TVAY: Nell Catchpole

Selected Works / Processes

Please listen to videos with headphones in full screen mode

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Teesmouth BBC Radio 3 & MIMA “People Powered” Exhibition, 2023

Video 5’00”

This sound piece for BBC Radio 3 and subsequent video explores the Tees estuary - it's living beings and geography - and highlights the current mass marine die-offs, most likely caused by deep dredging to build a new ‘Freeport’. In situ audio recordings with incidental interviews and live sound improvisation using materials found in place.

Filming by Rachel Deakin

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MIMA Field Trip & Gongs of Teesside

Videos 4’42”

The Field Trip for MIMA, I returned to the places I had recorded Teesmouth, retracing the original process with members of the public who used ‘mini zoom’ recorders to make their own sonic responses. I invited them to record their spoken reflections. The event was published in MIMAZINA along with an accessible ecological listening process.

For the first stage of Gongs of Teesside, (UKRI-funded), I am developing a collaboration with blacksmith, Peat Oberon. The video briefly documents the first test session where he forged a small gong out of mild steel, from a disc cut at a nearby steel cutters. The next test will involve another blacksmith as well as Peat and we will work with a larger piece of steel, possibly without using the (carbon emitting) furnace.

Filming in Field Trip and Gong Test by Rachel Deakin

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Sonic Allotments

Images and Text (A4 equivalent)

Sonic Allotments came out of my Arts Council DYCP award.

Over a sixth month period, I developed processes with 5 different local communities in Tees Valley, each involving field recording that documented the group’s relationship with the land. Each process resulted in a sound piece that responded to the specific group of people. the place and its ecology. These pieces were shared on accessible headphones in Centre Square in Middlesbrough throughout the festival. I created a participatory website for the project, which was also featured in MIMAZINA.

The groups were: The Men’s Shed; Barefoot Kitchen Orchard; Cultivate Tees Valley/Bowesfield Primary School; George Dura (Roma musician); Nicole Jackson (yoga teacher).

Sonic Allotments was funded by Middlesbrough Cultural Partnership and The Auxiliary (Arts Council)

The Orchard with Barefoot Kitchen, Middlesbrough

Bowesfield Primary School with Cultivate Tees Valley, Stockton

Men’s Shed with Groundwork, Middlesbrough

Sonic Allotments was shared at Sonic Arts Week Festival in Centre Square, Middlesbrough; through a website and in MIMAZINA

Nicole Jackson at Tees River mouth

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Review in The Guardian for Brand New Ancients with Kae Tempest, 2012

The show was originally commissioned by BAC, London and went on to play at the Edinburgh Fringe (Herald Angel Award) and the Royal Court, London.

I was composer and musical director.

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Collaboration with Hofesh Shechter, 2007 - 2019

Shechter is one of the foremost choreographers working in the UK today. I worked with him as co-composer musical director, and performer, including for premieres at The Royal Opera House (Untouchable with the Royal Ballet); The Barbican (Survivor with Anthony Gormley); The Tower of London (East Wall); and The Roundhouse (Political Mother).

“…the rather meatier amplification of Shechter's and Nell Catchpole's surging score compared to last time, make it the undisputable highlight. ' Telegraph, on Untouchable composed for the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and the Royal Ballet.

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Co-founder and co-director of the gogmagogs 1995 - 2008

The Fool show by the gogmagogs, music composed by John Tavener. Performed at the Royal Festival Hall, 2000

"an astonishing virtuosic show that has pushed back the boundaries of classical music" The Guardian

the gogmagogs were founded in 1995 by the theatre director Lucy Bailey and violinist Nell Catchpole through their common desire to release the physical expression of the classical musician. The company’s work received huge acclaim for its combination of virtuoso string playing, dynamic physical movement and inventive, groundbreaking theatre.  The shows, devised and directed by Lucy and performed by seven young string players, all explored different ways, from the poetic to the absurd, of involving the whole of the body and personality of the player.   the gogmagogs created seven shows in close collaboration with 21 composers from diverse musical and cultural backgrounds.  Their shows played to packed audiences at the ICA, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Royal Court, Lyric Hammersmith, and Bridewell Theatres in London, and to venues throughout the UK, as well as touring to festivals in Sydney, Toronto, Sao Paolo, New York, Seoul, Singapore, Boston, and across Europe .

best Music Event of 2000   New York Time Out

what really impressed me was the virtuosity of this talented group and the endlessly inventive staging by Lucy Bailey, the director  The Times

the most entertaining music theatre I’ve seen in years  The Independent

excellent…count me a fan…outstanding  Evening Standard

astonishing…brilliantly funny…  The Guardian

guaranteed to lift the spirits- this is a wonderful show  The Independent

This one will run and run  Sydney Telegraph

an entirely captivating marriage of musical and theatrical performance   The Times

great music, great imagination, great to have them Gigagain  The Herald, Scotland

the gogmagogs do for classical music what last years Tap Dogs did for dance, only much, much better  The Independent

the gogmagogs appeal as much to the eye - and often the funnybone - as the ear  Time Out

this is a novel hybrid that compromises none of its elements...  Independent on Sunday

an astonishing virtuosic show that has pushed back the boundaries of

classical music   The Guardian

Nell Catchpole, c.v.

