How did you go about working with the people in Nairobi?
That was facilitated through the British Council. We contacted the group, Art of Music Foundation, based in Nairobi, Kenya, we liked what they were doing, and we suggested that if an opportunity came around we would like to do something with them. They teach young people instruments and they teach them how to play music. They were also a social movement in that there are elements of social mobility built in to what they do. That is not our domain at all. We compose material out of our interactions with people. Nevertheless, we thought we could work together and be part of allowing the children to compose their own music.
You ended up getting funding for a project?
Together, we applied for funding from the British Council and that allowed us to work with that organisation. It started during Covid so initially the work was through ZOOM, then when everything cleared up with the Covid restrictions, we went over to Kenya. We went over for 10 days, we worked very quickly, and over that period we went through a concentrated process that might have taken a year somewhere like Glasgow. We set up a green screen and created a make-shift film studio. It was a wonderful, creative, experience. The young people were really prepared to have a go, there was almost no reticence to get involved.
Did you have to bridge any cultural gaps during that process?
Certainly the project in Kenya raised some very interesting questions. There is a legacy of colonialism in Kenya, of the role of western music, and we did bring that up with the children and we didn’t want to be seen as suggesting things had to be played or understood in a certain way. We discussed that question and I think we ended up agreeing that the key thing was what story was the music telling, or more importantly, whose story. Brian is an incredibly versatile composer, he was the composer in residence for the Ulster Orchestra, and he writes contemporary classical music, he writes scores for movies, and through this project he has written a raft of music from pop tunes, to Avant Garde classical music. The key thing, and Brian was vital in this process, was to produce material which could span different cultures, different ages and different backgrounds, but was also able to connect all of those different starting points.
Where to now?
“A Children’s Guide to Anarchy” will be going to Glasgow and Istanbul later in the year. We expect to be in Nairobi later in the year as well and we are looking at possibilities for the full “Whales, Bats & Anarchy” project to tour in the near future.
If you would like to see more of the work of John McIlduff and Dumbworld – dumbworld.co.uk