Viva Lewes Issue #140 May 2018

ON THIS MONTH: FILM & MUSIC
Ed Hughes
A moment in a river’s history
How do you capture landscape in music? For
Lewes composer Ed Hughes, it’s a process that
involves what he sees as much as what he hears.
The colours, contours and edges of the physical
world can all, through Ed’s eyes, be translated into
a musical score.
His latest composition was inspired by one of East
Sussex’s most famous land features. Cuckmere: A
Portrait, a Brighton Festival commission that premieres
this month, is a collaboration between Ed,
who is Head of Music at the University of Sussex,
and acclaimed music documentary filmmaker
Cesca Eaton.
Ed’s live orchestral score and Cesca’s 25-minute
silent film will give audiences a visual and sonic
experience of a year in the life of Cuckmere,
including the Haven, an area of flood plain
between Seaford and Eastbourne where the river
Cuckmere meanders to the English Channel.
“For years I’ve loved walking in that area with
my family,” says Ed. “It’s a place of great beauty
and fragility, which has inspired so many artists.
Its special light, space, shapes and colours were
famously captured by the artist Eric Ravilious in
his 1939 watercolour, Cuckmere Haven.”
It is these qualities that Cesca and aerial cameraman
Fergus Kennedy have captured in her film,
and which Ed has used to create the four musical
movements of his piece to represent autumn,
winter, spring and summer.
“I’m fascinated by how Cesca’s film creates drama
through connecting different views - whether
that’s the meandering of the river, or the flinty cuts
in the chalk landscape, or the gradual curves of the
Downs,” says Ed.
“These all have geometrical, almost rhythmic
aspects, which can translate into shapes in music.
A sinuous pattern in the river could connect to a
weaving motif in a particular instrument, such as a
flute or a glockenspiel. The music and the picture
are creating different languages side by side.”
Ed and Cesca began the project two years ago,
helped with funding from the Arts Council,
and held workshops at local schools, including
BHASVIC and East Sussex Academy of Music, to
encourage young musicians to respond to Cesca’s
film footage.
What makes the project all the more urgent and
poignant are the challenges to the area posed by
rising sea levels and the cost of protecting it, adds
Ed. “This is a portrait of the Cuckmere River
through a year of seasons, but it is also a moment
in its history. The fact that Cuckmere Haven
will change has a powerful effect on us, perhaps
because we long for an experience of beauty that is
somehow permanent.”
The premiere, which will be at the Attenborough
Centre for the Creative Arts at the University of
Sussex on 5th May, will be followed by a discussion
on the future of the environmental movement
between Brighton Pavilion MP Caroline
Lucas and author Tony Juniper, whose new book,
Rainforest, draws on his many years’ experience as
a frontline campaigner.
A second performance, on 6th May, will include
compositions played by schools that took part in
the Cuckmere Project. Jacqui Bealing
brightonfestival.org
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