work is an exploration of the solo voice in dialogue with the compositional structure of the Piobaireachd. She has two albums released by GLARC.
27th Sep, Visual Scores by Leo Valenti and Rufus Isabel Elliot
OVER / AT in collaboration with ATLAS is all about different voices, and finding different ways to speak, listen, and be heard.
In Elgol, in August, we gathered for a workshop session to explore how etching and mark-making can open up the possibilities of story and place. The images below are of this score making process.
How does starting from a quiet, visual practice enable us to tell stories we otherwise wouldn't through music and spoken tradition?
Through these scores, we wanted to imagine a heterogeneous trans living tradition, one that can prompt different imaginative responses in different people, and that opens up different ways of telling our stories and seeing the world around us.
The way that a score is written tells you something about the world of that piece of music.
It might ask you to imagine particular feelings, or to put yourself in the shoes of another. It might present patterns, or shapes which you seek patterns within. It might involve words – instructions that prompt a physical or imaginative response – instructions you can follow or ignore.
The language of a score tells us about the world it came from, whether the hieroglyphics of the distant past, or the eroded and rebuilt language of the future.
