{"id":11,"date":"2005-02-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-02-06T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodvale.co.uk\/andrew-dickson\/"},"modified":"2005-02-07T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-02-06T23:00:00","slug":"andrew-dickson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/andrew-dickson\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Dickson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew Dickson\u2019s music is not immediately synonymous with pantomime. However, he has just finished work as the musical director on Aladdin. Unusual, you may think for an award-winning composer who is famous for his collaboration with innovative filmmaker Mike Leigh. Not so unusual when you learn that this version of Aladdin<\/em> was written by Adrian Mitchell and performed just off the Falls Road in Belfast. It was a community production, which aimed to involve as many local people as possible, either as cast or audience. \u2018It is one of the poorest areas of Belfast and many people haven\u2019t been to the theatre before\u2019 says Andrew \u2018so all tickets were \u00a35.00 each\u2019.<\/p>\n

This type of inclusive theatre has always been close to Andrew\u2019s heart. He describes himself as someone who has spent his life trying to help people to discover music and is a committed teacher as well as a composer. \u2018The play was originally commissioned for the Children\u2019s Theatre of Minneapolis\u2019, says Andrew \u2018but the Americans don\u2019t really get pantomime, I think it could be something to do with the cross-dressing!\u2019 As we talk, it becomes obvious that the anarchy of the medium suits him very well and combined with the opportunity of supporting people to fulfil their musical potential, it proved an irresistible project (\u2018even though there\u2019s no money in it\u2019 he jokes).<\/p>\n

Andrew is better known perhaps for his film music. High Hopes<\/em>, the first feature film he worked on with Mike Leigh, won him the BFI Asquith Award and European Composer of the Year. The pair met when Andrew was writing the score for a production of Othello<\/em> at the Nottingham Playhouse. \u2018I think Mike responded to the simplicity of my music and the fact that I don\u2019t use electronic or computer-generated sounds\u2019 he says. The sparseness of Andrew\u2019s music also complements Leigh\u2019s film making technique. \u2018He is brilliant at using silence\u2019 says Andrew \u2018most films have almost continual background music, like aural wallpaper; but Mike isn\u2019t afraid of letting the film speak for itself\u2019.<\/p>\n

Vera Drake<\/em>, which is set in the 50s and is about a woman whose secret life ultimately tears her family apart, has already received great critical acclaim. Surprisingly, there are only fourteen minutes of music in the film and Andrew tells me that it is some of the most discordant and difficult he has ever written. The score is largely made up of women\u2019s voices, which reflect the very emotional and tormented nature of the film. \u2018I first got the idea of using women\u2019s voices when we were rehearsing with the choir at The Palace Cinema in Bridport\u2019 Andrew tells me \u2018The acoustics in the building are absolutely wonderful. There were twelve people singing together and for the first time everyone could hear every note\u2019,<\/p>\n

When asked about the mechanics of writing music for film, he explains the laborious and time-consuming process. \u2018It takes five or six weeks of very intense work\u2019 he says \u2018I endlessly watch the rough cuts of the film as the music is written before the final edit. Mike and I will spend a couple of weeks \u2018spotting\u2019, which is identifying the points of the film that need music\u2019. Between them they decide on which instruments to use \u2018it is almost a case of an instrument for every character\u2019 he says. After that Andrew will write the music alone. \u2018For every twenty tunes I write, Mike will choose one\u2019 he says \u2018then I write twenty variations of that tune and perhaps he will choose two, and so it goes on. Initially, there were nearly five hours of music for Vera Drake<\/em>\u2019, he says \u2018but Mike is brilliant at continually whittling it away to get to the heart of it\u2019.<\/p>\n

Andrew is an entirely self-taught musician. He admits that he often breaks the rules because he isn\u2019t aware of them in the first place. This gives his work an edginess that suits Mike Leigh\u2019s creative directing style, which relies on improvisation and many weeks of preparatory work before filming begins. His lack of a formal musical education means a freedom from conventional academic music theory. As he says – \u2018for me music is all about the hands and the heart, not the eyes and the brain\u2019.<\/p>\n

Vera Drake<\/em> will undoubtedly win Andrew further acclaim as a film composer. It has been nominated for several BAFTA\u2019s, including Best Actress and Best Director. Ironically, he is a world-famous film composer who lives in a town with no cinema. As we chat about the film and the vital role The Palace played in initiating the process of writing the music, Andrew echoes the views of many local people when he says \u2018wouldn\u2019t it be fantastic if we could see the finished film there?\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrew Dickson\u2019s music is not immediately synonymous with pantomime. However, he has just finished work as the musical director on Aladdin. Unusual, you may think for an award-winning composer who is famous for his collaboration with innovative filmmaker Mike Leigh. Not so unusual when you learn that this version of Aladdin was written by Adrian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,15],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-11","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts","category-features","tag-fergus-byrne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}