| Joanna Dudley | essay |
Tom’s Song 2006 Exhibition
Ehemalige Polnische Botschaft Unter den Linden
Installation; Length: Loop/15′min, Technical divices: 32 motorised music boxes, 32 individual music box paper scores, 16 portable LP players, 16 individual dubplates, Wooden box construction, Light bulb. Participants: Tom Lyons Voice and Ukulele, Andreas David Ukulele and Banjo, It’s June in January by Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin, Handbell choir of Gnadenkirche Alt-Biesdorf Leitung Andreas Hillger, Manfred Fox Technological engineer, Martin Riches Mechanical engineer, Philipp Bauer Construction, Rufus Didwiszus Design consultant, Janka Voigt Production. With kind support by: Senatsstipendium Klangkunst, Fonds Darstellender Künste, Festival »sonambiente«, Australische Botschaft, spieluhr.de, Holger Janssen, Dubplates & Mastering Berlin.
Installation; Length: Loop/15′min, Technical divices: 32 motorised music boxes, 32 individual music box paper scores, 16 portable LP players, 16 individual dubplates, Wooden box construction, Light bulb. Participants: Tom Lyons Voice and Ukulele, Andreas David Ukulele and Banjo, It’s June in January by Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin, Handbell choir of Gnadenkirche Alt-Biesdorf Leitung Andreas Hillger, Manfred Fox Technological engineer, Martin Riches Mechanical engineer, Philipp Bauer Construction, Rufus Didwiszus Design consultant, Janka Voigt Production. With kind support by: Senatsstipendium Klangkunst, Fonds Darstellender Künste, Festival »sonambiente«, Australische Botschaft, spieluhr.de, Holger Janssen, Dubplates & Mastering Berlin.
Tom played
ukulele, whistled and wrote songs, which he himself sung under his stage name
The Golden Oldie. He performed when he felt inclined to at the Senior Citizens
Club and rehearsed in his garden shed.
Tom’s Song is an installation, which accompanies Tom singing the last song he could remember to sing at 96 years old - It’s June in January.
It’s June in January
Because I’m in love
It always is spring in my heart
with you in my arms.
The snow is just white blossoms
that fall from above.
And here is the reason, my dear,
Your magical charms.
The night is cold
The trees are bare
But I can feel the scent of roses in the air.
It’s June in January
Because I’m in love
But only because I’m in love with you.
Oh the night is cold!
Won’t it be to bear?
But I can feel the scent of roses in the air.
It’s June in January
Because I’m in love
But only because I’m in love with you.
A wooden container can be entered via a door. Old portable LP players and their speakers create a floor covering and music boxes with their pianola-like paper scores hang down from the ceiling. An elevated pathway allows the spectator to walk through the room.
Each music box and LP player have their own part to play in the mechanical orchestra whose prime role is to accompany the one LP of Tom singing his song and accompanying himself on the ukulele.
Every LP player has it’s own specifically composed LP. Whistled harmonies, the strumming of banjos and tolling of bells create the multi-voiced LP accompaniment for Tom’s song. The hanging music box scores are paper cards punctured with holes and fed through the metal teeth of the music boxes, which hang from the ceiling above. As with the LP players, each music box plays it’s own composed score to create an accompanying orchestra for Tom’s song. Mechanically operated, each LP player and music box will start at the same time. Once each instrument has come to the end of it’s own score, they collectively re-start to play it over again.
In Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bete a garden shed holds the jewels, treasures and powers of the Beast. In the shed of Tom’s Song, we find a hanging mechanical sound garden of memories and song and is dedicated to all elderly men and their ukuleles.
Tom’s Song is an installation, which accompanies Tom singing the last song he could remember to sing at 96 years old - It’s June in January.
It’s June in January
Because I’m in love
It always is spring in my heart
with you in my arms.
The snow is just white blossoms
that fall from above.
And here is the reason, my dear,
Your magical charms.
The night is cold
The trees are bare
But I can feel the scent of roses in the air.
It’s June in January
Because I’m in love
But only because I’m in love with you.
Oh the night is cold!
Won’t it be to bear?
But I can feel the scent of roses in the air.
It’s June in January
Because I’m in love
But only because I’m in love with you.
A wooden container can be entered via a door. Old portable LP players and their speakers create a floor covering and music boxes with their pianola-like paper scores hang down from the ceiling. An elevated pathway allows the spectator to walk through the room.
Each music box and LP player have their own part to play in the mechanical orchestra whose prime role is to accompany the one LP of Tom singing his song and accompanying himself on the ukulele.
Every LP player has it’s own specifically composed LP. Whistled harmonies, the strumming of banjos and tolling of bells create the multi-voiced LP accompaniment for Tom’s song. The hanging music box scores are paper cards punctured with holes and fed through the metal teeth of the music boxes, which hang from the ceiling above. As with the LP players, each music box plays it’s own composed score to create an accompanying orchestra for Tom’s song. Mechanically operated, each LP player and music box will start at the same time. Once each instrument has come to the end of it’s own score, they collectively re-start to play it over again.
In Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bete a garden shed holds the jewels, treasures and powers of the Beast. In the shed of Tom’s Song, we find a hanging mechanical sound garden of memories and song and is dedicated to all elderly men and their ukuleles.
Joanna Dudley,
born 1971 in London [GB], lives and works in Germany and Australia. Dudley
works as a performer, musician and singer. She studied music at the Adelaide
Conservatorium, Australia, the Sweelink Conservatorium, Amsterdam, Japanese
flutes in Tokyo and classical Javanese singing, gamelan and Kroncong (Javanese
popular music) in Java.
Dudley has worked at Berlin’s Schaubühne Theatre creating pieces such as My Dearest My Fairest (2000) with Juan Kruz Diaz Garaio de Esnaola, He Taught Me to Yodel (2002), and colours may fade with friction read instructions carefully store in a cool and dry place no side effects (2004) where Dudley collaborated again with Esnaola and set designer/co-director Rufus Didwiszus. Dudley has also worked as a performer and composer with Heiner Goebbels, Sasha Waltz, Luc Dunberry and Thomas Ostermeier. In 2002 Dudley co-created, performed and toured the world with Foi, a dance theatre piece directed by Sidi Larbi Chekaoui for Les Ballets C de la B. Dudley’s works have been performed throughout Australia, the Americas, Europe and Asia.
Dudley has worked at Berlin’s Schaubühne Theatre creating pieces such as My Dearest My Fairest (2000) with Juan Kruz Diaz Garaio de Esnaola, He Taught Me to Yodel (2002), and colours may fade with friction read instructions carefully store in a cool and dry place no side effects (2004) where Dudley collaborated again with Esnaola and set designer/co-director Rufus Didwiszus. Dudley has also worked as a performer and composer with Heiner Goebbels, Sasha Waltz, Luc Dunberry and Thomas Ostermeier. In 2002 Dudley co-created, performed and toured the world with Foi, a dance theatre piece directed by Sidi Larbi Chekaoui for Les Ballets C de la B. Dudley’s works have been performed throughout Australia, the Americas, Europe and Asia.
