Kerry warms up, following methods learnt in the ‘Women’s League of Health and Beauty’…

March 2013 kicked off with a concert celebrating the music of female composers in the amazing art deco concert hall of the Barber Institute at Birmingham University on International Women’s Day. We loved the entire building, the style of the doors and signs, all from the 1930′s.

As well as collaborating with body percussionist/vocalist MaJiKer on our joint performance project, Matthew also invited us to perform in his latest solo offering – ‘NORTH’. It’s an epic project featuring Matthew’s reinterpretations of folk melodies from Iceland, Sweden and Norway.

‘NORTH’ @ The Nest Collective, Islington

Its London premiere was @ The Nest Collective in Islington hosted by the lovely Mercury Prize nominated Sam Lee. More to come soon so watch this space!!!

Following our epic fundraising journey last November (thank you RVW Trust and all you We Funders!!!), we now have a brand spanking new piece from beatboxer extraordinaire, Shlomo! Entitled ‘You, On The River’, it mixes beatboxing techniques with complex harmonies and rhythms so intricate that they make our eyes water. We’re premiering it on 25th April in Belfast with later performances at the Holt Festival in July and King’s Place in October.

We’ve also been hitting the studio any day we can find free (no mean feat!) to start recording our 2nd album on the Nonclassical label. Hopefully to be released in the autumn, it will feature contemporary compositions alongside our own juicy arrangements of some well-known love songs.

Teddy gave it his best shot but didn’t make the cut unfortunately…despite working some nifty dance moves…

This week heralded the start of the ‘Portfolio‘ scheme run by Sound and Music in which four young composers (Bernard Hughes, Laurence Osborn, Sarah Lianne Lewis and Na’ama Zisser) have started to write us some new pieces. We workshopped first drafts and look forward to further open workshops at the Roundhouse in June!

This June also features our juicy debut in the Spitalfields Festival in secret locations picked by curator, Elizabeth Walling of ‘Gazelle Twin’. We promise you, the venue we’re performing in is completely amazing. We visited it for the first time this week and it’s so completely enthralling that we stumbled out in a daze. Trust us on this, book your ticket now!

Now, we’ve made our own live music videos before and have been part of video installations before but thanks to composer Paul Robinson, we will soon have a piece in which we can perform live alongside a video of ourselves! The piece is called ‘Moondream’ and we’ve just spent the last two days recording the sound and filming the action.

juice as flappers in ‘Moondream’

When we weren’t larking about in the local village hall, we went on lovely walks throughout the countryside and ate some exotic fruit.

Anna tries to avoid the mudslide..cue hysterical laughter from K & S…

juice debuted their new a cappella show with MaJiKer at Wigmore Hall in early February, as part of their Young Producers series. Bunches of 16-year olds from two schools in Tower Hamlets clubbed together to select us, liaise with us and learn the ropes of putting on a concert, from programming, marketing, hosting and presenting. It was a chance for us to perform a showcase-length version in the opulent surroundings and delicious acoustic! Highlights were: using the occasion to try out our new co-ordinated outfits (black and white – VERY Spring 2013, we’ll have you know); teetering around in new monochrome killer heels and having to remove them for the body percussion sections; doing our interactive ‘choose a word of three or more syllables’ for MaJiKer to improvise around and some young cad in the front rows writing down ‘intercourse’; our closing Rihanna cover being met with a cacophony of teenage girl squealing!

We’re very excited to have been invited to open Wales’ only A Cappella Festival this coming Friday 22nd Feb 2013 at 7.30pm. We’ll also be running a singing workshop on Saturday morning at 10am for all those interested in stomping, yodelling, beatboxing and singing scrunchy harmonies. See HERE for details! 

We’re very much looking forward to being interviewed for Jazz FM tomorrow (16th February 2013) at 2pm by uber-cool retro queens, the Broken Hearts. Nisha and Amber have played for Vivienne Westwood, designed amazing Paperself eyelashes and have featured in British Vogue! They’ll be quizzing us on all our new ‘love’ song arrangements as well as our recent performance in Mira Calix’ new live score for the Hitchcock silent film, ‘Champagne’.

Catch the interview on 29th June 2013 here!

juice are trying to urgently raise money to work with two brilliant male vocalist-artists: world-renowned beatboxer and World Loopstation Champion Shlomo and singer-songwriter/body and vocal percussionist/remixer-producer MaJiKer. In exchange, you can bag some exclusives from all of us, and feel a huge part of both projects. We want to commission Shlomo to write our trio a short piece: something that challenges us to learn some of his amazing vocal percussion, and challenges him to write for our classical wizardry!

We would also like to help fund our French/British artistic exchange with MaJiKer, known well for co-writing/producing French pop sensation Camille and remixing the likes of Fever Ray and Nitin Sahwney. We would like to co-write with him, and create collaborative pieces for future performances in 2013. Both projects will be about a fantastic, unique exchange of skills, and we can’t do it without your help! PLEASE click here to visit our wefund site – our deadline is November 19th, so it’s very soon indeed!!!

