THE ENCHANTED FOREST [2013-2026]
The Enchanted Forest is a huge and highly-accoladed son et lumière held each autumn and set around Loch Dunmore in Faskally Wood in Perthshire, attracting over 80,000 visitors each year, and winning many cultural and tourism awards.
Jon has co-composed music and sound with RJ McConnell since 2013, joined subsequently by Rachel Cullen. They collaborate with show directors and lighting designers (Grant Anderson and Making Light Work) as well as other contributors, from video artists (Bright Side Studios, 59 Productions & NOVAK Collective) to sculptors (Illumaphonium) and even aerial performers (All or Nothing).
381 x 10³ : Cosmos : The Enchanted Forest
Jon wrote this piece for the first major installation the audience encountered in the 2019 show Cosmos. The title is the kilometric lunar distance from Faskally Woods on the opening night of the show; here is just a stereo remix, but this palindromic 6’30” piece was originally relayed from a circular array of speakers, fully immersing the visitors who journeyed between suspended inflatable sculptures (below, reflected in the water of the loch) via a raised platform through the tree canopy.
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OF THE WILD [2018]
This show described a year in the natural world, moving through all four seasons and accompanied by stunning 3D graphics from the NOVAK collective. At the far end of the loch, In The Trees (by both Jon & RJ) was a finale blending an Afro-celtic vibe with a depiction of creatures of the forest, ranging from the microscopic to the prehistoric…
Each year, the audience makes a promenade around a series of installations, some static and sonically more ambient, and some much larger set-piece shows, each usually between 5 and 8 minutes in duration. Ranging massively in style and genre, these narrative pieces are self-consciously dramatic and cinematic, blending synthetic, found and sampled sounds with real instrumentalists and vocalists, and relayed on a large networked sound system.
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SHIMMER [2016]
Shimmer was the principal collaborative piece of 2016 which, as well as lighting, featured video projection and animation by Tony Award-winning 59 Productions. At its climax it featured a magical bird projected onto a screen of water falling back into the loch, which 'flew' in 3D up and over the heads of the audience.
picture: Angus Forbes
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FLUX [2015]
In 2015 and 2016 a temporary platform was extended from the pathway into the dell, taking the audience right into the tree canopy as the ground falls away. The music was written specifically to be mixed in 7:1 surround sound, with all the sounds sweeping around and enveloping the audience. Chronos has a steampunk time-travel aesthetic with whirring, chiming clocks and a stuttering scissoring sound that introduces new episodes, which range from lush orchestral, through 'futuristic' synths, to comedic big band, until a final 'shutdown' cue. This stereo mix gives only an impression of the actual experience.
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ELEMENTAL [2014]
Ice, one of the two largest pieces in the 2014 'Elemental' show, starts imperceptibly with glacial wind, bells and ice cracking, and travels through arpeggiated mallet rhythms and monumental orchestral passages to the colourful organ mixtures and overtones of the coda.
Lightning, sited in the dell that drops away at one end of the loch, used a multi-speaker system to exploit the natural acoustic of the site and to play with its scale and depth. It contains huge dynamic contrasts, from the opening orchestral hits and fizzing tesla coils to the pianissimo single crotale at 2'36”.
picture: Graham Smith
credits:
picture: Julie Broadfoot
flute & piccolo
clarinet & bass clarinet
clarinet & flute
pipes & whistles
recorder & whistles
saxophones
trumpet
trombone
french horn
tuba & accordion
drums & percussion
vocals
harp
violin
'cello
mandolin & guitars
bass guitar
recording engineers
mixing engineers
sound installation
Joanna Shaw / Adrienn Kantor
Philip Alexander
Andrew Mann
Ross Ainslie
John Sampson
Mike Butcher / Steve Kettley
Andy Connell-Smith / Anthony Thompson / John Sampson
Christopher Mansfield
Martin Murphy / Peter Francomb
Stuart Watson
Paul Hameed / Fraser de Banzie
Hannah Howie / Pauline Knowles
Helen MacLeod
Mark Wilson / Pete Clark
Robin Mason
Adam Bulley
John Lemke
Marcin Buczek / Garry Boyle
Michal Jankowski / Allan ‘Hef’ Forsyth
DM Audio