Nikki Yeoh & NYJO Present: Speechmik X-Ploration at The Stoller Hall, Manchester Review

Post

Subscribe

Posted 2024-05-04 by David Keyworth ⇒ follow

Tue 30 Apr 2024

Situated behind Chetham's School of Music, The Stoller Hall often gives a stage to precocious talent. Seven years (and one week) after its opening, this Tuesday night concert was a chance for members of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra NYJO to shine.

The first half saw the young ensemble joined by Nikki Yeoh on piano and keyboards, to reorchestrate for expanded forces her 1997 work Speechmik X-Ploration, originally commissioned by BBC Radio 3 & Bath Festival.

NYJO in performance on tour. Photo credit Taylor Hylton.

It began with disembodied heads from different countries, on the screen at the back of the stage, speaking in languages that my limited linguistics didn’t understand, followed by one that I did, talking about global positivity, justice and equality for all.

The NYJO ensemble was divided into a string section, a brass and a woodwind section, backed up by pulsing power from guitar, drums and percussion, bouncing off the hall’s oak-profiled panelling.

NYJO in performance on tour. Photo credit Taylor Hylton.

Nikki Yeoh’s composition was designed in such a way as to create a constant interplay between the different sections, frequently switching to solo riffs to spotlight individual players. These solos elicited cheers and applause. There were some empty seats but the audience made up for this with their engagement and enthusiasm.

After Speechmik X-Ploration, Nikki Yeoh’s second composition of the night. Nucleus, was especially commissioned by NYJO. It is a tribute to her former teacher and driving force in progressive UK jazz - Ian Carr (1933- 2009).

As with Speechmik X-Ploration, the screen showed eye-catching graphical pictures which morphed from one image to another, including space rocks, solar flares and night-buses and blossoming flowers, at the same tempo as the music. In 2024 we are so used to multimedia entertainment that they did not seem as novel as they might have done in 1997. They gave a compelling extra dimension to the evening but it was the music that really did the talking.

The first half of the show ended with Nikki Yeoh thanking everyone involved from the musicians to the technical staff and other behind-the-curtain stars who made the event possible.

After the interval, we returned to hear various pieces by Ian Carr himself. There was a discordant splendour of controlled chaos in his compositions, which suited the teenage energy of the orchestra. It had a dynamic drive, speeding towards crescendos underpinned by a driving bassline, as there was in elements of Nikki Yeoh’s work.

Some of Ian Carr’s compositions reminded me of theme tunes to 1970s US detective series. They also conjured images of car chases and intrigue in late-night city back streets, where a pursuer keeps losing sight of the wrongdoer they are pursuing.

The way the musical action, throughout the whole evening, switched from one section of the orchestra and one soloist to another, with no dropping of the musical- relay baton, kept me enthralled and my foot tapping along.

NYJO Musical Director, Mark Armstrong, if I remember correctly, introduced the last number of the night - before the ensemble headed back to London - as vaguely mythological, in the shape of the vicious roar of Ian Carr’s Bull-Dance.

I hope that the NYJO will make a return visit to Manchester. The Stoller Hall is conveniently next door to Manchester Victoria station, even though the timing of the trains may not be as reliable as that of the young jazz musicians.