‘Symphonies of the Sublime’ is a YouTube channel hosting a series of performances and interviews with an ever increasing number of musical artists who are based in the UK and Ireland. Each musician's contribution exists as a stand alone performance that can be viewed on the ‘Symphonies of the Sublime’ youtube channel here
Throughout the project, we will be attempting to raise funds to finance the continuation of this project, allowing us to pay artists and pay for production costs. The aim is to create a spectacular collection of performances and interviews by some of the many remarkable musicians who operate in the UK and Ireland. We hope the channel will bring well deserved exposure to the artists we film and even create new connections between artists hitherto unknown to each other. The project is not focused on any particular genre, culture or musical discipline, it simply aims to delve deep into the unparalleled tapestry and diversity of traditions alive in the UK today - some you could describe as traditional or endemic to the British Isles, some are more recent arrivals and are exciting to experience and novel, others have been here for many generations and are so deeply embedded in the post-war British cultural narrative, that it warrants a re-think as to what we understand the 'music of the British Isles' to be.
A central theme running through this project is the exploration of the inevitable cross-pollination and deviation that, from the moment music began to emerge, has surely served as the mechanism giving rise to the countless instruments, styles, disciplines and practices of musical expression we see across the world today.
Many of the world's musical traditions and the instruments belonging to them are under threat of disappearing as younger generations show less interest in them - this is apparent in Asian, African and the cultures of the Americas as much as it is in European/Western ones, with many of the world's nations desperately striving to keep its traditions alive.
Ideas and their manifestations come and go - they live and they die. This is the pattern of history, but there is, nonetheless, a thriving ecosystem of music traditions in the UK and Ireland, on which this project focuses on, originating from near and far, being kept alive by those who care to pick up the mantle.
Yet the idea of tradition and what it actually means is a tricky one. What does it mean to be described as traditional? Who gets to define it? Is traditional synonymous with authentic? The answer to the latter is surely no. The truth is that holding on to ideals, resisting change and to assign arbitrary value to something that has been designated to characterise the ‘traditional’ is arguably a misconception rooted primarily in European Romanticism and Nationalism that fails to appreciate the constantly evolving nature of music as a living, breathing and ever-changing cultural and transcultural phenomenon.
Music has always been and is still (albeit maybe less apparent in the modern era) a reckoning of the old and new. It is a vehicle for dissidence whilst also an act of unity and celebration. It is without doubt a form of séance and a dialogue seeking to maintain connection through which to offer explanation and to create meaning, and it seems that at least in part to be such, that it is this trait that imbues the somewhat uniquely spiritual dimension to the phenomenon of music. From the most devout practice of the Sufi musician as a life dedicated to the transcendental through a discipline where spiritual and musical practices are inseparable, to the perceived value of old instruments like the Stradivarius violin or the 50s Telecaster - No doubt these instruments sound superior for a number of reasons, but it is surely the resonating musical legacy they carry, and their connection to their forebears, that gives these instruments their meaning.
‘Symphonies of the Sublime’ is a celebration of this most beautiful aspect of humanity. It is a journey into what we hope will be a revelation that shines light onto something we have and that is worth preserving - that which is worth keeping alive because it is what makes us feel alive. It keeps us connected to who we are and where we come from.
There is no other cultural practice quite like music.
It almost certainly predates the emergence of Homo sapiens and is thus etched into the ancestral DNA of our species. It is one of the very few practices shared across every culture that has ever existed—and perhaps the only one that every human being who has ever lived has, in some form, engaged with...
"Without music, life would be a mistake"
Friedrich Nietzsche