...Until the Needle Dips

…Until the Needle Dips was composed for the 2007 Right to Music, a year-long access-widening community music initiative in collaboration with the London Mozart Players conducted in schools and day centres in Surrey. The piece was created during the final phase of the Right to Music project. A 6-month-long series of composition and improvisation workshops was carried out by Adam Melvin and trainee animateurs from the Yehudi Menuhin school in three primary schools and an ALD day centre in Surrey. The long-term goal was to create a multi-movement piece based around the broad theme of ‘the number 8’, one that would incorporate music from all four centres combined with my own four-movement octet, for performance in a concert featuring Schubert’s Octet. The theme that emerged from the workshops was that of the points of the compass.…Until the Needle Dips was performed in the Menuhin Hall in Nov 2007. The four movements of the Octet – named after the winds of the four cardinal points of the compass – were performed by an ensemble incorporating Menuhin school pupils (strings) and London Mozart players (winds)*. Each movement dovetailed and alternated with pieces created in the workshops in response to ideas prompted by the four intermediate points of the compass. The performance was as follows:NW – featuring musicians from Lockwood (ALD) centre, GuildfordN – Tramontane*NE – featuring pupils from St John’s Community School, DorkingE – Levante*SE – featuring pupils from Chandler’s Field School, MoleseyS – Ostro*SW – featuring pupils from St. Andrew’s School, CobhamW - Ponente*