2011

Score 360: BEFORE ANY MEAL was performed in Berlin while Bill Drummond was there for meetings with the film director Stefan Schwietert.

Bill Drummond performed Score 378: SELECT AN ALBUM over a period of seven days on The Offline People's blogspot. You are invited to perform this score and email your reports into admin@the17.org

To read Drummond's reports visit The Offline People

DAY ONE:
Seven Albums - Seven Decades - Seven Days

Today, Bill Drummond will be mainly listening to JAZZ BY SUN RA. This was Sun Ra's first album and was released in 1957.  The listening to this album and reporting on the findings of this listening at The Offline People site is part of a performance of Score 378: SELECT AN ALBUM.  You are invited to perform this score whenever it suits you.

DAY TWO:
Seven Albums - Seven Decades - Seven Days

Today, Bill Drummond will be mainly listening to GREEN RIVER by Creedence Clearwater Revival. This was their third album and released in 1969.  The listening to this album and reporting on the findings of this listening at The Offline People site is part of a performance of Score 378: SELECT AN ALBUM.  You are invited to perform this score whenever it suits you.

DAY THREE:
Seven Albums - Seven Decades - Seven Days

Today, Bill Drummond will be mainly listening to MARQUEE MOON by Television. This was their first album and released in 1977.  The listening to this album and reporting on the findings of this listening at The Offline People site is part of a performance of Score 378: SELECT AN ALBUM.  You are invited to perform this score whenever it suits you.

DAY FOUR:
Seven Albums - Seven Decades - Seven Days

Today, Bill Drummond will be mainly listening to OCEAN RAIN by Echo & The Bunnymen. This was their fourth album and released in 1984.  The listening to this album and reporting on the findings of this listening at The Offline People site is part of a performance of Score 378: SELECT AN ALBUM.  You are invited to perform this score whenever it suits you.

DAY FIVE:
Seven Albums - Seven Decades - Seven Days

Today, Bill Drummond will be mainly listening to BERLIN MASS by Arvo Pärt. This was one of his many compositions, and has been recorded numerous times.  The listening to this album and reporting on the findings of this listening at The Offline People site is part of a performance of Score 378: SELECT AN ALBUM.  You are invited to perform this score whenever it suits you.

DAY SIX:
Seven Albums - Seven Decades - Seven Days

Today, Bill Drummond will be mainly listening to THE FAME MONSTER by Lady Gaga. This was her first proper album and released in 2009.  The listening to this album and reporting on the findings of this listening at The Offline People site is part of a perfromance of Score 378: SELECT AND ALBUM.  You are invited to perform this score whenever it suits you.

DAY SEVEN:
Seven Albums - Seven Decades - Seven Days

Today, Bill Drummond will be mainly listening to I'M NEW HERE by Gil Scott-Heron. This was his thirteenth album and released in 2010.  The listening to this album and reporting on the findings of this listening at The Offline People site is part of a performance of Score 378: SELECT AN ALBUM.
You are invited to perform this score whenever it suits you.

POSTPONED: Due to weather conditions this performance has been postponed.     

This is to be a performance of Score 360: BEFORE ANY MEAL. It is to be performed on the North Sea with the crew of a working trawler out of the Fife fishing village of Anstruther. Drummond will be leading this performance with Johnny Gaunt. They will also be having to work their passage. This will be the first time that Drummond has worked on a trawler since running away from his apprenticeship in 1974. This performance is twinned with a performance of the same score on a whaling boat in Tromsø, Norway  and is also part of The17's Coast-to-Coast world tour.

