Click here for my choral sampler, most of which is from this project.
No Alan Sugar here,
The Apprentice was the name of a play written
around the now world famous Rosslyn Chapel, just outside of
Edinburgh. Rosslyn Chapel as you may know, is featured
at the climax of The Da Vinci Code. But we were
there first, back in the day, telling the actual,
factual story of blood and intrigue at the chapel. I
composed the soundtrack of the piece alongside two
traditional musicians who also sang on the piece. The
play was massively successful at The 2003 / 04 Edinburgh
Fringe Festival, selling out nearly every day of it's
run. And this is before the film of the Da
Vinci Code!
The soundtrack sees much multitracking of drones, gregorian
chant-like arrangements and subtle manipulation of
madrigals and other vocal compositions. We released a CD of
the soundtrack which did very well also. I wanted to push
the soundtrack to the outer limits of electronica, but the
traditional folks fought their corner well and I think we
made a nicely balanced album.
The story concerns the plight of the new stone mason's
apprentice who proves to be a creative threat to the
emotionally immature mason. There is much drama, especially
in the stone carving sequences which needed a very
percussive manipulated soundtrack which took a two week
period of solid editing of celtic drumming to create the
complex arrangement.
