Festival hits the right notes as composer and film-maker team up.

Byline: David Whetstone 

ONE of the most extraordinary attractions of this year's Durham brass festival was also a taster for what is likely to be one of the highlights of next year's.

American film-maker Bill Morrison and Icelandic composer Jhann Jhannsson have been commissioned by arts organisation Forma - on behalf of the festival - to create a new work for 2010.

Morrison has been seeking old film footage relating to the region's brass band heritage, which he will use to make a film to be premiered next summer in Durham.

His collaborator will provide the soundtrack, although maybe that is to over-simplify Jhannsson's role because the music is likely to be as much of a creative driving force as the moving images.

On Tuesday night at the Gala Theatre both men had a chance to show what they could do.

First there was a screening of Bill Morrison's most famous work, Decasia, a film fashioned from scraps of damaged footage found in various American archives.

Then there was a concert performance of a Jhannsson composition on the main stage.

Decasia, which had rave reviews on the art house circuit in America, was released in 2001.

In an interview shortly afterwards, Morrison explained that he had been intrigued by the visual effects of the deterioration - the flashes and blobs which race across the screen.

He said he had tripled the length of each shot so every frame could be studied like a painting.

Even slowed down, though, the effect was like peering into a grey kaleidoscope through which ghostly forms would emerge.

The film opened with shots of a whirling Dervish and waves crashing on rocks. There was a camel train progressing across some dunes, a double line of children, fairground riders and even the delivery of a baby.

In that interview, Morrison said the images had been chosen to show man's relationship to his own mortality.

Indeed, it was moving to think that all the people glimpsed were probably now dead and could never have had any idea that in the 21st Century they would feature, anonymously, in a film. Morrison sent his film to a composer, Michael Gordon, who wrote a 70-minute symphony to accompany it.

Morrison then edited the film to match the score, which was performed by the Basel Sinfonietta.

The recording of this performance is the soundtrack we heard in Durham - a hectic, high-pitched wave of sound as relentless as the passage of time.

On the stage we were then treated to an extraordinary performance of a piece by Jhannsson for strings, brass and electronic sound - again with a backdrop of moving images.

The piece, in several movements, rose to a thumping, rhythmic crescendo.

It all augured extremely well for the piece we will see here next year in a Durham which - on the evidence of the current brass festival programme - is a very live contender to be UK City of Culture in 2013.

David Whetstone For more on Brass: Durham International Festival go to www.brassfestival.co.uk

CAPTION(S):

COLLABORATION Bill Morrison, left, and Jhann Jhannsson at the film archive at the University of Teesside, to research a project on the Durham Gala.