Pre Performance Statement

“Shifting Landscapes, a week-long set of workshops at Keele University for refugee and asylum seeker communities in Stoke on Trent (21 February to 25 February 2011), will include a workshop on and performance by The17, led by music lecturer Nicholas Reyland. Participants in the session will include musicians and singers from the University’s Music programme, refugees and asylum seekers. Many of the members of the UK’s asylum and refugee community have had some experience of Higher Education in the countries they have left/been forced to leave; many young asylum seekers and refugees aspire further to develop their education and to access Higher Education in the UK. Shifting Landscapes offers them an opportunity to sample this experience. Workshops range from ‘Basic German’ and ‘Codes and Code Breaking’ to ‘The Politics of Climate Change’ and ‘Beyond the Choir’ – Dr Reyland’s workshop on The17. The session will contextualize The17’s scores and artistic credo within recent experimental art and music traditions, and then offer participants the chance to become The17 for a performance of scores written for The17, including a new score reflecting issues arising from the sharing of experiences and knowledge central to this week of intercultural exchange.”

Post Performance Email:

Dear Nik, Bill & Cally

The17 were wonderful at Keele today.

The participants - a mixture of asylum seekers and refugees, a kid or two,
some music students, a few staff members - performed scores involving
clapping (361 - At the concert), ssh-ing (141 - Circle), spontaneous sound
making (71 - Place), and sound-related story-telling (382 - Joy).

There were some magical moments, and we performed some of the scores
several times, experimenting with different effects and sound qualities.
Circle - the way we performed it, in a circle, with each person shh-ing
and then tapping the next person on the shoulder so they started in turn,
and so on, until everyone was doing it - became an intense experience,
especially near the end of the circle, waiting, eyes closed, hearing the
shh get nearer and nearer.

The sound that emerged for 17 seconds in Place took the group's collective
breath away. And performing the new score was much more successful than
I'd dared to hope. People told affecting, personal stories about fragments
of music, sounds babies make as they breastfeed, childhood memories, what
it sounds like when you go under the rapids when white-water rafting.
There was much misting up going on.

One thing I found compelling about the experience of being in The17 - this
won't be news to you at all - was the sense of community that immediately
forms. The bond was so warm and kind. I'm a big fan of kindness, or
agape/caritas, i.e., the notion of giving of yourself for the good of a
reciprocating community of others, who give a little to you in return
(I've just written a book on the topic, kind of). But it's very rare to
experience it in practice, especially among virtual strangers. This was
one such experience. It made me feel very hopeful.

Which is a rather roundabout way of saying thank you, a big thank you, for
letting me instigate The17 today at Keele, and for all your support these
last couple of weeks. Thanks to for the help from your associates, who set
the text of the new score so beautifully. The posters were happily
received by the group - they all took one home, many having exchanged
e-mail addresses and written them on the back of their scores. I found
that detail interesting: they'd been together all week, but only after
becoming members of The17 together did they take that step of sharing
personal information.

We did take some 'team photos' after the performances, and everyone was
happy for one to make its way to you and onto the website, so as soon as I
get them from the photographer, I'll forward the best one on to you.

All best wishes

Nick Reyland

40 T-Shirts are for sale by Bill Drummond. To know more click here.

Terminal Convention was a music, art and film event featuring international artists, musicians and academics.  Drummond lead a performance by The17 of specifically composed score entitled ARRIVALS & DEPARTURES in the decommissioned Terminal Buildings at the airport. As yet this score has not been published.

David Balfe performed Score 378: SELECT AN ALBUM over a six day period in late March 2011. His performance can be read at The Rest Of The World section of the Coast-to-Coast TOUR pages of The17 site.

The afternoon of this day is documented in the story Sparrows that can be found on The17 website by clicking here

This journey is documented in the story The Poppy that can be found on The17 website by clicking here and scrolling down.

Per Martinsen performed Score 378: SELECT AN ALBUM over a six week period on his blogspot My Blurry Window.

Bill Drummond performed Score 1: IMAGINE, after singing Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, while looking up at the Brill Building. He also performed this score in exactly the same place in December 2009.

To celebrate his performance of Score 1: IMAGINE the night before, Drummond painted an IMAGINE WAKING TOMORROW & ALL MUSIC HAS DISAPPEARED graffiti on the side of a single track rail bridge over Newton Creek in Brooklyn. Newton Creek is regarded as the most polluted waterway in the USA.

