Helen Ottaway – lead artist and composer
Alastair Goolden – lead artist and sound designer
Caroline Radcliffe – choir leader 2014
Fiona Haser – artist, pinhole photographer
Howard Moody – choir leader and conductor 2015
Jane Spurr – rehearsal pianist
Heather Woodward – history consultant
Musicians contributing to installation
Wadhurst Brass Band, Wadhurst Bell Ringers, Jackdaws Songbirds, Caroline Radcliffe, The Field Choir, Astaria String Quartet
concert musicians
Wadhurst Brass band, Wadhurst Bell Ringers, The Field Choir, Bernardi String Quartet, Howards Moody, Robert Fuller
In the Field was commissioned by Wadhurst Culture – project manager Beth Martin
view a clip from rehearsals
CONCERT ‘On Sussex Soil’, Saturday 2nd May 2015 featuring The Field Choir, Wadhurst Brass Band, Bernardi String Quartet, Wadhurst Bellringers, Robert Fuller (organ)
INSTALLATION 3rd – 31st May 2015 featuring musicians, speakers and found sounds recorded and collected in Wadhurst, Frome and Aubers
Free admission daily 10am – 6pm (12 – 6pm on Sundays and 14th May)
In the Field is a site-specific arts project reflecting on the deaths of 25 young men from Wadhurst at the battle of Aubers Ridge on 9th May 1915.
During 2014 Artmusic led four ‘Field Days’: opportunities for local people to participate in singing, photography, recording, planting, speaking and listening. During the year Artmusic’s composer, Helen Ottaway, composed 3 Field Songs; settings of poems about the experience of the First World War, written by students of Wadhurst Primary School. These songs were performed by the specially formed Field Choir at each of the Field Days as well as at the concert in May 2015.
As part of In the Field, Wadhurst Culture also commissioned Helen Ottaway to create a new choral work for Wadhurst. The new composition, ‘A Field in May’ was scored for mixed choir, brass band, string quartet, hand bells, tower bells, found sounds and wind-up gramophone and was premiered at the project’s concert, On Sussex Soil, in St Peter and St Paul’s Church, Wadhurst on Saturday 2nd May 2015.
Much of of the musical material from the new choral work also featured in an interactive sound installationcreated by Alastair Goolden and Helen Otaway which ran throughout May 2015, creating a collage of music and sound shaped by the presence and movement of visitors to the church. Sound, music, words and visual material created and collected during four Field Days in 2014 were included in the installation.