Name: Searle, Oliver Iredale: 12 Steps for a Delightful Evening
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Searle, Oliver Iredale: 12 Steps for a Delightful Evening

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Arrangement: for two sopranos, two mezzo-sopranos, flute, bass clarinet, violin, cello and percussion
Edition Type: score and parts
Publisher: Composers Edition
Catalogue Number: ce-os1ts1
Pages: 266
Date Published: 26th Jul 2022

My brother, sister and I were brought up in a hotel, a family business run by my parents for some 19 years. We grew up washing dishes in the kitchen, serving breakfasts, waiting on tables, making beds, cleaning toilets, weeding flower beds, mowing grass, sweeping and mopping floors, preparing food for customers and when we reached the appropriate age, working behind the bar.

Following these years of working in the hotel, my brother began work in a bar in Edinburgh, where he was handed (rather patronisingly given his experience) a sheet entitled, 12 steps to great service.

I decided to write a work that listed these twelve directions, through a series of musical frustrations.

I abhor the word “delightful” in regards to music reviewing, which conjures images of polite, bourgeois laughter after a “quirky ending”; it had to go in. Another would have to be, “vignette”; this made my decision as to the structure of the work, which is musically straightforward, but frustratingly jumpy, as the short songs move from one to the next, seemingly unrelated, but hinting at many styles of music. I planned the structure beforehand, including (in no discernible order) a march, a bluesy number, the mandatory stage whisper and some extended vocal techniques, pop-song-inspired harmony, irritating ostinati and a frustratingly catchy tune.

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