This graffiti is also one of the forty bridge graffiti being done as part of The17's Coast-to-Coast world tour.

The Sensoria Festival in Sheffield invited Bill Drummond to be a composer in residence in the Forgemasters steel mill in Sheffield for the duration of the festival. Drummond's duties were to compose a score for each day he was there. Each of these scores were then laid out in the style of The17 scores, printed and flyposted around the city by Drummond himself. As composer in residence in Sheffield, the event is twinned with the week that Drummond spent being composer in residence at the Mittersill Composer's Forum, Austria, September 2010. In Mittersill, Drummond composed ten scores collectively known as the Schachernhof Scores. Both the Sheffield and the Mittersil residencies are considered part of The17's Coast-to-Coast world tour.

DUE TO THE CURRENT POLITICAL SITUATION IN SYRIA, THE FOLLOWING PERFORMANCE HAS HAD TO BE POSTPONED. THE NEW DATE WILL BE ANNOUNCED ON THESE PAGES AS SOON AS IT IS KNOWN

Reel Festivals 2011 present 100 of the Syrian members of The17 performing Score 328: SURROUND around the five kilometers of the ancient city walls of their capital Damascus. This is part of The17's City-to-City world tour

For further information visit Reel Festivals

This is also being presented by Reel Festivals 2011. It was a performance by the Lebanese members of The17 of Score 327: DIVIDE & COMBINE. This is part of The17's Coast-to-Coast world tour. Bill Drummond also gave a lecture in Beirut.

To celebrate the performance of Score 327: DIVIDE & COMBINE the day before, Drummond painted an IMAGINE WAKING TOMORROW & ALL MUSIC HAS DISAPPEARED graffiti on the side of the bridge where the Omar Daouk road crosses over the George Haddad road.

Drummond would like to thank Siska for translating the phrase into Arabic and suggesting the bridge. It should also be noted that Drummond's graffiti appear directly above Siska's graffiti CARANTINA (If Beirut Ever Speaks). This was the first of many of Siska's graffiti around the city.

This graffiti is also one of the forty bridge graffiti being done as part of The17's Coast-to-Coast world tour.

Bill Drummond was the Keynote Speaker at the Forum for Innovation in Music Production, Composition (FIMPAC) at the Leeds College of Music.

Although not strictly a performance by The17, the evening included a couple of performances of scores by The17.

The main purpose of the evening was for Bill Drummond to launch the book IMAJINE (Penkiln Burn Books).

IMAJINE is a book by Haitian artist and writer, Claudel Casseus.

Bill Drummond and Claudel Casseus worked together at the Ghetto Biennale in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in December 2009. Two-and-a-half weeks later Haiti was hit by an earthquake that killed over 200,000 people.

IMAJINE tells the story of Claudel and his family over a two-week period, from the moment the earthquake struck.

To quote the back cover blurb:

"This book is about: EARTHQUAKE, HAITI, BEING ALIVE, WATCHING PEOPLE DIE, RUNNING, THE END OF THE WORLD, HOPE FEAR, PRAYING, SURVIVING, STRUGGLE CORRUPTION, TRUST. But more importantly it contains words not mediated through the mind of a Western journalist but the words of a young man called Claudel Casseus, who has lived in Port-au-Prince all his life and has never written about anything else before."

At The Idler Academy on the evening of the 18 May, Drummond celebrated the publication of IMAJINE by engaging all those present with nothing but the power of his words and the words contained in this book.

He also instigated the construction of a sculpture entitled 40 T-shirts For Sale.

Bill Drummond was invited by the curator Jonas Stampe of Infr'Action Venice 2011, to make an 'action art' performance at this year's Venice Biennale. Drummond used the opportunity to launch his career as a shoe-shine boy. The career is taking two paths - one involves the performance of Score 395 Whistle While You Work, the other the construction of a sculpture entitled 100 Pairs Of Shoes

The performance of Score 395: Whistle While You Work is also part of the17's Coast-to-Coast world tour and as such there will need to be a IMAGINE WAKING TOMORROW... graffiti done on a bridge in Venice. Although the bridge was chosen, the graffiti was not done on this occasion due to lack of suitable materials for the vandalism.

