Last year’s screening of Faust scored an average rating of 96% from our audience who praised the live music: “A special night.
The live score was magical and mesmerising – a prodigious work of cinematic enhancement! ” And ... “an incredible evening of film and music”.
We are delighted that the same musicians will be returning to perform their original score for Waxworks. (Here are the screening details)
The WFS Committee has put together this background on these extraordinary musicians, their work together, and some of their other current projects.
This is the second time just the four of them have worked together. The first time was creating the music for Faust. However Rosie, Erika and Isaac have been making music together in various groups for nearly twenty years.
Rosie and Neil have been playing together for just over a decade. And all four of them were a part of “The best Most HAPPIEST Fun sexy CABARET of good FORTUNE and PROSPERITY” and “Paradeamonium” a series of shows in 2021 and 2022.
While all four have a strong connection to Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Rosie and Neil are currently based in Tāmaki Makaurau, making the process of
collaborating a little more challenging (like Zoom rehearsals).
Rosie Langabeer plays various instruments and works across a range of mediums, including polyrhythmic disco jams and a renegade street band project called PARADEAMONIUM. She has composed music for live theatre, ballet and dance, as well as a handful of friends’ short films.
She lists current influences as Sun Ra and the Arkestra, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Dhaka Brakha, Xenakis, Thelonious Monk, Alice Coltrane, Susan Alcorn.
Erika Grant is a multi-instrumentalist, playing in local bands including Orchestra of Spheres and Cookie Brooklyn and the Crumbs. As well as composing and playing music, she also teaches music and is a practising astrologer. Describing the process of creating the Faust score, she told the Goethe-Institut last year that “making final decisions about instrumentation and moods is sometimes hard! There’s so many possibilities and combinations of things available that you have to be economical about things and limit choices, also so you don’t run out of steam halfway through performing the film. It’s a big lesson in restraint and control really.”
This is her 5th time composing a live score for WFS. She is interested in, amongst many things, how deep relaxation, rest, spirituality and music intersect.
Double bassist, improvisor and sonic artist Isaac Smith spent much of the last 10 years living in Colombo, Sri Lanka, teaching at a private music school, organising gigs, and recording albums for himself and others.
Sound Mechanic Neil Feather, hails from Baltimore but is now based in Aotearoa. He has been creating radical and unusual musical instruments since 1970. His instruments each embody uniquely clever acoustic and engineering principles, and are visually arresting. The music he plays on the instruments is equally original, embodying new principles and resulting in a nearly alien idiom of music.
Neil’s favorite composer is Ennio Morricone who scored over 500 films. In particular, he cites the scene at the beginning of Once Upon a Time in the West that seamlessly merges the music with the action.
To hear more from our musicians:
- Catch Rosie playing accordion in a band with incredible singer, Mandy Meadows, at a performance of Piaf: The Legend on September 3 at Southward Theatre.
- Learn more about gong bathing from Erika.
- Read this article by Isaac about his recent residency at Wellington’s Pyramid Club.
- Check out this documentary trailer about Neil and his work or see his 19 August show at the Pyramid Club ahead of our screening.
Expect to see his latest two instruments: the Wiggler and the Melocycle.
Waxworks is Presented in cooperation with Goethe-Institut. Members free – public by koha at the door.