Shakespeare’s The Tempest is set in new surroundings in this performance of vocalist and composer Clara Sanabras’s new album A Hum About Mine Ears.
More than a simple soundtrack to the play, A Hum About Mine Ears takes some of The Tempest’s ideas and themes – loss and retrieval, exile and reunion, highlighting the universality of Shakespeare’s last play, while also relating them to Sanabras’s own experiences as a modern woman and an emigrant.
While some songs lift direct passages from the play, surrounding these in Britten Sinfonia’s soaring strings and the swirling vocals of choirs Chorus of Dissent, London Voices conducted by Harvey Brough, others place the characters in more modern settings – Sanabras’s powerful delivery casting Ariel as a festival-crazed free-loving spirit, or Miranda as a free and independent woman, emancipated from Prospero.
Originally commissioned by Ruth Whitehead for her community choir Chorus of Dissent in 2013, A Hum About Mine Ears has grown from its grass roots in Stoke Newington to the world stage. The CD recording also features the stellar talents of violinist Nigel Kennedy, folk singer Lisa Knapp and 80s rock band Harvey & The Wallbangers.
Journalist Mark Ellen describes it as "... an enthralling, colourful work inspired by Shakespeare and roaming through blues, waltzes, touches of avant-garde and even echoes of European folk music."
Born in France, raised in Barcelona now a Londoner, Clara Sanabras is an exceptionally versatile musician and performer. Her enigmatic voice and multi-instrumentalism feature in top Hollywood soundtracks such as The Hobbit, The Hunger Games, Snow White and The Huntsman, For Greater Glory, Titanic-Live. She has worked in film, theatre an TV, appearing on screen with Al Pacino (The Merchant of Venice), on radio with Bill Nighy, on stage with Simon Russell Beale, with Mark Rylance at the Globe Theatre. Clara has released five albums of her own music, produced and arranged by maverick composer and conductor Harvey Brough.
She has collaborated with top artists across disciplines, including James Newton-Howard, Jarvis Cocker, Natacha Atlas, John Rutter, Simon Schama and some of the most prestigious orchestras worldwide. She was chosen by the late James Horner as the voice of ‘Titanic-Live’ and A Hum About Mine Ears is dedicated to him.
A Hum About Mine Ears was performed at the Barbican in London on Sunday 6 March as part of Shakespeare400 – a year of celebrations in 2016 to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, and specifically the Barbican Shakespeare Weekender: Play On.
A chamber version of A Hum About Mine Ears will be performed on 7 May at St Michael’s Bugle Street, Southampton, featuring University of Southampton Voices with strings led by Emma Smith, violin, conducted by Harvey Brough.