Jacki Clark led a performance of Score 8: TAKE in Holyrood Park, Edinburgh in the early morning of Tuesday 28 June 2011

Bill Drummond gave the keynote lecture at this year's Media Evolution conference in Malmö, Sweden. He also lead a number of performances by The17. After the lecture he continued the construction of his sculpture 100 Pairs of Shoes (see PB Poster 325) on the street outside the conference centre. 

To quote Incubate's blurb -

Incubate is the annual celebration of independent culture in Tilburg, the Netherlands. It is a festival exhibiting a diverse view on indie culture as a whole, including music, contemporary dance, film and visual arts. It brings more than 200 cutting edge artists in an intimate context to an international audience. Black metal next to free jazz. Refreshing art next to inspiring debate.

Bill Drummond gave a talk and lead a performance by The17 in the main hall of the Midi Theatre in Tilburg as part of the festival.

Bill Drummond performed his story On The Road To Damascus as part of the launch of the book On Nature and gave reasons as to why the scores 380 & 381 - DAMSON TREE #​1 & DAMSON TREE #​2  have not yet been performed in the Vale of Aylesbury or Damascus.

On Nature is the second anthology of nature writing brought to the world by the folk at Caught By The River

On The Road To Damascus is Drummond's contribution to On Nature.

Dave Wood perambulated around Sherwood Forest. This walk started in July 2011 and ended on 5 November. On 3 October, Bill Drummond joined Dave Wood on these perambulations.  As to what Dave Wood and his perambulations are all about click here.

On 4 October, Drummond performed Score 395: Whistle While You Work on Forest Road, Ollerton on the edge of Sherwood Forest. This performance of this score is part of The17's Coast-to-Coast world tour and is twinned with a performance of the same score earlier in the year in Venice, Italy.

Bill Drummond performed Score 395: WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK on the streets of Toruń, Poland.

Bill Drummond gave the keynote talk at this year's All 2gether Now conference.

Drummond's lecture included him leading a performance by the Berlin members of The17.

He also performed Score 395: Whistle While You Work on the streets of Berlin. 

The Mondal family performed Score 9 WELCOME to honour the recent birth of their son Rajbeer.

A Bengali translation of this score can also be viewed at the above link. This performance is twinned with the performance of the same score in Derry, Ireland in October  2008. It is also part of The17's Coast-to-Coast world tour.

To celebrate the performance of Score 9: WELCOME the day before, Drummond painted an IMAGINE WAKING TOMORROW & ALL MUSIC HAS DISAPPEARED graffiti on the inside wall of a bridge over the Beleghata Canal, Kokata

Drummond would like to thank Nilayan & Krishna Dutta for translating the phrase into Bengali and suggesting the bridge.

This graffiti is also one of the forty bridge graffiti being done as part of The17's Coast-to-Coast world tour.

After being arrested by the local police for his activities, Bill Drummond was requested to paint out the graffiti he had done the previous evening. This he did with care and attention.

The Saha family performed Score 16: COMPLEMENT in honour of the life of Tarak Nath Saha, who had recently died and had been the head of the household. The Bengali translation of this score can also be viewed at the link above.

This performance is twinned with a performance of the same score that was performed in Moville, County Donegal, Ireland in 2008. It is also part of The17's Coast-to-Coast world tour.

To celebrate the performance of Score 395: Whistle While You Work on 3 October 2011, on Forest Road, Ollerton on the edge of Sherwood Forest, Bill Drummond returned to Sherwood Forest and painted an IMAGINE WAKING TOMORROW & ALL MUSIC HAS DISAPPEARED graffiti, underneath a bridge, over the old rail line on the A617.