In this episode we are joined by some of the team behind out “Kielder Narratives” project: Composer Will Todd, Poet Dan Simpson, and musician & Producer Chad Male join Ian Brannan & Director of Astronomy Dan Pye to tell the story behind the work, and we will also hear the final production in full too!
Kielder Narratives is a collaborative project which builds upon the work we have already delivered with Southpaw Dance Company as part of Kielder Dark Skies.
We wanted to find different ways of engaging the communities in and around Kielder, so that they themselves can tell their story of working, living and playing in such a unique environment.
Funded by Arts Council England, Kielder Observatory were able to commission a poet, Dan Simpson, to complete a residency in the area- engaging with local communities to find out what the dark skies mean to them. The poet co-created poems, plays, songs and spoken word pieces to help articulate the thoughts and feelings of the communities were work in.Â
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[Music] coming up in this month’s episode find out how art meets space with a new project called ker narratives there’s a thing that happens when you’re there when you’re presented with the vastness of the universe and the vastness of kelda it’s it’s almost overwhelming initially you don’t quite know what you what you’re going to do apart from kind of stand there in we’ll hear from the team involved in creating that and the final work itself very soon first of all though joining myself Ian branon is director of astronomy at ker Observatory Dan pie to look at what the night sky has in store for us in the closing part of 2023 and the first part of 2024 Dan welcome as always and uh meteor showers have been quite a thing haven’t they over the past few weeks and some great sightings at ker as well yeah they have and it was actually unexpectedly a very clear night it was exactly what you wanted from a meteor show a night no moon clear skies uh yeah and it was great and and interestingly I’m I’m notoriously terrible for catching meteors usually it’s my camera is pointing the opposite direction to a really good meteor but I caught one a really good one this time so I’m really pleased that that that happened you can realize your dreams and this is Geminid shower as well isn’t it the Geminids meteor shower that was the Geminids yeah yeah so Geminids is quite interesting this year actually because um the Geminids is a slightly different meteor shower than what we get regularly so usually with the Geminids we get uh we’re moving through the tail end of a comet with the exception of a couple and the couple in exception around the same time of year actually so this this one the Geminids we once thought and if you Google it it says that it was the result of us moving through the debris trail of an asteroid with a comet-like orbit so that means it’s got this orbit where it goes really close to the Sun and then it passes some of the orbits of the planets back out into the solar system then comes back again goes around sun again well earlier in the year there was a couple of um uh research projects which had a look at this particular Comet at this particular asteroid sorry because people were thinking uh or these two people in particular were were think thinking that this asteroid might not be producing enough enough debris to stimulate the Geminids meteor shower which is about 2,000 I think it’s about 2,000 kilograms per second that we move through um now when that research was done earlier on in the year what they did was they had a look at the uh asteroid as it got closest to the Sun and it did what we call out gasing where gas escapes from it or it sublimates ice um or whatever um and and it was doing this out gas in at a rate of about 3 Kg per second and so the kind of conclusion that this this chap who was doing the research at the very beginning of the year got to was that actually it may be that this asteroid doesn’t have enough debris associated with it to give us the Geminids meteor shower so what was a kind of mystery as to what created the Geminid meteor shower is kind of almost turned to being a little bit of a mystery again and and maybe we can get somebody on in the New Year who can tell us a little bit more than about that because there was a couple of projects this year that have been doing the same thing trying to figure out whether the Geminids is in fact because of the the asteroid faton so there we go and there’s more meteor showers coming up at the start of um 2024 it’s the what do you call it the quadrantids meteor sh is that right quadrantids yeah the quadrantids is uh is up on the the third and fourth of January and that’s um that’s a good one as well it’s it’s a a reasonably active one um quadrant is uh another funny one as well because again it’s a it’s a an extinct Comet or as we call it so a comet that has uh no more ice uh Left Behind um but uh so I guess you could call this one a um an asteroid as well um and um actually no I think no hang on a second yeah sorry no so yeah yeah let me just rephrase that um so this one is quite an interesting one as well because we think this one is The Leftovers of what used to be a comet that went extinct so the comet broke apart and then all the little tiny bits of debris uh that are left drifting around the place that’s what uh creates the quadrantids and its name is a little bit different to the other meteor showers as well because usually we talk about meteor showers as having uh the the name the namesake that comes from them the way that we name them is based on what direction they’re coming from our perceived direction that they’re coming from in terms of the constellation that they appear to radiate from so the orionids is from the perspective of Orion uh or the radiant point of Orion and the Geminids from Gemini and this one is the quadrantids and you might be thinking well there is no quadrantid um constellation and you’re right there isn’t uh not in the 88 official constellations but there was a one that was called I believe it was quadran or something like that um which is an ancient constellation that we don’t we don’t talk about anymore but it’s not that we don’t talk about it’s just not part of the 88 constellations not part of the gang um okay looking at the end of 2023 into the start of 2024 then what are the uh astronomical highlights I suppose that people can look out for wherever they are just doing a bit of garden stargazing or walking the dog and and looking up what are the things to look out for at this time of year yeah so um Mercury’s in its greatest Western elongation that’s uh on the 12th of January so that means um it’s uh one of the better times to view Mercury it’s the the most distant it is from the Sun during the morning so if you’re an early riser you might see a little uh little tiny bright star just before the sun rises in the same direction as the sun’s rising and uh that there could be uh could be Mercury it’s fun little planet as mercury I like it it’s quite a good one yeah a fairly warm one but uh there it is so look out for that in the west but you’re going to have to be up uh fairly early before the sun comes up obviously but you’ll see it there in the mornings Mercury at its greatest Western elongation um Dan what’s the news then from ker Observatory clearly people can go on and and book plenty of sessions now um heading into the mid part of of 2024 but what other news can you bring us from ker Observatory they are well we have a new chief executive uh as well who’s coming to post and the transition period is officially underway where our uh previous chief executive um leaves on the 29th of February which happens to coincide with the uh with the event of um the tourism awards which we’re up for an award so that’s a nice goodbye if we win that um and and the new chief executive is now in post he started at the beginning of December and he has a very Spacey name his name is Le Venus Destin to work in astronomy I mean if you’re going to have a if you’re going to have an astronomical name you might as well have an astronomical job yeah it’s definitely a bonus yeah yeah it’s funny it feels like he’s changed his name by deed Paul just to to get the job but no that is his official name I’m yet to discover where it comes from though cuz I’m really interested in in in how he ended up with this day where did it come from where did it originate in terms of events and stuff though we’ve got loads of events all the way through the calendar up until May I think we’re currently um now advertising events for people love to book these events well in advance so they can book accommodation and stuff like that um we’re still in a pro period of review as to what we’re going to do with some of the events so there might be a little bit of a stall on on getting all of the events on the calendar but we like to make sure that we review all of the events continually to make sure that we’re uh delivering the best kind of product the best kind of experience and delivering exactly what it is that that the people want as well so we’re working hard on on taking all of the feedback that we get which we do every month and thinking about how we best uh sculpt events moving forward as well so there may be some changes on the way um but they’ll always be based off uh changes that people have asked for or people have um mentioned that they they would like to see from The Observatory all of these uh things we’re currently uh really trying to work quite hard on on doing okay watch this space there’s plenty going on as we head into 2024 now do you have a festive Pie in the Sky maybe a mince pie in the sky I don’t know something a little more challenging for our listeners toh to look out for in the skies of uh uh late December early January at this time of year yes so you’re going to need a a good maybe modest telescope which I’m guessing everybody got for Christmas anyway so I think you should go and have a look at this one here it’s called the Eskimo nebula or the clown face nebula or the lion nebula it does kind of look like a lion actually it’s quite interesting it’s when you see a really good photograph of this it looks like a lion’s mane it’s beautiful um but the esmore nebula is in the constellation of Gemini it’s a beautiful nebula to take a look at very small um and a good distance away from us about 5,000 light years away from us and this is a planetary nebula so this is The Leftovers of uh of a star which has died previously and it’s actually a bipolar double shell planetary nebula uh which was discovered by by William hersel um and potentially by his by his his sister as well Caroline hersel maybe they worked on this one together but a beautiful one to have a look at looks like a little tiny um fuzzy blob and this is that that dead star which ripped itself apart okay see how you get on with that one and let us know if you’re successful maybe send us a picture if you can as well another Pie in the Sky next month on the Kilda Observatory [Music] podcast you’re listening to the ker Observatory podcast now to our main feature which is around a new project called ker narratives it’s a collaborative project building upon some work that’s already been delivered with Southport dance company as part of ker dark skies and really the idea was to find different ways of engaging the communities in and around ker so that they themselves can tell their story of working living and playing in such a unique environment it’s been funded by art Council England and through this funding we’ve been able to commission a poet Dan Simpson we’ll hear from him very soon who completed a residency in the area to really get a feel for it and uh we also will hear very soon from the composer will Todd uh we also worked with sound designer and producer Chad ma as well as a couple of VoiceOver artists Jill Del and Chris Cornell uh many of which are with us on this podcast we’ll hear the main piece in a moment but first of all Dan P director of astronomy you were part of this project actually you worked in some of the uh the workshops that took place around it but just to explain some of the background to this from a Kilda perspective I was and it was a great project to be part of because it really helped us um Express the dark skies in a way that we never have done before with the poems and and music and it was something that I I must admit I was quite skeptical of uh mainly because I I’m not particularly the most artsy person I don’t think that I really get the way that artsy people communicate and poetry for me didn’t really resonate with me either but I feel like I have after this Workshop got a whole new appreciation for poetry the way that music’s constructed and the final piece is just absolutely stunning I love to hear it but this um this really was building on a previous project which we ran called kill the dark skies and um the idea a was to concrete stories plays and poems uh with the Kea communities and then um disseminate these narratives online to catalyze a greater connection with kelder and its culture uh primarily across the Northeast is what we wanted to do this on so that’s uh that’s that’s the scope of the project if you like and I think it really achieved a great deal of that it would engage the local community we had a great group of people working with us um during the session um and it was just amazing to hear the different uh the different words that people use to describe thing and hear their different experiences and appreciate the uh the diversity that we have around the area as well well it is a collaborative project and I’m pleased to say that a few of those involved in it are joining us on the podcast will Todd is a well-known English composer um his work encompasses Coral Works large and small Opera musical theater Jazz comp positions chamber works and his Anthem the call of wisdom was performed at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations with a TV audience of 45 million people poet in resonance Dan Simpson is a writer performer producer and educator and uh we’ll hear more about the work he’s done but he’s had work performed around the world including at the glastenbury festival Chicago’s Uptown poetry slam and many more as well and also featured on the BBC and sound designer and producer Chad M an award-winning music producer mixer and songwriter hailing from the Northeast and based in Newcastle upon time his own project Cape Club has amassed nearly 45 million plays on Spotify alone so all people who are well-versed in their various uh areas that are required to bring this together and we’ll hear how they combined to create the ker narratives piece very soon we’ll hear the actual full piece in a few moments but first of all to you will as we’ve heard you’re an experienced composer you’ve worked on on many great things tell tell us about your involvement in this particular project though and um how it began for you and how the process began to bring this work to life and and create it yeah I mean I I had a fantastic time with with Dan we um I was also up for a while uh at staying at Kea and we had some amazing um experiences being taken around the environment um which I don’t know if we might talk about in a bit but um in purely logistical terms I was part of the work sh that Dan did at the observatory and I I provided a musical element and what we did was we um alongside sort of creating words with our wonderful participants that we had we we gathered it into a kind of impromptu song Now That that piece of music hasn’t yet been fully realized and we’re hoping that that might happen um you know in the next part of the project hopefully next year perhaps get a choir to record that um but I think what that allowed for Dan was that it gave gave him a sort of sense of uh a sort of wider perspective of the Poetry that we’d produced um on that day and then he’s he’s gone away and created from that um and then Chad’s actually reacted straight off those words so Chad hasn’t actually reacted as it were off my music specifically um and he’s created that beautiful sound bed what I’m quite interested in in the next part of the project I must say is to get perhaps the song that I worked on recording corally and perhaps collaborate with Chad to integrate a sort of sound World in and around it CU I think that would be a really exciting sort of Next Step that might come out of it and so the inspiration really behind it is not just the night sky it’s the whole ker experience and that’s what you’ve lived you know being in the forest being out in a remote area but then of course when the night does come it’s incredibly dark and you can see some some wonderful things on a clear night too I mean I’m speaking for myself but I think from having spoken to a few of the others around us there’s there’s a thing that happens when you’re there when you’re presented with the vastness of the universe and the vastness of kelda it’s it’s almost overwhelming initially you don’t quite know what you what you going to do apart from kind of stand there in awe at all this sort of integration of the the natural world that the man-made natural world up at kelda but then also the universe which you’re observing very wonderfully the way it’s presented at at the observatory there um and in in previous meetings that we’ve had working on this project going back a couple of years we’ve had a number of different thoughts depending on whether we were looking at live music happening at Kea which might be something that we’re going to explore further down the line versus what we’ve got currently which is Chad’s fantastic composition which I think really captures something of the mysterious but also the emotional um up there because I think that’s the thing that you’re trying to link isn’t it Chad when you’re thinking Sonic is how how do you sort of because obviously you know music is man-made human made if you like um but but it echoes certain things and actually what you’ve done in the soundscape which I think is fantastic this is a sense of sort of a the nature sort of coming alive in a musical way I wonder if you could maybe explain how you did that actually thanks well it’s really kind of you to say it’s it’s definitely something that informed it I think when reacting to the word specifically obviously when when we looked at the piece and when I was constructing the the soundscape it’s very much reacting off the sections and I felt like it told a story and there were certain Peaks and troughs there were moments of calm there were there were pauses there were kind of dramatic moments and I think when you add that to the Landscapes that I guess you know we talk about rivers in there well down you you talk about rivers in there you talk about industry you talk about nature you talk about that Jer position there that sort of exists and there’s a kind of tension isn’t there there’s a tension between that man-made aspect and what is natural and what’s kind of a sort of post natural thing as well where you’ve got things that are emerging naturally after it’s being changed massively so I think all of that tension definitely played way into them into that soundscape and if I sort of Zoom right into it there’s tension in the way that those natural elements are portrayed in the music as well so we’ve got sort of harsh pauses we’ve got rhythmic elements that are kind of almost at the end almost right in the background but almost ravy and almost industrial and kind of jarring but then they’re sort of Blended together with kind of atmospheric ethereum real sort of textures and gentle things and so yeah it very much kind of fed off the words and it plays on what it feels like to be there in Kea because I’ve spent a lot of time up there in the past been to the observatory quite a few times now being there at midnight camped out in Kaa um official at the official Kea campsite I should say um and kind of experience what it feels like to have that silence and it’s really it’s it’s really EX exting and also really um you kind of feel like you’re like enveloped by the whole thing when you’re there and I think with the music that’s kind of what it wanted I felt like it wanted to sort of portray that kind of calmness that Solitude that kind of underbelly of tension and feeling that you get when you are there yeah think kind of it I hope that sums it up well we’ll listen to the the final work in full in just a moment um before we do let’s just hear from Dan Simson we’ve got two Dans on the podcast Dan P director of astronomy but Dan Simpson you are the poet you did this um workshop with with various people from around ker to to come up with the words so just tell us about your part in this and and the process that you went through initially the process was it was just being in the place and being sort by myself in the place and exploring but then very much with people who knew it really intimately um I had a great day out with Dave who run something called my take on killed her and he just knows that place inside out and knows all the people who are rattling around in his Jeep like stopping every now and then as he was like meeting people he knew so I really got to you know as far as I could experience it through the eyes and the the the sense of being through someone else um which is really wonderful and then yeah being taken to see the forestry stuff all the um trees being put through this process of being made into useful materials for us and and spending some time up at the observatory both with astronomers and also people coming there to take part in the workshop who also local people yeah I mean really being present for it was the beginning of it and then just like furiously scrabbling notes onto my iPhone um for whatever thoughts popped into my brain and then I like right future Dan will take care of those and probably turn something decent okay well let’s have a listen to it then because then people will have a a greater understanding of what we’re talking about this is the project kelder narratives how can I say silence without breaking it an impossible task yet Silence has its own quality the stretched torness of a vibrationless eardrum felt as pressure as absence besides it’s not really silent here but simply very quiet our Modern Life adjusted hearing experiencing the relatively noiseless atmosphere and providing the word silence perhaps the stargazing scientists know better with their understanding of vacuums and vibrations I am Kea the not quite silent but the so very [Music] quiet from the hilltop a query radiates out of a room The Observatory speaking a question into space how which is a surface level word for why finally tuning their telescopes to listen deeper into the night sky through the atmosphere and Beyond the solar system The Observatory Waits For answers written in the light sent from dying stars for a long time silence and then in an instant a [Music] reply later understand [Music] our feet sink silently into Heather which Springs back gently like we were never there it giggles at the game of seemingly staying the same from the peak of dead water fell the radar Tower waves continuously at all around it as if it is desperate for a conversation it breathes heavily gasping in its invisible insistence suffocating the electromagnetic spectrum so the people below cannot speak on their phones tempting to believe that it looks down on us but really it is looking up to the sky and the strange birds that fly in it here we make the river hold its breath taking a big gulp in puffing out its cheeks I’ll just chill here then the water thinks as it slows but it’s not alone hello moon the edges of its Reservoir form SOS to and through wriggling around the creatures that live inside it my body was created by science but now fish swim freely through me and it tickles a trickle of water is allowed to escape its ped lips rushing through the pipes shouting Freedom rushing away to who knows where we speak with the voice of a million beings A Chorus growing from sapling to Timber the sharp breath as our roots are shoved into soil a slow gentle hum as we grow through the decades the buz of a chainsaw as we are cut and we fall we are all young none of us wise as our elders are though the form we take belies it you want to see history in us a link to some ancient past as if we have witnessed you growing up Through the Ages but the rings of our trunks tell a short dendr chronology you are older than us on this land we are a factory of trees cycling from season to season an industrial Plantation a recreation of the wild as forests go we are a clumsy child a crescendo of leaves reaches for the sky before the falling drum beat trunk on Earth the dead notes of Silence return to the [Music] clearing nobody is ever really stuck it is your nature to be free the moon Whispers across space gently pulling the reservoir to its edges and back in turn the water nips at our fingers semi playfully leaving a cool residue I will bite if you let me both telescopes and trees collect light giving back to us life as the video zooms out to show a cosmic web of galaxies my neurons run in an electric hum of thought the video ends Darkness from the side of the room a voice in the beginning was nothing the man is silhouetted By the Light of the projector hitting a screen showing us a representation of void I think back to visiting the source of the time marked by an obelisk and surrounded by sheep over the border of England in another country and how standing there earlier that didn’t seem to mean anything we are drawn to definition boundaries and Beginnings this was the universe microsc into its existence at its origin the river is silent holding its breath Gathering energy for a downhill ride to its mouth by now all the natural elements are present I recall that Fantastical seeming everyday fact everything we’re formed of was forged in the hearts of stars the river pauses and pools nearby in a human-made reservoir someone asks a question about Dark Matter dark energy and I wonder what unseen forces determine what happens around kelda the orbit of people around this Lake this Forest this place spinning out into Villages and into pubs into houses we make homes each an interdependent particle affecting the whole system the Unseen falling of a tree a butterfly effect Network Rippling out the man’s face is lit by the light of uncountable galaxies we know the universe is expanding but we don’t know how it will end there that is fantastic isn’t it superb piece of work so atmospheric and it’s a real journey isn’t it and all through the experiences that you lived as a group of you involved in this project but also bringing to life those experiences of the people from around kelda as well um let’s go back to Dan Simpson and will Todd um will you were one of the composers musically for for this work working alongside Dan and of course Chad brings it to life and we’ll speak to each of you but um how did the process go then when you had this workshop with some people from the local area and and really starting to form the piece in its in its first instance so so so we had I don’t know how many about 25 30 people possibly um and Dan got them to write poetry which was incredible I I was there I I had my little keyboard in there and we sort of improvised a bit of um Star music I was thinking in my mind as they came in and then Dan got them thinking about um different aspects and I know it’s what you do Dan but before long people were sort coming along with couplets and then little phrases um and actually what we ended up with at the end of that session was we sort of had a refrain didn’t we that they they sang which was made up out of their words and then people spoke little bits that they’d done and actually was quite nice cuz we initially thought um maybe people would be a bit nervous but actually we ended up with quite a lot of people wanting to speak their thoughts so so for me observing down at work because I I was I was wasn’t exactly in the background because I I did the song bit but um it was really great that people came up with all those images and ideas which I guess you wouldn’t necessarily have thought of yourself is that right yeah 100% I think there’s something about being present and open available to the whole sense of the place and that very much includes the people um yeah it felt more like a unlike some of my work more like a channeling of what’s here whenever I do a residency I I feel like that’s the approach for me I’m in there and you know everything I’m experiencing is through this Consciousness I suppose but very much being aware that it’s a filtered for something else I think that’s true of the landscape and yeah will very much with the people in that room who came to our Workshop which was one of the most wonderful workshops I’ve run especially as as you said they were I think a general sense of nervousness not too sure what are we doing exactly and then getting them expressing something really um in response to their experience of ker and then Will adding in this beautiful music and getting everyone singing this repeated refrain H yeah it was absolutely beautiful experience incredibly inspiring for the writing for sure and Chad ultimately you pulled everything together will and Dan Simpson who’s with us came up with the with the words and an idea for the music um ultimately though it was you that performed it and brought it all to life and and pulled it together to that to be that piece that we we just heard there just tell us about that that process for you and and and and your thoughts on it with something like this I think with the best kind of art or music or anything like this it’s something you can it feels like a conversation doesn’t it and it doesn’t just feel like something you’re observing or you’re looking at or it feels like and I think if this does turn into a sort of body of work of sorts or something that does continue it would be amazing to kind of turn that into more of a conversation so what really excites me what you said will about the coral stuff as well that that is like the close to being the the purest embodiment of their voice and at least get that’ll give you the emotional feeling and resonance resonance won’t it and I suppose if that can feed its way into it if if more conversations with people in the locality physical things happening there be a pretty special thing and if this is just the starting point then that’s a really exciting place to be starting from isn’t it it is yeah I think just from my perspective though I think cuz um I I was part of the workshop that um will and Dan did at the observatory and it was very unexpected for me because I I kind of went into it like you say quite nervous quite uh apprehensive about what was going to happen i’ never written poetry before and to be honest I’ve never really been interested in poetry before and no disrespect to you Dan but it was just that I don’t know I’ve never really connected with poetry but I really felt like that during the session you helped us you guided us through it in such a way that I actually started to really enjoy it unexpectedly enjoyed it and really uh really feel like I got something from it and and the same with will as well seeing will produce this music just from uh what he was hearing around the room and reacting to what he was hearing around the room was almost magical and or inspiring in such a way um so from my perspective on that basis it was incredible but also from our perspective as the observatory as well I think it’s really important to acknowledge the different experiences people have with the Dark Skies around the area and that’s something that we become a little bit insular of we get this uh very much single-minded view of we do astronomy and we forget about the fact that people live around the area and what they experiences are about the Dark Skies so I think it was really enlightening for us to hear these different stories and to hear these different experiences presented in such a way so great job it’s really nice to hear that because you because you don’t you don’t um uh you don’t in a sense always get the feedback of of of of what happened in a session and and I know and I both felt when we came out that was really special session you know that was sort of our our feeling of it wasn’t it so it’s nice to hear that that because that’s that’s sort of the feeling we had in the room that people went from do I have anything to do with poetry to suddenly saying beautiful little phrases coming out from people like really powerful sort of part of things so to hear you express that is really really lovely isn’t it Dan Dan s that is yeah yeah very much yeah really lovely to hear Dan um yeah and I think that that’s for me also the power of poetry it is something a generalization that people often do struggle to connect with it in an everyday sort of General way and then it gets busted out at the big life events like births and weddings and funerals and they go oh okay yeah there’s something there for me um but maybe not most of the time so to try and make it a bit more everyday accessible and just it is your voice our voices being expressed in the same way that music is really um is really yeah lovely to hear that we we got some of that from the participants there yeah it felt true so thanks Dan a key part of this piece that we haven’t really really talked about so far are the voices that you use in it uh two voiceover artists Jill Del and Chris canel were the voices that feature obviously very very prominently uh in this whole composition um I don’t know Chad if you want to talk to us more about the voices that that that you chose and feature in this piece so I didn’t actually decide on them I I I was gifted with them the um and then but they were um they were amazing um they because at first I didn’t know if it would be people with Northeast accents people with even more local accents to to keer I didn’t know how it would work and they couldn’t have I don’t think they could have captured it any better really they kind of they sound so authentic to the to the area so when they tell the stories in in here they kind of they just sit there really nicely and it feels really pure as well when we were recording there was hardly anything I really needed to do with them to be honest we kind of we we sectioned it out we spoke about the themes we thought about the call and response elements you know where one person might be speaking to the other we were asking you know are the characters here um if so how should these characters be presented whether it’s the person in the observatory um who speaking to the projector whether it’s the voice of a million beings that you know you’ve got all these different sort of subtle personas throughout at least we interpret it that way and you’ve got these kind of different almost playful characters it was almost like a play in that sense so how do we do that with two people that are kind of speaking to this we are we tur it into a conversation are we turning this into chunks and that was so interesting and they were so natural with it as well and it made my job really easy um it was an interesting I’m sure Jill want M me saying this as well but she came in and she said she didn’t realize it I think she was speaking to one of the her parents or something and she’d said that her grandfather actually lived in Kaa she didn’t know this and worked there so there was there’s almost like an ancestral kind of channeling when she was recording it I didn’t know of that and she she was quite surprised by by that information too and that kind of fed into it as well um so working with them was a real pleasure they got it they invested in it they weren’t just sort of hitting record and go for it we really tried to think about how those stories wanted to be told within the piece and and yeah they were just a pure pleasure to work with to be honest they were brilliant and so it’s a lot of work a big responsibility for you Chad to bring all this together you’ve had the you know the the the sessions the creative sessions where people have contributed their thoughts Dan has done his poetry wil’s done his composition But ultimately it’s you that brings all this to life with the voices what was the reaction and how was it when you finally let it out of your studio into the world to be heard um it’s at that moment before you saw of go over the hill on a roller coaster and you kind of you get ready for it and then it goes um yeah it’s it’s been lovely had some really really nice feedback um often kind of going back to what I was saying often quite emotional feedback as well people who’ve listened to it felt quite moved by the words and and the message there and the kind of feeling that it embodies um which is you know working in music and will you’ll know this quite often you provoke an emotional resp response but with this it’s been quite different it’s not like a song it’s not like a a standard piece of production it’s kind of something a bit more interesting than that um so yeah I’ve had some some really lovely feedback and for me personally working on it it’s been a pure joy it’s been something a little bit different and it’s nice to kind of exercise those creative muscles isn’t it on something that’s quite quite all-encompassing and and and large in its scope so yeah it’s been it’s been really lovely and Dan Simpson The Man Behind the words um what’s the feedback you’ve re received them because obviously a lot of work went into it with the local community as you mentioned and uh how’s their reaction been to to hearing the final production I’ve had some lovely feedback from people which is really wonderful um this is definitely work I’m like more proud of the normal I’m proud of all the work I make but there did feel like something pretty special about this one um so it’s one of the few pieces I kind of message around to all my friends and family and um people I know going would you listen please listen and yeah the feedback has been really wonderful um I particularly I’ve worked in sort of public engagement with of science um Public Communication of Science and public engagement for a while so I’ve sent it to some of my scientist friends who are engaged in that as well um and that their feedback has been really wonderful they’ve they’ve gone wow this is a really excellent project for what we do uh so that’s been lovely to hear as well now will you’re a composer you’ve been behind some really big produ CS in your career um what’s the next step with this for you then what would you like to see happen with this piece to take it on to another level so actually what we’ve what we’ve done so far and I know we’re hoping as I say to record this little bit of coral music as well that came out of the the workshop um during next year with with one of the Newcastle choir I’m hoping um Voices of Hope might be able to record that for us um you know these are Stepping Stones potentially towards uh a large piece of work platforming forward to another piece of work or a large piece of work we’ve sort of got some blocks in place that we know feel right so um although the timelines ended up sort of starting to be longer than perhaps Katherine originally thought or we originally thought I think um it will progress at the pace at its natural pace um so I hope we can make a bigger piece um but what we’ve got so far feels very authentic which I think is the most important thing our thanks to will Todd Dan Simpson and Chad ma for joining us three of those involved in ker narratives you can see the full video uh and much more information about it online at ker observatory. org when you get there if you click on the Outreach section you’ll see killer narratives have a click on that and you’ll be able to see the video of it you can also search YouTube for ker narratives as well while you’re at the website don’t forget you can book now for many of our events taking place over the coming few months in fact the end of April all on sale now uh including Aurora nights including astrophotography even a basic introduction to astronomy and some familyfriendly events as well covering the Easter holidays so now is the time to book if you want to take the kids or have a family visit over the course of the Easter holidays get online and book you can see the sessions available and just visit kelda observatory. org for all the information thanks once again for joining us on this episode of The kelda Observatory podcast please don’t forget to like And subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss out on any future episodes and check out some of the past episodes as well covering some fantastic topics including black holes volcanoes of space and dark matter many things covered thanks again and we’ll join you on the next episode of the ker Observatory podcast take care bye-bye [Music]