Oliver Searle

Programme Note

My brother, sister and I were brought up in a hotel, a family business run by my parents for some 19 years. We grew up washing dishes in the kitchen, serving breakfasts, waiting on tables, making beds, cleaning toilets, weeding flower beds, mowing grass, sweeping and mopping floors, preparing food for customers and when we reached the appropriate age, working behind the bar. My brother began work in a bar in Edinburgh a year ago, where he was given (on employment) a sheet entitled, "12 Steps to great service".

I decided to write a work that listed twelve dreadful nights out, in situations that I loathe - I included working in the catering industry.

I have always taken issue with show music and the sort of camp enjoyment that an audience finds in watching several actors (I am always careful not to use the work 'singers') engage in synchronised movements, while singing in over-Americanised accents for supposedly authentic effect. It is worth saying that I do enjoy the early musicals (Gershwin et al.) but consider things to go awry as soon as (if not before) the arrival of the incredible plethora of the Les Miserables appreciators/emulators.

12 Steps is by no means musical theatre, but I believe the piece to be theatrical, and is representative of feelings I associate with the act of listening to various types of music that make me cringe, such as show music, bad dance music, boy bands and Christian rock.

I abhor the word "delightful" in regards to music reviewing, which conjures images of polite, bourgeois laughter after a "quirky ending"; it had to go in. Another would have to be, "vignette"; this made my decision as to the structure of the work, which is musically straightforward, but frustratingly jumpy, as the short songs move from one to the next, seeingly unrelated, but hinting at many styles of music. I planned the structure beforehand, including (in no discernible order) a march, a bluesy number, the mandatory stage whisper and extended techniques, pop-song harmony, irritating ostinati and a catchy tune.

Notes

For my brother, Will.
Written for Symposia and Scottish Voices.