Part of an 1867 playbill from Hoxton Hall (then known as McDonald's Music Hall) [image: Jonathan Eato]

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Creative Team | Voices | Musicians | Acknowledgements | Funders


Creative Team

As a company we are most energised when we work across disciplines. For A Collection of Small Choices at Hoxton Hall the creative team is:

Hannah Bruce (director)

Lead Artist Hannah Bruce is a director and maker of performance work. She holds an MA (distinction) from The Laban Centre for Movement and Dance. She is particularly interested in collaborative cross-artform work. Her site-specific performance projects create experiences that play with place and circumstance.

Since 2005 Hannah has been inviting small audiences to unusual sites (such as the derelict basement of Shoreditch Town Hall, a family home in Hackney, West Yorkshire Playhouse's secret subterranean depths, National Trust property 'Max Gate', a deconsecrated church in South Africa, and Wilton's Music Hall, one of the Lonely Planet's top 50 secret destinations in Europe).

Her work finds a narrative drawn from the interplay between layers of light, sound and bodily movement onto the existing architecture of a place. The audience occupy this liminal space and participate in an atomised, curatorial experience; this sensitises them to their environment, the site, and each other. Through this experience, the audience become collaborators within the artistic act, through their presence and what they witness.


Jonathan Eato (sound design / composition)

Jonathan Eato is a composer and saxophone player. In 2003 he formed the duo ev2 with Craig Vear to explore various ways of combining contemporary composition, interdisciplinary performance, and improvisation. The duo has subsequently performed in the UK, Germany, Canada, and the Falkland Islands and their music has featured on BBC1 television's Countryfile (2006), the film shorts 5 Antarctic Solitudes by Craig Vear (2004), and with Sophia Clist's interdisciplinary performance piece Stretch (2004-2007). Jonathan was a finalist in the 2004 Luxembourg International Composition Prize, and has collaborated on several dance pieces with choreographer Jacky Lansley: Anamule Dance (2006) based on the music and life of Jelly Roll Morton, the Arts Council England funded performance research project Guests (directed jointly by Jacky Lansley and Tim Brinkman, 2010), and Guest Suites based on the solo cello suites of J. S. Bach in collaboration with cellist Audrey Riley.

Jonathan's work with interdisciplinary performance environments includes the site-specific promenade performance pieces Here, at home (2008), The Look of the Thing (2011-2013), Some Reflections (2013), Cosi-Cosi (2014) and The Claim (2014) with Hannah Bruce and Company.

Jonathan also lectures in the music department at the University of York.


Dave Malham (engineering for arts sake)

Dave Malham's professional interests are in digital audio and related computing systems, post-stereo multidimensional sound projection systems such as Ambisonics, electroacoustic music and recording engineering. He worked at the University of York from 1973, latterly as the Experimental Officer in the Music Research Centre with special responsibility for the Music Technology Group, which he helped found in 1986.

During the 1980s he was responsible for the hardware and low level software that enabled the Composers Desktop Project computer music system to be realised on Atari ST computers. He developed this into the Audio Design SoundMaestro digital audio editing system. Since then he has been responsible for the design of the Focusrite Blue245 20 bit, the Audio design PB4 18 bit and PB4+ 24bit stereo audio ADCs, as well as the microcontrollers, sensors and RF link technologies for the RIMM project and the hardware for Craig Vear's Singing, Ringing Buoy project. He has written a number of VST plugins for Ambisonic processing including the "MRC Stereometer" which implements Bob Katz's K-system metering system as a VST plugin and (with Matt Paradis) the "ambilib" Ambisonic processing library for PD as well as Max/MSP.

His research topics include advanced sound spatialisation technologies, the applications of spatialisation systems in musical composition and the development of sensing devices for musical performance applications. He has been an Audio Engineering Society member since 1975 and he has a patent, WO02085068, for the Ambisonic Sound Object Format. Retiring from his formal role at the end of September 2012, Dave is now a Fellow of the Department of Music and he also runs Engineering for Art's Sake, a consultancy which specialises in providing engineering solutions for artists of all kinds.


Matt Morrison (writer)

Matt Morrison's play Through the Night was one of four chosen by the Papatango New Playwriting Awards 2011 for production at the Finborough Theatre. His monologue Inside Out was selected for the inaugural HighTide festival. Other recent work includes: The Shelter, a LAMDA long project commission; Brightest and Best at The Half Moon (2012, dir. Natalie Ibu); Insect, performed at the Arcola (Miniaturists, 2011); Hypertension, part of the 'Ave it / Coming Up Later Festival at the Old Vic Tunnels (2011) and W-11, a community project for The Gate (2010). Matt has also written radio comedy, short stories and two non-fiction books.

As an actor he has performed at The Tricycle, the Arts Theatre, The Watermill and the BAC. He is an Associate of The Soho Theatre and Senior Lecturer in Playwriting at the University of Westminster. In June 2012 he curated the Soho Poly Theatre Festival.


Peter Worth (Apple development)

Peter Worth is a software developer currently working in the mobile app industry. His interests are primarily in the use of software in the arts, and the relationship between technology and the creative process. Pete's App My Talking Pet for iPhone/ipad reached #1 in the app store entertainment charts in July 2013.

From 2010-2013 Pete eld iOS development on numerous projects for digital agency The Distance, including a Talking Guides Framework for the creation of talking guide apps for museums etc. This has been used to make apps for prolific national galleries, museums and other visitor sites across the country.

Pete’s PhD thesis examined the creative process in music production, in particular the relationship between technology and aesthetics. The PhD was part of a larger project that involved artist residencies in the department. Pete provided technical support for the artists, developing bespoke software (digital audio, image processing, user interfaces for performance etc.)



Theo Burt (Android development)



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Voices

Helen Longworth and Vineeta Rishi played all the characters.

Other voices on the soundtrack include Tommy Gill and Aviva Tulley from Hoxton Hall's Youth Programmes, and May Scott (with thanks to Hackney Archives and the Imperial War Museum for making archival interview material of May Scott available).

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Musicians

Victoria Bernath (viola)

Jonathan Eato (organ)

Adam Glasser (harmonica)

Simon Goulding (basses)

Dharambir Singh (sitar)


The organ was built by Christopher Bruce

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Acknowledgements

We would also like to thank the many people who supported us during the development and testing of the project. We couldn't have done it without the help of alpha- and beta-testers, and all those other people who were kind and generous in other ways. We hope you know who you are. This list isn't exhaustive, but its a start:

Hayley White, Lorna McGinty, Kirsty Fife, Shannon Punter, Tommy Gill, Aviva Tulley, Masuma Ali, Minyung Im, Jez Wells, Rob Young, Jamie Cattrell, Sophie Arstall, Nawfal Salman, Anne-Louise de Burianne, Giles Abbott, Jo Clarke, Laura Dajao, Grace Okereke, Tina and Ian Bruce, Michele Panegrossi, Laura Kavanagh, Corin Stuart, Nadja Dias, Nina Graveney-Edwards, Emma O’Rourke, Jo and Jamie McEwen, the Imperial War Museum, Rebecca Dawson, Tom and Gemma Bruce, Olivia Furber, Rich Aston, Julie Havelund, Mark Esaias, and the staff at the Hackney Archives.


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Funders

image of funders logos: Hannah Bruce and Company; Hoxton Hall; Supported using public funding by Arts Council England; Heritage Lottery Fund; The University of York




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