The Arrangement world premiere July 2014

Concept and Installations by Ken Unsworth

music by Jonathan Cooper

Song cycle for 6 voices, flute, clarinet, cello and piano on texts by A.E.Housman, F.G.Lorca, W.H. Auden, Barnabe Goodge and R.M.Rilke.

Performed by The Song Company, director Roland Peelman.

Choreographed and performed by

Australian Dance Artists. 

Susan Barling, Anca Frankenhaeuser, Patrick Harding - Irmer  and Ross Philip

photo Eamonn McLoughlin

The Arrangement

Jonathan Cooper has been an associate artist with Ken Unsworth and ADA since The Ringing Glass (Rilke) production in 2009.

 In his initial engagement Jonathan was employed as a musical arranger and conductor of select social dance pieces that Ken wanted for this occasion. These were particular songs that he and his late wife Elisabeth held dear and would be played for the guests to share in the memories, and to get up and dance to.

Ken saw in Jonathan the potential for future collaboration and consequently he was involved in The House of Blue Leaves and As I Crossed the Bridge of Dreams, before returning to commissions in his homeland, England.

 In 2013, Ken commissioned Jonathan to write a score for a new work, a cantata, which became the basis of The Arrangement. Texts by various poets including Rilke, Auden and Garcia Lorca were brought to musical life by Jonathan. Performed by The Song Company and four musicians these texts provided the structure for The Arrangement  together with Ken’s inspirational drawings and evocative ideas.

The music for The Arrangement  was presented as a concert at the AGNSW specifically for the Australian Dance Artists to feel an initial response. Then, after a lengthy gestation period, and a considerable amount of complicated construction by the expert crew, the collaborative choreographic process brought The Arrangement  to its theatrical conclusion in July 2014.  

Photos by Eamonn McLoughlin

“
WHAT A PRIVILEGE! WHAT AN HONOUR! to be witness to and participant in this ART WORK of BEAUTY INSPIRATION & FUN.
THANK YOU BOTH for including me on the “guest” list, yet again.
On the way home- after the show, and a white wine or 2, one of my favourite quotes from song writer Phil Ochs kept popping up.
”Ah, in such an ugly time the true protest is beauty”.
THANK YOU ALL FOR THE BEAUTY!
MUCH APPRECIATION & AFFECTION
(Jean Lewis)
”