16th December 2010:
Colin eventually toured his John Lennon - In My Own Write Project in Germany (with the NDR Bigband) for a few dates in September and October 2010, which by all accounts went really well. Hopefully there'll be a few more gigs to come next year. The CD, John Lennon - In My Own Write was released in November in Germany garnering good reviews, and it's due to be released in the UK mid-February 2011. I'm not a big Beatles fan, but I've been fortunate enough to have heard the CD already (actually it's a double CD!) and it's a real cracker from start to finish! Dare I say it, but I think it's one of his best yet! You can find a scan of the cover and album details here.
After a few rehearsals and gigs in Sweden at the end of 2009, Colin eventually managed to go back to Sweden in 2010 and record his arrangements of some of Cole Porter's music. Entitled Don't Fence Me In, he recorded the project with the well-known trumpeter Nils Landgren and the Bohuslän Bigband in Gothenburg. The album has now been mixed in Colin's home studio, and will be released next spring in Germany. Gigs are lined up in Sweden and Germany for March 2011 - check the Concerts section of this site for details.
Colin's first major project for the NDR since he's been made composer in residence is a based on the theme of the history of Hamburg harbour. He has specially composed pieces to fit old film footage of the harbour and stunning photography which will be broadcast live to the music. It should be premiering at a festival on the harbour next May.
The CD soundtrack to the film Albert Schweitzer: A Life For Africa has now been released (but sadly only in Germany). As expected, it is a double CD set, one with mainly Colin's compositions to go with the film (although 3 tracks are by Johann Sebastian Bach and 2 tracks by Gottfried Heinrich Stolzel); the other made up entirely of J S Bach's music played by Albert Schweitzer himself in 1935 / 1936. The CD credits / details have now been added to the Discography section of this site, or here.
Now some info of something rather new and exciting! Colin recorded his new 6 piece band in Germany in the spring and then in the UK in the summer. The album should have its final mixes this week, with plans to release it in Germany next May and then the year after in the UK. OK, so that's 2012, but I'm sure it'll be worth the wait! I'm told that there are plans to secure some festival gigs for it in Germany for next year. The band already have a website at www.bluetouchpaper.com, where you can see a fabulous 16 minute promo clip about the band, the musicians involved and of course, the music! Check it out......
Colin recently scored another play for Clwyd Theatr Cymru called Blackthorn which ran from 28th October to 20 November 2010. He has also written the music for some idents for the digital channel True Movies, and is currently working on idents for another channel (which is top secret at the moment!). He's also currently writing the music for series 2 of the German TV drama Flemming, and will begin writing the score to series 5 of the fabulous Doc Martin at some point next summer.
Have a well deserved break Colin, it's nearly Christmas!
14th August 2010:
Congrats go to Colin, who has been made made 'composer in residence' at the NDR Bigband! It means that he needs to do 2 or 3 productions per year for them. He's currently working on a project with the big band which will include visuals based on the theme of the history of Hamburg harbour, and he's recently recorded with the big band for a couple of weeks on a John Lennon project entitled John Lennon - In My Own Write (which may be released as a CD in the autumn). Colin has approx 8 concerts in the book for this already in Germany (see some of the new dates for in the Concerts section of the site).
He has also been recently doing some live work with the Mask Orchestra and helping out his old buddy Alan Skidmore with Ubizo, doing keyboards and electronics for them.
At the end of 2009 Colin he went to Sweden to rehearse and tour his arrangements of Cole Porter's music entitled Don't Fence Me In working with the well-known trumpeter Nils Landgren and the Bohuslan Bigband in Gothenburg. He recently went back to record the project, which has now been mixed and hopefuly will be released in the near future.
Colin has just finished scoring a play for the Old Vic Theatre entitled The Prisoner Of Second Avenue, which opened on 30th June and runs until 25 September 2010, starring Jeff Goldblum! Colin also has a couple of other plays and musicals currently in development, more on those soon.
He's also working on scoring a German TV drama called 'Am Kreuzweg' (The Way of the Cross) for the same production company (Phoenix Film) who did Flemming. And he's also scored the music to ' Jack Taylor', a film starring Iain Glen. However, this has still not been broadcast and now looks like it will probably go out as a series.
Finally, he has working on a small group project (6 musicians) jazz / rock based with Europeans, with some recording scheduled round about now! Sounds very interesting - can't wait to hear it!
28th March 2010:
The full credits to the German-only productions of Flemming and Doktor Martin (both series) now added to the Mini-series section of the site
26th February 2010:
Theatr Clwyd is now showcasing the Arden of Faversham, and will complete its run on 6th March. Directed by Terry Hands, it's described as 'an Elizabethan drama by an anonymous author .... based on a true story in which desire, envy and greed inexorably lead to death. The play is an early example of Elizabethan tragic-comedy. Blackly funny, it is not so much ‘whodunnit’ but ‘how’ and ‘when’...'
16th January 2010:
The credits to the Albert Schweitzer film have now been added to the Films section of the site. Expect a 2 x CD set of the soundtrack to be released soon, containing many original compositions by Colin and a selection of classical pieces, mainly by Bach. More details soon......
3rd January 2010:
As mentioned last time, Colin has written the score for a new film called Albert Schweitzer, who was an Alsatian German-French theologian, musician, philosopher, and physician. His passionate quest was to discover a universal ethical philosophy, anchored in a universal reality, and make it directly available to all of humanity. So now you know! A website has been set up to promote the film and can be found here (in German).
Gillan fans will be pleased to note that a new live 3CD set was released in November 2009 by EDSEL, the company that brought us the Gillan reissues a while back. Titled Live: Triple Trouble, it features sets by both the Bernie Tormé and Janick Gers lineups, giving us plenty to get your teeth into.
CD1 is a (full?) gig recorded with Bernie Tormé at the Rainbow Theatre, London on 4th March 1981 (although the packaging says 5th March 1981). All are previously unreleased tracks except for If You Believe Me, which ended up on the Double Trouble LP / CD in 1981.
CD2 brings us a set from the Reading Festival on 29th August 1981 with Janick Gers on guitar. 7 of the 13 tracks have been previously released before, mostly on Double Trouble and as B-sides to 2 singles, but it's nice to have the missing tracks and the correct running order for the show.
Finally, CD3 showcases the band's BBC session for Tommy Vance's Friday Rock Show in 1982 with Janick doing the guitar work. It's great to hear this session after all these years, bearing in mind the boys only had about 4 hours to record and mix these tracks. That just leaves us with the Friday Rock Show's session, recorded on 27th March 1980 to be released. Anyone know what the track listing was for this session (other than If You Believe Me, released on The BBC Tapes Volume 2: Unchain Your Brain)?
The remainder on disk 3 is a partial live show recorded at Nottingham's Rock City on 4th March 1981 (again, wrongly annotated on the packaging as being the 5th March 1981). As the story goes, Gillan were intending to record a live album and set about recording a few gigs from various venues around the country. However, the idea was scrapped when Bernie Tormé left the band, and thus the Reading Festival in 1981 was recorded, with replacement Janick Gers. Most of this particular Rock City gig was broadcast on Nottingham radio (which were Are You Sure?, Mr. Universe, Trouble, If You Believe Me, Mutually Assured Destruction, On The Rocks, New Orleans and Smoke On The Water) while Second Sight and Unchain Your Brain were the only tracks which were released officially (ending up on a compilation album called Live & Heavy). That just leaves us with Lucille, which is on CD3. Quite why the whole show wasn't released is a bit of a mystery, as EDSEL appear to have access to the original tapes.
See ya soon ...........