Blue Touch Paper

Blue Touch Paper nurtures and promotes the next generation of composers and inter-disciplinary collaborators by providing participants with the context and space to instigate and develop new multi-disciplinary work. The programme also aims to involve UK partners in supporting and presenting the new work.

Applications to be a part of next year’s programme are now open. If you are a composer, artist or scientist who is interested in getting involved with the initiative, please contact us at now@londonsinfonietta.org.uk or on 020 7239 9340.

If you are a promoter interested in finding out more about the Blue Touch Paper commissions, or if there are other ways that you are interested to get involved in the programme, please contact Tina Speed at tina.speed@londonsinfonietta.org.uk or on 020 7239 9340.

Following an open, national call in Spring 2011 the London Sinfonietta selected a group of composers and multidisciplinary artists to participate in the Blue Touch Paper programme. The three composer-collaborator partnerships, who have all been awarded a Jerwood Blue Touch Paper bursary, are:

- Steve Potter (composer) & Kélina Gotman (writer/dramaturg)
- Elspeth Brooke (composer), Seonaid Goody (puppeteer) & Anna G Jones (director)
- Philip Venables (composer) & Steven J Fowler (poet)

The three exciting ideas for new multidisciplinary pieces from these partnerships will be presented at a work-in-progress preview event on 16 May 2012. The projects are:

- a music-theatre piece which explores the reality of dreams through staging political, utopian and everyday examples such as Martin Luther King’s rally against the Vietnam War.

- a re-imagining of the Greek myth of Persephone, experimenting how effects from early animated film could transfer to the art of puppetry, integrated with live musical performance

- a piece exploring the violence, sanctioned by society, that is boxing, through music and poetry.

In this phase of the Blue Touch Paper programme, the London Sinfonietta is seeking to identify and share examples of best practice in multidisciplinary collaboration. In order to achieve this, the ensemble is working closely with the Research and Academic Development team at Guildhall School of Music & Drama to evaluate the collaborative journey that each creative partnership is about to embark upon.

The London Sinfonietta will be developing partnerships with UK and International festivals and venues who will be interested in seeing the new projects to completion and final performance. This is part of the ensemble’s ongoing commitment to building partnerships with promoters through its season of artistic events and projects.

Blue Touch Paper is delivered in partnership with the Jerwood Charitable Foundation with support from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.