The Bays and Heritage Orchestra take to the road

The idea sounds simple enough, a band who never record, and make their shows up on the spot responding to the audience, play alongside an orchestra who at the start of the performance also have no music.

As The Bays play two composers, John Metcalfe and Simon Hale, who are on stage manning computers and writing musical parts for the Heritage Orchestra to play and these parts are relayed to conductor Jules Buckley and the players of the orchestra via flatscreen monitors in front of them in place of sheet music.

This way the ensemble gets to play the notes as they appear on their screens, and the audience can see the music projected onto large screens as it is written.

Now, after performances at the Liverpool Philharmonic at the beginning of the year, and The Big Chill festival the band and the orchestra are taking to the crazy idea on tour.

The idea is simple, and technologically, and mind-bogglingly complicated. Composers write notes; musicians, reading from individual LCD screens, play them. The Bays (drums, bass and two keyboards) improvise rhythm section parts that in turn prompt Metcalfe (strings) and Hale (winds) to write new motifs and themes: both composers have perfect pitch. It's an original idea and one well worth seeing.

Details of the gig dates and venues are on their website, (here), and the tour dates are as follows:

Tue 11 November Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM), Manchester
Wed 12 November Sage, Gateshead
Fri 14 November Colston Hall, Bristol
Sat 15 November Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry
Mon 17 November The Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool
Tue 18 November Royal & Derngate Theatre, Northampton
Wed 19 November De Montfort Hall, Leicester
Thu 20 November The Anvil and The Forge, Basingstoke
Fri 21 November Concert Hall at Brighton Dome, Brighton
Sat 22 November Royal Festival Hall, London

To buy tickets, click here.

FUTURE GIGS

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