AWARDS (individual)           

  • Leeds ‘Climate Hackathon’ UKRI Seed Funding for ‘Gongs of Teesside’                         2023

  • Newcastle University, Whittaker Scholarship                                                                        2023

  • Arts Council England, Develop Your Creative Practice Grant                                              2019

  • HEA Senior Fellow                                                                                                                        2017

  • Philip Leverhulme Prize                                                                                                              2011

  • Deutsche Bank Pyramid Award                                                                                                 1996

 

SOUND ART COMMISSIONS

  • VARC Residency, Northumbria (and Exhibitor for MAW)                                                             2023

  • MIMA ‘People Powered’ Exhibitor and Field Trip Lead                                                                 2023

  • BBC Radio 3, ‘Sounding Change’ (Teesmouth, sound piece)                                                   2023

  • Sonic Arts Week, Middlesborough (Festival Co-Director)                                                          2023-

  • Field of Hope, Easington (community participatory project)                                                    2022

  • Untold Stories, Middlesborough (artistic/community project)                                                2022

  • Gaia Foundation (Bean Sagra – sound piece)                                                                                 2022

  • Sonic Arts Week, Middlesborough (Sonic Allotments, project/installation)                 2021

  • Cheeseburn Sculpture (Yew Trees and Sound Field performance installations)     2020 & 2021

  • SPARC Symposium, City, UoL, 2019 (Movements in Soil – participatory sound piece)   2019

RESEARCH AND TEACHING                                                                                                                   

Course Leader, MMus in Leadership,     Guildhall School of Music and Drama     2006 – PRESENT

  • ‘Unfinished’ Co-Curator/Tutor

    Participatory art installations by students at Tate Exchange and Iklectik

  • ‘MAP-making’ Co-Artistic Director/Tutor with RCA                

    Performance installation works by students and alumni, Aldeburgh and Bath Festivals, Barbican

  • Senior contributor to Guildhall ‘REF’                                                                                                2021

  • Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Panel Discussion                                               2022

  • Royal Musical Association Annual Conference                                                                               2016

  • Paper: ‘Interventions: landscape and materiality’

 COMPOSING            

  • m/y & Crave                                                                                                                                      2018

    Julie Cunningham, Sadlers Wells & Barbican                                                                                                   

  • Untouchable                                                                                                                                        2016

    Hofesh Shechter, Royal Ballet, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House   

  • Gaslight                                                                                                                                               2015

    Dir. Lucy Bailey, Royal Derngate, Northampton    

  • Brand New Ancients                                                                                                                           2012

    Kae Tempest, BAC, Edinburgh (Herald Angel Award)             

  • Don’t Look Now                                                                                                                                  2007

    Dir. Lucy Bailey, Sheffield Lyceum; Lyric Hammersmith        

 

RESIDENCIES        

  • VARC Residency (Visual Artists in Rural Communities)                                                             2023

  • Islington Mill, Manchester (collaborative R&D)                                                                              2019

  • BAC Residency and ‘Scratch’ (own research)                                                                                   2013

  • Aldeburgh Residencies (own research)                                                                                            2012

 

MUSICAL DIRECTOR / PERFORMER (indicative selection):

  • ‘In Your Rooms’ and ‘Survivor’ (Musical Director)                                                                           2007-12

    Hofesh Shechter Company, Sadlers Wells, Barbican              

    and internationally                                                                                                                               

  • ‘Eye to Ear’                                                                                                                                              2007

    Fred Frith Band, Huddersfield Festival                                                                           

  • ‘The Lea Shores’ (solo violin)                                                                                                              2007

    Royal Albert Hall, Shepherds Bush Empire, Glastonbury Festival

  • ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ by Georges Aperghis (solo violin)                                                    2005

    Dir. Annabel Arden, Almeida Theatre, London

  • ‘Drawn From Life’ (solo violin)                                                                                                           2003-5

    Brian Eno and J.Peter Schwalm, international tour

  • ‘The Gogmagogs’ (Founder, co-artistic director and performer)                                      1995-2008

    7 shows of new work, including commissions for John Tavener, Django Bates, Keith Tippett, Mike Westbrook, Roger Eno, and Errollyn Wallen. Edinburgh, City of London, Sydney, Singapore Festivals; London, New York, Toronto, Sao Paolo, Seoul, Boston.

String Arranger/Violin Recording (indicative selection):

  • Mumford & Sons ‘Sigh No More’, ‘Babel’

  • Brian Eno ‘Words for the Dying’, ‘Nerve Net’, ‘LUX’, ‘The Ship’ etc. U2 ‘So Cruel’ John Cale ‘Words for The Dying’ Michael Brook ‘Breakdown’ Rachid Taha ‘Tekitoi’

  • Ben Davies ‘Basquiat Strings’ (Mercury Prize Nominated)

  • Sessions for: Peter Gabriel, Natacha Atlas, Reef, Maximo Park, The Stranglers, Noisettes, Manic Street Preachers, Lamb, etc.

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