VERITY STANDEN
There you go, lovely.
I have been working in residence at The Galleries shopping centre: getting to know the people who work there and pass through; recording interviews with shopworkers, cleaners, security guards and visitors; digging into the history of the shops and how they have changed over time. I have begun weaving these conversations into music – layering people's words and historical information about the shop units (along with a handful of tripadviser reviews) into a set of vocal pieces.
Verity Standen is an award-winning artist, composer and choir leader who works with trained and non-professional singers to create rich, beautiful soundscapes and performances. She likes to play with vocal music in ways that ask us to listen differently, gathering people together to sing, and exploring different ways that people can experience music.
Her projects take a range of forms – concerts, theatre pieces, films, installations, community events – but they always start with the voice. A lot of Standen’s work explores the relationship between music and intimacy, such as HUG (2015), Symphony (2016) and Undersong (2018).
In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Standen spent time playing with the possibilities of intimate recorded voice. She created, with sound designer Yas Clarke, an installation built out of audio interviews with people across the country speaking about their voices, which is ‘performed’ by a room full of speakers in.