Interview with Gavin Beckwith
The Mosaic Orchestra are a group of musicians who have all played and worked together for quite some time - probably around 30 years give or take. Despite our name we currently consist of five members, as follows: Angeli Angelou – percussion Gavin Beckwith – violin, mandolin, keyboard Geoff Duckworth – flute, clarinet, recorder, saxophone Keith Budd – guitar, Irish bouzouki, vocals Michelle Charlton – harp, glockenspiel. That’s the easy part.
Describing our music is a little more difficult. We would describe what we are trying to get to is to produce “essence music”. By this we mean music that connects to or brings the listener to the point where they can feel or visualise something.
This “something” might be a place, an experience, an emotion, a thought, or perhaps a set of feelings or experiences that describe something, like a story. For example, if you were to go to a place that was special for you, into the woods say, or a point on the coast looking out to sea, you would recognise the atmosphere of that place, and the feelings that are evoked by it.
So, in our way, we would set out, in music, to produce similar feelings, which would resonate with you, and conjure up that special place and its attendant feelings.
Another example is we might wish to explore human qualities, such as warmth or care, and, by dwelling on these, exploring what they really mean, how they might appear, we would hope to arrive at a place where we can produce some music that encapsulates some of that quality. There is actually no limit to what we might want to get to, and the examples above are simply two that spring to mind.
Very often we just play music because we enjoy playing together, listening to each other and love the idea that something special might happen. Often we find that we produce a piece of music that feels good, but we don’t know why, or what it might connect to, or cause. So, we’ll try and get a sense of it, either from ourselves, or asking people we know. The majority of our music therefore arises from within the Mosaic Orchestra. However, we all listen to other music, and quite often come across pieces that we think will suit us as well, and we’ll incorporate these into our ever-expanding repertoire (to play at one of our gigs!).
About us: We are all musicians that have played in a very wide range of bands and contexts, spanning quite a few years! However, we all came together under the umbrella of meeting the work of Raymond Armin, known as Leo. It is his work that has prompted us, through the medium that we all individually loved anyway, to pursue our collective endeavour to play and produce music that we have loosely described as essence music. Indeed, much of the music is as a result of Leo’s writings, worked through by us as a group.
It is very important for us that the way we play together is within a decent, understanding, positive framework, and all believe that the music can only be enhanced by this. Nobody is perfect, but we do try, when we get together, to have this always as a background note.
More about our music - We have, as the Mosaic Orchestra, produced several CDs. Some of these are specifically themed, whilst some are collections of our music where there is no intended theme but are more reflections of where we were at that time. In terms of the themed releases, there is “Spectrum States”, and “5 + 2”, which is our latest release.
As its name implies “Spectrum States” is music we produced in response to each of the colours of the spectrum - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. We strongly believe that, in addition to being pure colours that together form a rainbow – one of the most natural and wonderful occurrences on our planet – each of the colours has properties that are essential and beneficial to our individual well-being. We researched and worked on this music over about two years, whether by conversation together or in a more practical way, by trying to get the sensation of how each colour was actually affecting us.
In fact a breakthrough was made when we brought on board two companions who had devised a spectrum light machine which meant we could more or less bathe ourselves in each of the colours, and from there go on to produce whatever music was then suggesting itself to us. The results were remarkably effective – we tested this out with different people by checking whether a weakness in, say, green, could be remedied by playing them our green music. In most instances they became stronger in that colour.
So, in effect, we were giving them a healing. The latest release, “5 + 2”, is based on our work into the five-fold energy system represented by the five colours green, yellow, blue, red, and white. Again, we spent quite some time researching this to come up with the music. This time, we decided to give each piece a more specific title, as we thought each selection stood by itself as well as being part of the overall theme. So, for example, our interpretation of yellow we have named “A Place of Greater Safety”, which we felt focussed it more both for ourselves, and our listeners.
The idea came for the carols project in 2021, at Christmas time. I went around to my mothers on Christmas Day and she played a new CD that she’d recently bought. It was all Christmas music that had been produced using synthesizers. It was pretty bland! There were no words just lots of samples. I’d describe it as elevator music on sleeping tablets. And what was more the CD was a product of a major record label.
I listened to two or three songs before having to turn it off. As the day rolled on, I started to wonder what could be done differently with those traditional Christmas pieces of music and my thoughts turned towards the Mosaic Orchestra, and I found myself thinking what might we be able to do with them.
Once the Christmas period started to calm down and the new year started to unfold the Mosaic Orchestra resumed our twice weekly gatherings, something we’d been doing for over twenty years, and I told the other band members about my Christmas Day CD experience and put the idea on the table about what might we be able to do that was different with that music.
The idea and proposal were received well, and we found ourselves thinking about the history of Christmas music, and how much of it dates back hundreds of years to monks from various Christian religious orders. We also talked the individual pieces of music, which became Christmas carols having their roots in traditional folk music from Europe and further afield, and how the church took the music and adapted them, adding words with a leaning towards their religion and so on. And we talked about how over time many of these have become imbedded in the whole Christmas experience for so many people, religiously inclined or not.
With these thoughts in mind the Mosaic Orchestra agreed to choose one of piece of music and try to come at it afresh and do our uttermost best to not follow the way of what was on that Christmas CD, and do something that wasn’t tired, stale and knackered-we felt those pieces of music deserved more.
The first Christmas Carol we decided to have a go at was God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. We began by learning the basic elements of the music, with a view of really trying to get near to the essence of the music. It was exciting and enjoyable to explore, and what was more as we played something started to happen.
At first it was the music, but then the words of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen starting to feel important too, and we explored the words and their relationship the music at a deeper level too. And we could feel that something was really starting to come together. It even felt that there was some kind of Middle Eastern vibe about it, which peaked our curiosity in ways we couldn’t have expected.
For many years the Mosaic Orchestra had met at a place of spiritual and philosophical studies called the Centre in Barnet, and we used a space called the Amber Room, which was next to my recording studio. This provided ease with having access to instruments but also recording equipment that was suitable for our needs, and we set about setting up microphones and so on to try and record God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, and some of the other Christmas Carols that we’d also been exploring and trying to do something new with over the months since Christmas.
For some it might felt strange playing Christmas Carols throughout the Spring and Summer months but to us it simply didn’t. We felt like something wanted us to pursue this particular project. It actually felt power assisted, which was very encouraging!
Because the Mosaic Orchestra have played together for such a long time, the recordings came together well too. For recording sessions, we set up our chairs and instruments in a circle, and we simply play, and this was how we approached the Christmas Carols recording sessions too.
For the most part the recordings stay true to their natural form, but for this project we did do a few overdubs, like add some bass guitar or some additional percussion. We kept all the songs as instrumentals, so we didn’t have any vocal challenges to deal with.
By the end of the Summer, we had four carols recorded and we were already working on other carols. It felt like we were on a roll, and it really didn’t feel like the music that we were producing felt in any way, out of season. The original essences of those old pieces of music appeared to be coming through our playing of them, and they sounded and felt amazing.
You can contact Gavin and the Mosaic Orchestra and purchase your CD via [email protected]