Firstly, my apologies that our website has been suffering a long period of blogging tumbleweed. Juice have hit what’s know in the teaching world as the ‘end of term wall’. If all my students successfully pass their singing exams, I’ll momentarily forget that all we’ve had since April is rain and go dancing round the local park dressed in nothing but a flowery swim cap and pair of bright blue wellies (new purchase)!

Despite this, juice have actually been DOING STUFF! Hurrah!

Our residency at Fondation Hartung Bergman with singer/body percussionist/producer/composer/yogi/biscuit-lover, MaJiKer, was an all-round success and will hopefully extend over the next year or two (or ten!) with gigs and more compositional time togetherness. You can read more about it in Kerry’s fabulous blog HERE. I would try and compete with this by writing another one here, but I can’t and I won’t! Her’s is too good!

Another year as one of the Ensembles-in-Residence at the University of York ended last week when we spent a day working with student composers. We had a great variety of different pieces written for us which we recorded and then discussed in a composers seminar. This year we have had everything from tongue clicks and frenetic patterns of gibberish over quintuplets to collapsing to the ground to signal an end to a piece, serene harmonies to text sources taken from twitter and have thoroughly enjoyed working with such wonderfully talented students.

A day later, we were singing at the Northern Aldborough Festival in the chapel of the sumptuous Stockeld Park.

Despite it being 11am, the petite building was completely full with an extremely warm and appreciate audience of all ages for a programme of folk songs and music influenced by folklore. In hindsight, I think we need some cheerier numbers! There are far too many folk songs that end in graphic tragedy with stabbings, voices calling from the grave etc. But then arguably, these often have the best tunes…suggestions for happier alternatives on a postcard…

Afterwards, we were treated to a picnic lunch in the glorious sunshine and a short walk around the beautiful gardens. Stockeld Park is often used as a location for films and photoshoots and you can easily see why.

We then went onto a respite care centre for children. We sang in the living room spaces, at bedsides and even sang somebody’s mother ‘Happy Birthday’. Being able to do work such as this alongside our more ‘formal’ gigs is really important to us. The healing power of the voice should never be underestimated, nor should accessibility to live musical performance.

Our next gig on July 12th is as part of the Music in Quiet Places series near Grantham, at the Church of St. Andrew and St. Mary, Stoke Rochford. The building sounds quite amazing, built in the 15th century with massive Norman arches and pillars. Modern music in old spaces always excites me!

Oooh, it’s started raining again. Now, where ARE my wellies?……

Juice are extremely proud to have won Best Contemporary Classical Album at the international Independent Music Awards! ‘Songspin’ was one of five albums nominated including two others from our label, Nonclassical. The awards, based in America, are judged by the likes of Tom Waits, Keith Richards, Tori Amos, Joshua Redman and Ozzy Osborne!

Haven’t bought your copy yet? You REALLY should!!

Last week heralded the juice mini tour of Aberdeenshire for the Sound Scotland Festival. Anna flew up from Manchester with newest arrival 5-month-old Imogen, whilst Kerry and I travelled up from London on the sleeper train.

Needless to say, I was VERY excited about this train journey. I mean, sleeping on any form of public transport is like my juice super-power. This annoys the others immensely. I even fell asleep during a conversation about said-power ON a train. (I, in turn, am envious of Kerry’s gravity-defying cool-as-ice quiffy hair which beats my fluffy baby-haired barnet hands down and Anna’s crystal-maze-beating mathematical abilities that are so quick they make my eyes water.)

However, despite necking a night-cap in the buffet car and going to bed ridiculously early, Kerry must have placed some Kryptonite in my hand luggage because on this occasion, my power failed to materialise. We were tossed from head-to-toe as the train rumbled and ricocheted its way through what felt like many, MANY mountainous regions. We had been hoping to admire some of the beautiful scenery on our way in at 7am but it was so dark that we could barely make out the rugged seashore even with our grimy faces pressed up against the glass.

We shunned the Scotsrail breakfast pack (either a Breakfast Panini or Vegetarian Sausage Muffin, served with yoghurt and shortbread…?? at least it wasn’t fried I suppose) and wobbled our way to our lovely apartment where Anna was already resting.

Despite feeling like we were still moving from side-to-side, we popped some herbal motion sickness tablets and found Cowdray Hall, an art gallery with a great performance space. The hall was brimming with people, 200 we reckon, which for a lunchtime concert is pretty astounding. Read a glowing review from Alan Cooper of the Aberdeen ‘Herald’ here.

