Erland Cooper on his new ecological creations: 'True folk music is storytelling'
As part of Fringe By The Sea’s new Love Of Life programme, it seems fitting that Erland Cooper’s latest work will premiere within sight of the Bass Rock’s northern gannet colony that helped inspire it. Fiona Shepherd caught up with composer to talk movies, melody and Moomins
‘I’m as excited as a little schoolboy,’ says Erland Cooper. This is a composer who has, in the past few years, buried the only master tape of one of his works then initiated a global treasure hunt to find it (captured in the documentary Recomposing Earth), soundtracked an installation Superbloom for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and, arguably most exciting of all, worked with the Moomins (or, to be accurate, scored a reading of Tove Jansson’s essay The Island). What excitement could possibly be left for the Orcadian musician who quips that ‘the first job of a composer is to be composed’?
How about steering the recording of a new work which brings together his abiding love of ecological themes with his favourite players, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, in their opulent home at Glasgow’s City Halls? For Cooper, these guys are the ‘Formula One’ of musicians. Under the baton of Sheffield-based conductor George Morton and in the golden ears of Cooper and Charlotte Parr, the SSO’s head of artistic planning and production, something very special is about to take flight. Cooper’s latest work, commissioned by and premiered at Fringe By The Sea, celebrates the Bass Rock and its superstar avian colony of northern gannets. ‘Sula Bassana’ is a soaring ten-minute piece based on a melody Cooper recorded his then six-year-old daughter singing. He previously interpreted her simple tune on piano and string quartet for the first of his Orcadian album trilogy Solan Goose (from the Norse name for gannet). Now he has a whole orchestra to play with.
An initial rehearsal of this whole piece packs an emotional punch, from the anticipation created by the wind machine’s opening whirr to the melodic refrain from brass to woodwind to strings in what Cooper describes as ‘a very slow-moving landscape’, to the full ensemble’s climactic swell. Successive meticulous takes capture the elemental essence of the work. ‘You stitch it together like crocheting,’ says Cooper, ‘and hopefully the finished tapestry is the best of the best. Best performance, best feeling, best vibe.’ Cooper was a natural choice for this Fringe By The Sea commission. He has been drawn to coastal crags and rocky outcrops since discovering the innately dramatic etchings of artist Norman Ackroyd. His own music is frequently inspired by coastal and island environments, not least his native Orkney; visiting Bass Rock has been on his bucket list, and he gathered field recordings there on a recce.
Kicking off the festival’s new Love Of Life programme, the recording of ‘Sula Bassana’ will form part of an immersive experience meditating on air, sea and land; festivalgoers will be invited to engage with a giant nest-like structure created by artist Naomi Mcintosh and tune into the soundtrack through suspended listening posts. Meanwhile, the neighbouring Scottish Seabird Centre will host screenings of a sumptuous film by Lewis Gourlay, capturing 360-degree vistas on the rock and underwater footage of gannets diving with a precision and artistry not unlike the orchestra. ‘When they get it right, it’s like watching someone shoot arrows in the water,’ says Cooper. ‘Our avian friends have occupied Bass Rock for thousands of years and we celebrate the next chapter with the RSPB taking ownership of the island.’
Cooper has lived in London for many years, forming indie bands Erland & The Carnival and The Magnetic North with Verve/Gorillaz guitarist Simon Tong and singer/composer Hannah Peel before gravitating to field recordings and modern classical music. He has recently written his first feature film score for the documentary Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story, which, along with Recomposing Earth, screens at Fringe By The Sea’s Wavelength music film festival. Later this year, he will return to Glasgow’s City Halls to premiere a violin concerto marking David Attenborough’s 100th birthday.
‘I’m constantly learning,’ Cooper says. ‘Yes, I was in a psychedelic shoegaze folk indie rock band but electronics and distortion are still something I apply to my music now. Melody is always really important to me; true folk music, which is where my band started, is storytelling, so there’s always a thread. If you’d told me 15 years ago, “you’re going to be standing in front of an orchestra”, I would have thought, “really?” But we all take elements of our past lives with us forward into new projects and they make you better at what you do.’
Love Of Life launches at Big Top, 31 July, 3.30pm, and can be heard at Scottish Seabird Centre, 31 July–9 August, 10am–5pm; Recomposing Earth screens on 31 July, 4.30pm, and Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story screens on 4 August, 6pm, both at The Dome; all events in North Berwick; main picture: Colin Hattersley.