Three unique concerts will see the music of David Bowie reimagined by acclaimed composer and cellist Peter Gregson, accompanied by immersive visuals crafted from the hit show David Bowie: You’re Not Alone.
Peter Gregson x Bowie on 3-5 September will offer a response to the groundbreaking work of David Bowie, particularly during his ‘Berlin period’ working with artists and producers including Brian Eno, Tony Visconti and Iggy Pop.
Gregson said: “As I was growing up, like lots of people, I knew Bowie’s music just because it was in the public consciousness. The first album I remember going through was the Heathen album, because my cello teacher at college worked on it.
“Beyond all those Bowie songs, which are so embedded in our culture, I’m really interested in studio production, and the way people like Tony Visconti and Brian Eno influenced the production landscape, especially with the Low album and the Berlin era. Low is probably the one that speaks most to me the most.”
Alongside striking visuals, Lightroom’s powerful Holoplot spatial audio system presents a sonic canvas for a one-of-a-kind musical experience with sound design by Brett Cox. The events will recognise the experimental side of Bowie and his collaborators’ work.
Gregson said: “Bowie was asking so many questions of himself, and of society, and of humanity and the world in which he lived. I feel like David Bowie was just so far ahead of his time. In many ways, he wasn’t trying to be popular in his own time; he was doing something that felt necessary. And I feel like that is a strong parallel with the outliers in the classical world. The ones that did stand the test of time weren’t treading water and doing what had been done before; they were blazing a path forward. That’s why we still talk about Bowie. We don’t talk about the also-rans of any period. You talk about the ones who saw a way forward and a way through, rather than the ones that did more of the same.”
As well as David Bowie’s music, Gregson’s concerts will feature his own work, and pieces including Brian Eno’s Music for Airports and Electric Counterpoint by Steve Reich.
Gregson said: “Electric Counterpoint is music written to imitate tape degradation, time delays, and temper delays – way ahead of its time. You then see Brian Eno producing The Joshua Tree for U2, and we get that dotted quaver delay effect – and this was notated in the late ’70s through the work of Steve Reich. Brian Eno obviously produced Low and a couple of years later, he does Music for Airports and invents a whole genre of music through that.
“There’s this kind of melting point in music where Bowie seems to be kind of in the middle of these things diverging. I don’t think anyone’s gonna say Steve Reich is ‘ambient’ in the relaxing sense, but there is a big-picture nature to his music which is carved up of tiny details and really intricate fine-tooth combs. And, in the same way, Brian Eno’s Music for Airports is a big-picture piece – it’s just that the tooth combs are not quite as narrow. I think that’s really where this all coalesces for me.
“Bowie, as a kind of philosopher, just as a thinker, was a fascinating person. And even in things as outwardly dull as how he ran his business – like using ‘Bowie Bonds’ to buy his masters back – he was way ahead of his time. This was long before Taylor Swift bought her own masters back.”
Musically, the concerts will take direct inspiration from techniques used by Bowie, Eno and Visconti.
Gregson said: “Like the triple reverb technique that they made – three different microphones at different points in the room – and we’re going to be doing that, but for a live performance. Rather than it being a diffused reverb, we’re going to do it with a slightly delayed effect. And then we’ve used the ‘cut-up technique’, which Bowie took from William Burroughs, and applied it to melodic fragments that then get rearranged. I’m just really excited about it.”
The Peter Gregson x Bowie concerts run alongside Lightroom’s acclaimed immersive show David Bowie: You’re Not Alone, which is showing daily until October, with evening screenings now extended until January. A special day of celebration is planned for 8th January, which would have been Bowie’s 80th birthday. Tickets can be found HERE.
Written and directed by 59’s Mark Grimmer (Creative Director for the V&A’s David Bowie Is exhibition) and Tom Wexler, it showcases some of Bowie’s landmark performances that redefined popular culture, using a mixture of iconic material, selected from thousands of hours of film in the vaults of the David Bowie Archive in New York, from Space Oddity through Diamond Dogs and Let’s Dance to ★.
Audiences will have the chance to feel they have travelled through time to experience Bowie in performance – up close and first-hand. Each track in the show has been newly reconfigured to utilise Lightroom’s specialised spatial audio system by multiple Olivier and Tony award-winning sound designer Gareth Fry (Harry Potter & The Cursed Child, David Bowie Is). The show is fully authorised by the David Bowie Estate.
Buy Peter Gregson tickets here
Buy ‘David Bowie: You’re Not Alone’ tickets here
Tickets for David Bowie: You’re Not Alone are now on sale and priced from £25 for adults and £15 for students and concessions.
Photo Credit: Justin Sutcliffe
