Buxton’s Crescent Trust’s Arts Council Programme Celebrates Buxton’s Water
Buxton Crescent Heritage Trust are delighted to announce a programme of celebratory events for the community, visitors, local artists and musicians that will celebrate the town’s water. The Trust are working closely with award-winning artist Amy Sharrocks on an inspiring multi-discipline artistic programme that offers residents and local artists the chance to share thoughts about the town’s liquid assets, to perform and work collaboratively.
The programme, which runs from September to January 2020, opens with Pump Room Live, a free daytime music performance on the Pump Room roof on the 21 and 22 September. The event, sponsored by Markovitz Home Show, will premiere Water Swallows, a new sonic artwork for Buxton by Amy Sharrocks, made in collaboration with people who live here. Water Swallows has been recorded across Buxton and out across the peaks, looking at our landscape of water and the experience of living here. The work roams through a landscape of springs and dams, through prehistoric, roman and celtic histories and modern day life. Exploring the negotiation of natural resources in an age of climate change, the sound work takes its name from the local quarry, an industrial site which has been re-purposed as a lake. Water Swallows will be broadcast for the first time at 3pm 22 September during Pump Room Live as a listening experience for 500 people on the Slopes. The full version of the work will then be available from the Pump Room for a year for free - headsets can be collected during opening times from the Visitor Centre. An unusual pedestal cabinet has been made by Buxton artist Sarah Brindley as a special housing for the binaural sound work in a new collaboration.
Pump Room Live will this year take the theme of water and wellbeing to heart: there is no plastic on site, there will be wellbeing tents to support self-care. The 500 headsets will be used for a watery silent disco on Saturday night 21 September, getting people used to the sensation of listening closely together, and foreshadowing sound workshops that will happen in the Pump Room. On 14 November at 2pm and 6pm the local creative community and students will be invited to workshops Thirty Years of Noise to explore the creative use of sound with Tom Hackley, a nationally renowned sound designer.
The Trust and Amy are also working on a light installation around St Anne’s Well which will be launched in November for the lead up to Christmas, again inspired by the town’s famous thermal mineral water. Local artists have been invited to host and attend presentations and networking events in the autumn to be held in The Pump Room at 3 sessions in the Autumn. The aim is to enable local artists of various disciplines to meet and share experiences and ideas.
Finally The Trust are proud to be working in partnership with Buxton Opera House on a premiere of a new play by Rob Young inspired by the town’s water that will be performed by the Opera House’s Young Company in the Pavilion Arts Centre on January 26th.
For further details on the programme or how to attend or be part of the water inspired events please visit www.buxtoncrescentexperience/artscouncilprogamme.