Damon's Monkey business

AS Damon Albarn walks into the Palace Theatre, he's greeted by a chorus of "Hello Damon" in lilting Chinese accents.

The combination of the Gorillaz frontman and a troupe of Oriental acrobats and martial arts experts is a strange one, but it's a sharp reminder of just how ambitious the first Manchester International Festival is.

It's just over a week until the premiere of Monkey: Journey To The West, a 'circus opera for the 21st century' that will kick off 18 days of ground-breaking festival shows.

Former Blur star Damon arrives from London to check on rehearsals, still a little groggy from celebrating his new band The Good, The Bad And The Queen winning best album at Monday's Mojo awards.

But he's still got time for our exclusive chat.

It's been billed as `the next Gorillaz project', but as the composer of the piece, Damon will not actually be playing on stage.

However, Festival director Alex Poots has joked that he can't imagine Damon not wanting to dive into the orchestra pit and help out on opening night.

"No, I don't think that's going to happen," Damon politely demurs. "This is a very different thing for me. For the first time in my life, I'll be able to hear my music played, properly, because obviously I've always been in the middle of it.

"But more importantly there's the potential if we get all the elements together working for people to really experience something which is entirely new."

For Monkey, Damon has teamed up again with his Gorillaz buddy Jamie Hewlett and internationally-acclaimed opera, theatre and film director Chen Shi-Zheng to rework an ancient Chinese legend as a dazzling spectacle involving Chinese circus acrobats, martial artists, aerialists, singers, a live orchestra and some stunning sets.

Massive

Rehearsals and construction of the set have been going on all over the world, but for the first time yesterday all the key elements were in one place for the first time, at the Palace Theatre.

So if Damon had known at the outset how massive it was going to be, would he still have said `yes'?

"Well, yes, because it was definitely the challenge that was the thing from the outset," he insists.

"My brief was to write a modern opera, which obviously was something I'd never done. It's still a challenge now, in fact. We're still learning and refining.

"I would think that in a week we'll have something that we might consider to be runnable.

"But it's just such a fantastic thing to be part of and we trusted Alex and the festival because we'd done so well with the Gorillaz' Demon Days show here.

"So we thought it was a good chance to take.

"But it's been testing. The hardest thing, though, hasn't been finding time to do both this and The Good, The Bad And The Queen but has been finding enough time for my family.

"Balancing everything is always difficult, but the only way it's going to really work is if you do that."

The inspiration for the International Festival is the city itself, to celebrate the fact that Manchester was the birthplace of modern industrial society.

That's why director Alex Poots decided to make the Festival quite different from any of the hundreds of others in the world and why the Manchester International Festival is the first festival anywhere to consist of original new works.

Over the last few years, Alex and the festival have commissioned more than 25 works from hundreds of leading artists, musicians and performers from across the cultural spectrum. Some will, undoubtedly, be better than others, but they're all exciting and ground-breaking, which is what a festival should be.

Monkey will embark on a world tour once its run in Manchester is finished and Damon admits that placed an additional pressure on him when he was composing it.

"You're right, this is a piece that could feasibly be around for years and that's why you have to make every little element the definitive thing, so that it's scored exactly as it's going to be," he says.

"That's the big difference from performances with a band. That's always changing, but if you're composing music it has to have a very clear language and that's been the greatest challenge for me.

"In music, as soon as you think you've discovered one code, you're immediately faced with a thousand other codes. Music is infinite and, that's why for me, it's a lifelong journey."

Monkey: Journey To The West is a Manchester International Festival commission and is at the Palace Theatre from Thursday, June 28, until Saturday, July 7.


From vblurpage.com:

Thanks 2-J for finding the above article. In addition, Damon revealed that the score for "Monkey: Journey To The West" gets recorded in the studio next month. The results will hopefully be released later as an album.

See also the showing dates for "Monkey: Journey To The West".
 

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