Live Event & Exhibition 17/10/08

The Barrow AFC Football Orchestra -
Live at Holker Street



Nine children from Barrow Island Community Primary School brought experimental music to football fans at Holker St. on Saturday 20th September with the first performance by the Barrow AFC Football Orchestra.



Leading in to the match against Kettering Town, the orchestra performed three 5 minute pieces of music that turned the Holker Street 5-a-side pitch into a giant piece of graphic notation. Orchestra members alternated between roles, taking turns to play football and their instruments respectively.

Instruments included guitars open-tuned to the notes BAFC, egg timers, a drum machine, a thumb piano, a small wooden frog and a contact miked (and heavily reverbed) computer keyboard. See the video clip below for an excerpt from the performance.

Screening of Unbridled at Holker St 20/09/08

The Barrow AFC Football Orchestra
(Pt. 3)



Children from Barrow Island Community Primary School picked up a selection of instruments and household objects in preparation for a performance at Holker Street that took place on Saturday 20th September. During the rehearsal sessions pictured here, the children concentrated on playing together and communicating as a group as well as looking at ways of introducing contrast into the music they had been making. All of the sessions have been recorded, and a selection will be transferred and given to orchestra members as a CD in the near future.

Limited Edition Barrow AFC Poster

A limited edition of 150 screen printed posters, produced to accompany the forthcoming live event at Holker Street in October, are now available from the club shop, priced at £5 each with all proceeds going to the club.


The print was recently featured in an exhibition of contemporary poster art at Portsmouth's SPACE gallery as part of the city's annual art week events.
Visit: http://art.route.dream.googlepages.com/grossclinic
for more details.

More From Barrow Live

Damian Rose performing as Mondo Bongo at the Barrow Live festival.

Barrow Live Footage

Excerpt from part three of An Unorthodox 1-2.

Barrow Live 24/08/2008

Barrovian music-lovers were treated to a sneak preview of Aurelie's forthcoming football drone opera An Unorthodox 1-2 on Sunday 24th of August at the annual Barrow Live festival.

Glenn performed a (very) rough version of part three of the piece, consisting of looped adverts for defunct local businesses and bits of feedback that drifted seagull-like from the acoustic tent.

An earlier slot featured another BAFC-related performance from Damian Rose on laptop and guitar with crowd samples and lyrics inspired by the Bluebirds.

An Unorthodox 1-2

Over the last two weeks, Glenn and Francis have been recording and editing the raw material for their Barrow AFC sound piece. The piece combines elements of spoken word, music and field recordings and is intended to be performed live, broadcast via radio and to exist as an edition of CD's.

The script, written by Glenn, consists of three parts describing a) a walk across Barrow to Holker st. stadium, b) the atmosphere of the crowd during a match and c) the experience of hearing the match in a domestic environment via radio. The script was then recorded by local actor, musician and BAFC supporter Damian Rose.

Following this, the recordings were broken up into individual sentences, looped and processed to determine the rhythm and tone of three instrumental compositions. These were composed and recorded by Francis in collaboration with members of Aurelie David Dhonau (cello, bass, production) and Ola Szmidt (flute). The three pieces of music varying in tone from steadily building drones to minimalist cello melodies will then be edited together with the spoken word element and a bank of recordings made at the ground and from around Barrow to form the final recording.

Keep an eye on the blog for previews of the sound piece as well as details of a free Aurelie live performance taking place at Holker St. later this month.