We were still a bit knackered after our night’s travels and as the weather was looking very grey and bleak, headed back to the apartment for some juice down-time. This involved a lengthy nail-biting game of scrabble between Kerry and myself (I won, mwah ha ha!:

And turning Imogen, yet again, into a performing monkey for our entertainment and pleasure (what a star…):

Our first evening performance was in the depths of the countryside. Newton Dee  Community includes around 90 adults with special needs who work and live  together. They run a cafe, organic food store and giftshop, full of handmade gifts  and homebaked produce. We thoroughly enjoyed the concert and were treated like  super stars with the best ‘rider’ welcome basket EVER! It included a cheese  board. They know us so well…

When we awoke bleary-eyed early on Friday morning, we were concerned to find that Aberdeen still looked VERY grey. Knowing it got dark by 3pm, we had to get out there quick to see anything! First, a singing workshop with a group of 30 kids at St. Joseph’s Primary School. We already knew we were in for a good session as we’d seen how well behaved they were during our lunchtime concert (plus they’d gotten brownie points by thinking Anna was a teenager…it’s all those fruit smoothies we consume that gives us a youthful glow…and gin).

Always keen to cram in some cultcha’, Kerry and I visited Cowdray Hall again in the afternoon which was full of contemporary artworks by Francis Bacon and Tracey Emin to name but a few. On the way back the wind, rain and greyness was starting to get us down…until Kerry surprised us with these AMAZING cupcakes from Bibi’s Bakery:

Our favourite was the ‘Movember’ one.

We needed this sugary jet-fuel to power our way to our last gig in Haddo House. Our taxi wound through the dark for what seemed like HOURS trying to find the place. We are sure the surrounding countryside is stunning but again, it was too dark to see anything! So, once there, we made ourselves feel better by exploring the beautiful house itself.

Yes, we think we could quite easily live here:

Turns out that the late Lady Aberdeen was both a keen conductor and pianist and there were lots of autographs of famous artists displayed, including a signed copy of ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ by Britten.

Our gig was in a lovely library full to bursting with incredibly old volumes of great literary works and the beautiful fireplaces.

We were looked after incredibly well by Anne, our lovely helper from Sound Scotland and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Next gig, Wimbledon Festival on Thursday, featuring the world premiere of ‘Thwok’ by Robert Fokkens!

juice xxx

Our gig at Hexham Abbey was our first full-length meaty concert since Anna’s maternity leave, err..small summer break/not really proper maternity leave…I mean she never actually left…

Anyway, we decided that after a long time apart, we’d better knuckle down and rehearse properly over a couple of days before the gig. This is a lot harder than it sounds. It’s very easy to find things to distract you..like dressing up Imogen as a bunny and making her smile for the camera like a performing monkey for example…

…but come on, wasn’t it totally worth it??!!!!!

Turns out Imogen liked just about everything we sang – apart from our Elisabeth Lutyens piece, ‘Of the Snow’, a little too much serialism apparently – although you can never start too young…!

The journey from York to Hexham was a little bit of a squash, what with 3 juices and 2 babies to pack in the car, but jelly babies kept us going.

Hexham Abbey is a beautiful 12th/13th century building with a crypt dating back to Saxon times. We had a wonderful large stage to perform on and enjoyed our sunset-lit rehearsal in the afternoon.

We also had a 12th/13th century green room….apart from the padlock. That’s new.

We had a lovely appreciative audience and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves – thank you Hexham Abbey Festival!

Our next gigs are in the wilds of Scotland at the Sound Scotland Festival on 10th and 11th November..we’re def bringing our woollies..and maybe a hipflask…

Love juice xxx

We kicked off our autumn with a fantastic gig at Colourscape on Clapham Common today, performing alongside our Nonclassical buddies, Consortium5.

Colourscape are an organisation intent on stimulating the senses, both visually and aurally. Their gigantic tent-like structures are like overground rabbit warrens, with tunnels of intense colour and light to get lost and bewildered in. They also promote the very best of the contemporary music world, inviting musicians from all over the spectrum to come and perform both statically and promenading around the space. All sound is amplified and piped in with speakers on the outside.

Central to our performance was Luke Style’s ’Stratagem for Light’ which we premiered with Consortium5 in January. The intense stratospheric harmonies suited the central silver chamber, with its cathedral-like arches, so much so that people were asking whether it was written specifically for the event.

Miraculously, we seemed to avoid any comic mishaps today (that we know of) – which was fortunate considering the amount of very small children that were literally flinging themselves around whilst we sang. And we just about remembered to turn off our radio mics between sets, saving the audience our discussions about whether to have sausage rolls or sandwiches for lunch etc. Not that we always remembered to turn them back on again…

The event was so popular that there was a 30min queue to get in but you couldn’t blame people for taking their time to enjoy the place when it looked like this….

Colourscape are at Clapham Common again on the 24th and 25th September, featuring the phenomenal Threads Orchestra. Photos and descriptions really do not do this justice – we highly recommend you check it out if you can!

Our next gig is at the Hexham Festival on 28th September – see you there!

juice xxx