Radical, humourous and transporting music from the UK and Romania
The Island update: Since their tour of the south east of England, Ada and Alex returned to Romania in May for a 5 date tour to Sibiu, Timisoara, Bistrita, Cluj and Bucharest supported by The British Council. Ada and Alex continue to perform The Island and are developing it further. They are also working on a completely new project together - watch this space for further information.
In 2006 OCM teamed up with South Hill Park Arts Centre in Bracknell and the iF Festival, London to co-commission Alexander Balanescu to work with an artist he has admired for a long time, Ada Milea from Romania. Together they created The Island, an hour-long song cycle inspired by Robinsoe Crusoe’s story retold with an improbable twist by Romanian surrealist poet Gellu Naum. The result is a moving and highly existential parable. “a wild, rumbustious and often extremely amusing land inhabited by a mermaid prostitute, grandparents and a pirate with wooden legs, in which Balanescu’s soft, dead-pan voice of Crusoe, contrasts with the extraordinary vocal gymnastics of Milea” Paul Medley, Oxford Times.
In Romania she is widely loved as a voice of the young generation and this was Ada Milea’s first opportunity to perform in the UK, supported by Visiting Arts. The commission was supported by the PRS Foundation.
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