The People’s Music

Jon Rose
ReR MEGACORP, Thornton Heath, Surrey, UK, 2003
www.remegacorp.com

Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher <mosher@svsu.edu>, Saginaw Valley State University, University Center MI 48710 USA.

The People’s Music is a CD of a 44:24 concert recorded in the Winthrop Hall, University of Western Australia, Perth in April, 2001, a part of its Totally Huge New Music Festival. Taking considerable liberties, the work celebrates the Suzhou violin factory built in 1956 in Maoist China, and according to the Red Army Factory Guide, "reputed for quality, dependability and no ills in its democratic production". The factory recently closed due to fire, though the CD package sports some photos of it by Ying Li Ma, and photos and notes by Shen Pangeng on the current state of violin-makers there.

The music is reminiscent of the soundtrack of a Peter Greenaway film, serial passages of serious violin, though at times might be more appropriate for Charlie Chaplin’s "Modern Times". There are factory noises, the sound of saws, hammering and woodworking, and occasional exhortations by a Screaming Red Guard Factory Guide (Lely Evans).

The music is played by the ad-hoc "People’s String Orchestra", assembled from members of the West Astralian Youth Orchestra and the University of Western Australia String Orchestra. There were evidently multimedia video and digital photographica elements at the concent. The credited "Interactive Enbalmed Right Arm of Mao Zedong (but looking suspiciously like a pink washing up glove) courtesy of The Chinese Deartment of Foreign Affairs, Beijing" is worthy of Roger Ruskin Spear’s goofy robotics in the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band.

The People’s Music is an amusing and listenable piece of Australian Red Chinoiserie, a fun concert that shines forth in the ensuing CD. Long live the people’s youth orchestras! Let a hundred factory violins musically blossom! Long live comrade Jon Rose!