The countdown to the much-anticipated reopening of Bristol Beacon is officially on as tickets for its launch night will be available for audience members to purchase from Bristol Beacon’s website for £10, £20 or £30 from Friday – and attendees will have the opportunity to decide which price they pay for any available seat in the house.
With two performances of the specially commissioned Trip The Light Fantastic taking place on the opening evening, the Beacon will welcome visitors for this once-in-a-generation world premiere and to be in the audience as some of the first people to hear music in the transformed Beacon Hall.
Under the artistic direction of award-winning conductor Charles Hazlewood, Paraorchestra continues to revolutionise and disrupt the orchestral norm. Trip the Light Fantastic promises to be, in the words of Charles, “an electro-orchestral feast… like nothing you’ve ever seen or heard before,” a spectacular collision of sound and light composed in a unique collaborative process.
Trip The Light Fantastic sees the synthesizer creations of lead composer Sinead McMillan (aka Surgeons Girl) transmuted into orchestral parts for Paraorchestra’s celebrated ensemble of disabled and non-disabled musicians by ‘responding composer’ Oliver Vibrans.
Using signals generated by Surgeons Girl’s hardware, celebrated AV and immersive video experts Limbic Cinema create a breathtaking visual response to the piece, illuminating the newly-transformed main hall and launching this new era for Bristol Beacon.
Todd Wills, Artistic Director at Bristol Beacon, said: “There was only ever one band of musicians in mind for the reopening that we knew would be able to compose something daring, creatively exciting and musically ambitious for the moment that we welcome audiences back to Bristol Beacon. We are so pleased that our regular collaborators Paraorchestra took up the challenge to compose a new work for our opening night, and that they have done so by interweaving innovative ways of working with artists Surgeons Girl and our friends Limbic Cinema.
We have been present at some of the development sessions and have seen and heard snippets of what people can expect - and it’s going to blow them away. This commission completely encapsulates the heart of what we do at Bristol Beacon, working with the most incredible artists across the musical spectrum and creating a space that is truly open to everybody and anyone.”
Charles Hazlewood, Artistic Director at Paraorchestra, said: “Bristol Beacon’s reopening is a moment of enormous importance to the people, the culture and the city of Bristol – the lack of this venue for the past five years has felt like Bristol has been missing its beating heart. And now at long last the heart is being put back into the body and being fired up. Bristol is a city with music and experimentation at its heart, and we are capturing this spirit of exploration and celebration, creating a visual and acoustic feast with two of the most exciting artists in the city: Surgeons Girl and Limbic Cinema, who we have wanted to work with for a long time. To be given this opportunity to be on the Beacon Hall stage at the moment when the first music is heard in this space is the greatest honour.”
The transformed Bristol Beacon will see all the historic spaces in the building opened up for the first time since 1867. The revitalised spaces include the 2,000+ capacity Beacon Hall, 500 capacity Lantern Hall and the brand new 200 capacity Weston Stage in the historic vaulted cellar.
Tickets for Trip The Light Fantastic are on sale on the Bristol Beacon website: bristolbeacon.org/whats-on/trip-the-light-fantastic. To keep up to date with more news and reopening announcements, sign up to Bristol Beacon’s e-newsletter at bristolbeacon.org and follow them on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
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