Stewart Copeland, former drummer with The Police, has announced the imminent release of one of his most ambitious and audacious albums, a concerto fusing orchestral compositions with authentic animal sounds, recorded in the field by celebrated British naturalist Martyn Stewart.
Inspired by the migration of the Arctic tern from pole to pole, Wild Concerto will be released by Platoon Records on April 18, and will be premiered live on Earth Day, April 22, to underscore its environmental message.
In a video released to tease the concerto, Copeland says, “This project is the culmination of everything that I learned as a film composer, and then the years since as an opera composer, taking all that I've learned about how the orchestra works and guides emotions. I don't have a soprano and a tenor, I've got hyena and wolves and all different kinds of birds howling away.”
In the video, producer Ricky Kej describes Martyn Stewart as “The David Attenborough of Sound”.
Copeland adds: “In my comfortable air-conditioned studio as I'm composing these sounds I am very aware of Martin out there on his hands and knees in the deepest jungles getting bitten by tsetse fly, Black Mamba, tarantula. Because he has to go far, far away because of sound pollution he's got to go way out there to get this incredible library of sounds.”
Talking exclusively to The Guardian about his new 'bandmates', which include an Asian barred owlet, a black-footed albatross, and red deer, Copeland says, “Their voices bring an unparalleled authenticity to the music.”
“They all have their own individual, often atonal melodies but when you put a flute against a red-breasted nuthatch, for example, the synergy is amazing. I picked out sounds that I felt were the soloists, like the wolves, and others that were more atmospheric, like the wild winds of Antarctica, and treated them in a similar way to a trombone or a guitar … The wolves are howling with great soul, great passion, and accompanied by a trombone following their line. It’s jazz, the jazz wolf of the Arctic tundra.”
Watch the teaser video, and listen to the album's first single White Throated Sparrow (Is Happy On the Glacier), below:
