The North Sea Radio Orchestra (NSRO) is an English contemporary music ensemble and cross-disciplinary chamber orchestra (plus chorus). Formed in 2002, the NSRO was set up mainly as a vehicle for the compositions of its musical director, Craig Fortnam, but has also performed works by William D. Drake and James Larcombe. The ensemble is notable for its post-modern fusion of Romantic music and later twentieth-century forms, and for its bridging of the worlds of contemporary classical music, British folk music, London art rock and poetry.
Sound and presentation
The North Sea Radio Orchestra is an ensemble of varying size, drawing on a pool of up to twenty members. It performs compositions which range from single-instrument solos and voice-and-guitar duos up to full chamber-orchestra-and-choir pieces (and all points in between, including assorted trios, quartets, quintets etc.). The instrumentation within the ensemble features woodwind, strings, orchestral and electronic percussion, nylon-string guitar, chamber organ, piano and the human voice. In some line-ups, between six and ten members have sung as "the North Sea Chorus".
Compositionally, the NSRO favours original material with elements of the following – tonal/melodic classical composition, English choral and festival music, modern and ancient folk music, and minimalism. Some improvisation is also encouraged. The NSRO themselves cite influences including Benjamin Britten, television composer Vernon Elliott, The Incredible String Band, Vaughan Williams, and more metaphysical influences such as "London clay, water from the Thames and shingle from Bankside".Band biography on Oof! Records homepage . Retrieved 20 September 2008 Various critics have also made comparisons to the music of rock/classical/crossover musicians such as Simon Jeffes' Penguin Café Orchestra, Sean O'Hagan's High Llamas, Frank Zappa, Clogs, Sufjan Stevens, Max Richter, Nick Drake, Virginia Astley, Kate St John and Peter Warlock. Since 2010, the band has displayed a stronger influence of Krautrock.
Another frequently cited compositional influence on the NSRO is Tim Smith, leader of the British psychedelic rock group Cardiacs (which incorporates influences including Early and baroque music). The NSRO is generally regarded as being part of the collection of varied musical groups connected with Cardiacs: it includes in its line-up one former and one current member of Cardiacs, plus at least five other musicians associated with the band.
For much of its existence, the NSRO was nostalgic in presentation and themes. Between 2002 and 2010, the poetry chosen for musical settings was predominantly classic 18th /19th/ early 20th century pre-modernist material, chosen for "its natural song-like meter and rhyme".Feature on NSRO in The Octagonal blog with the ensemble's subtler post-modern elements generally restricted to the musical content. Poets chosen included W. B. Yeats, Thomas Hardy and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Craig Fortnam has also set modern texts, written in the same nostalgic vein by Daniel Dundas Maitland. Since 2010, the band's work has focussed on setting Craig and Sharron Fortnam's original lyrics.
History
Prehistory
While growing up in Kingston upon Thames and playing in psychedelic rock bands as a teenager, Craig Fortnam gravitated towards the cluster of bands surrounding the long-standing British psychedelic band Cardiacs. He went on to study composition and guitar at Dartington College of Arts. Graduating in 1990, he returned to London. During this period he composed material written for a variety of classical genres and ensembles, but also became involved with the London underground rock scene as a guitarist. One of the bands which he played in was the psychedelic acoustic band Lake of Puppies, led by Fortnam's friend (and former Cardiacs keyboard player) William D. Drake. The band gigged infrequently and recorded a few tracks, but never released an album. However, the band also featured singer and bass guitarist Sharron Saddington. The two would also become longtime musical partners, and following their marriage, she would become known as Sharron Fortnam.
In 1995, Craig and Sharron teamed up with two other former Cardiacs (saxophonist/keyboard player Sarah Smith and drummer Dominic Luckman) to form the Shrubbies. This band gigged enthusiastically in London for several years (playing concerts with like-minded bands such as The Monsoon Bassoon, Podsdarapomuk and Delicate AWOL) and released one eponymous EP in 1997 followed by the album Memphis in Texas in 1999. However, Fortnam began to become disillusioned with the poor etiquette and atmosphere he encountered at rock concerts, later recalling "I began to realise that most people were there for a social thing, and people were talking all the way through. That just started annoying me and I thought, 'I'll write music that doesn't have drums, that isn't loud, and we'll play places where people sit down and then they won't talk." The Shrubbies split up in 1998, and the now-married Fortnams opted to pursue a more ambitious and flexible project which could showcase both Craig's contemporary classical compositions and Sharron's unconventional singing voice (which blended elements of classical mezzo-soprano with folk and pop stylings). Recruiting several other musicians, they set up the North Sea Radio Orchestra.
2002–2003: The City Church concerts
The North Sea Radio Orchestra first appeared in public via a series of successful concerts in various antique churches within the square mile of the City of London – St Martin, Ludgate; St Clement Eastcheap and St Olave Hart Street. Taking place during 2002 and 2003, these concerts were publicised mainly by word-of-mouth. They were very much self-motivated occasions with a slightly antique/Edwardian feel (complete with home-made art-deco-styled concert programmes designed by Sharron Fortnam).
Members of NSRO for the first concert included the Fortnams, percussionist Hugh Wilkinson, cellist/composer Harry Escott and organist/composer James Larcombe (of Stars in Battledress), all of whom would continue in the ensemble long-term. Other performers included Nick Hayes (clarinet). Inspired by the success of the first few concerts, the NSRO began to expand (ultimately becoming a twenty-person ensemble). While the instrumentalists were mostly drawn from the classical world, the vocal chorus contained former Shrubbies concert-mates and collaborators from the Fortnams' time on the London art rock circuit. These included current and former members of Stars in Battledress, The Monsoon Bassoon and Sidi Bou Said. Stars in Battledress frontman Richard Larcombe (brother of James) also shared some lead vocal parts with Sharron Fortnam. Later on, the Fortnam's former Lake of Puppies bandmate William D. Drake joined the ensemble as chorus singer and occasional solo pianist.
A few demo CDs were also made available at this time. These included early recordings of Craig Fortnam's settings of Tennyson's "The Flower" and "Every Day Hath Its Night" and the Zappa-esque "Nest of Tables". Early (and very positive) reviews of both the EP and the concerts appeared in underground publications including Organ and Evophonic.
2004–2006: The NSRO gains wider attention
In October 2004 the NSRO played a concert at Bush Hall in West London which was reviewed by John L. Walters in The Guardian. Walters drew attention to the initial difficulties in classifying the ensemble's music but drew positive conclusions: “Is it ironic? Romantic retro? Or post-minimalist post-modernity? Behold the eleven-piece chamber orchestra beneath the chandeliers of Bush Hall, and you realise that Craig Fortnam, their leader and chief composer, is utterly serious in his quest for accessible, intelligent, non-trivial music…. What makes the NSRO special is Fortnam's gift for orchestration, the deft and original way he puts deceptively simple materials in the hands of sophisticated performers. Melody pours from his pen on every page."Guardian review of NSRO at Bush Hall, 2004 by John L. Walters. Retrieved 20 October 2008
In 2005, the NSRO released their first formal EP The Flower (on seven-inch vinyl) on the tiny London independent label Oof! Records. It contained a re-recorded version of "The Flower", plus two more Tennyson settings ("The Lintwhite" and "Move Eastward Happy Earth") and three instrumental pieces ("Music For Two Clarinets And Piano", "Organ Miniature No. 1" and "Nest of Tables"). On 22 October 2005 the NSRO played their first concert at St Martin in the Fields, Trafalgar Square, London.
On 31 July 2006 the North Sea Radio Orchestra performed at the Spitz, East London at a Music Orbit evening (a spin-off of the iF Festival) alongside NEM and Makeshift. The evening was presented as "a combination of gamelan, improvisation, electronica and lyrical chamber music." In September 2006, an NSRO track appeared on the nu-folk compilation album Folk Off: New Folk and Psychedelia from the British Isles and North America – this was the Craig Fortnam solo performance of “Guitar Miniature”.
The NSRO performed at the Spitz again on 28 October 2006 (supported by William D. Drake). This concert received a five-star review in the Daily Telegraph which nominated the "superbly disciplined chamber ensemble" as "the kind of deserving enterprise the BBC should really be throwing money at," and singled out praise for Sharon Fortnam's voice as possessing "dazzling, pre-industrial clarity."Daily Telegraph live review of NSRO by Ben Thompson as archived on Oof! Records news page. Retrieved 20 October 2008 Reviewing the same concert, underground e-zine Bubblejam commented on the intimate quality of the music and the quality of the concert itself – "not unlike being at a church service or a poetry recital – the crowd were completely rapt and utterly silent." The reviewer also concluded "for an all too brief time, they evoke an atmosphere of timeless beauty in the otherwise harsh environs of the East End. If I met an extra-terrestrial and wanted to communicate the concept of Englishness quickly and easily, I could do a lot worse than to play them the music of the North Sea Radio Orchestra."Bubblejam review of NSRO live at the Spitz by "Mullah". Retrieved 20 October 2008
2006: Release of debut album
In October 2006 the NSRO released their debut album – North Sea Radio Orchestra – on Oof! Records. The album was recorded, engineered and mastered by former Cardiacs member Mark Cawthra and contained much of the ensemble's live set from the past three years. Tracks included Fortnam's settings of Thomas Hardy's "Shelley's Skylark", Yeats' "He Gives His Beloved Certain Rhymes" and "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven", plus new instrumental "Kingstanding" and the part-instrumental/part-choral "Chimes". Other members also contributed material. William D Drake provided "Bill's March" and "Mimnermus in Church" – the latter a Drake setting of a poem by William Johnson Cory with orchestrations by Craig Fortnam – and Sharron and Craig Fortnam co-wrote the folk song "Joy For My Heart".
The album received plenty of critical praise. Word Magazine called it "a beautiful debut.... unreservedly recommended," while Leeds Guide praised "a style of songwriting and a lyricism (nostalgic, pastoral, quaint) which is peculiarly English and suddenly, in their hands, timeless" and their reviewer dubbed the recording "one of the best albums, whatever the genre, that I have heard this year." Playlouder.com claimed that "North Sea Radio Orchestra splash colour into every corner of the speakers with a regal splendour and effervescent celebration of God, Nature or whatever it is you may wish to call it."Playlouder.com review of NSRO debut album . Retrieved 20 October 2008