Performance of The Old Yard: Portraits of Carnival by Chineke! at London's Southbank Centre
by Dr. Adam Walters

Abstract 

Adam Walters wrote the The Old Yard: Portraits of Carnival in 2012 whilst living in Trinidad. It blends elements of Western classical music with sounds from traditional Trinidadian Carnival music and, as such, could be described as cross-cultural fusion in music. The piece was featured in a performance in the Southbank Centre's Purcell Room to an invited audience on Wednesday 20 October 2021, performed by the Chineke! orchestra under the baton of Brandon Keith Brown. The event - entitled New World A-Comin' - was organised by UK-based Trinidadian composer Dominique Le Gendre in order to showcase new music inspired by the Caribbean.

Context 

London-based Trinidadian composer Dominique Le Gendre secured funding from Arts Council England to put on a performance in London's Purcell Room, one of the three performance spaces in London's prestigious Southbank Centre. The programme featured a number of works by Le Gendre who, having heard UTT Ibis Ensemble's recording of The Old Yard: Portraits of Carnival, wished to include this work in the programme alongside her own compositions.

The Old Yard: Portraits of Carnival was premiered by UTT Ibis Ensemble and Kwamé Ryan at UTT's Academy of the Performing Arts in March 2012. On this occasion the music was played while photos by Maria Nunes were projected onto a wall behind UTT Ibis Ensemble. Whilst there were no projections in the London performance, Trinidadian tenor Ronald Samm (who played the Midnight Robber in the event) commented "Your pieces depicting the Carnival characters truly captured so much of their essence."

Process and Significance

The Old Yard: Portraits of Carnival is a suite of five movements, each portraying a traditional Carnival character. The movements - entitled Carnival Bat and the Moon, Blue Devil, Midnight Robber, Moko Jumbie and Dame Lorraine - in places feature rhythms and melodies recognisable from Carnival, such as the percussive music that accompanies the Blue Devils. Elsewhere, the music depicts scenes and narratives imagined by the composer, expressed with octatonic harmonies. Walters' musical portrait of the Midnight Robber is directly influenced by Trinidad's national instrument as the ‘ground bass' that runs through the movement draws upon the physical structure of the double seconds pan. Further, Walters wrote a pastiche of "Robber Talk" that is declaimed during the music.

The performance of the Blue Devil movement felt especially significant in the Purcell Room. This musical portrait is the most literal representation of Carnival music in the set, with whistles and Crix biscuit tins accompanying the Blue Devil's chant which is assigned to French horn and trombone in the piece. It seems reasonable to assume that this October 2021 performance was the first time that the music of Paramin's Blue Devils has been heard at the Southbank Centre in London. It is exciting to realise how many of the audience will have been introduced to Trinidad's traditional Carnival characters at this Purcell Room performance.