Multi-Instrumentalists & Musical Experimenters
offering bespoke improvised music for holistic celebrations, art events and much more.
Tricksy Trobairitz ... TWN collective
"A troupe of 3 mischievous women musicians on the move!"
Join them in their Tricksy Dance of Thrones embracing a mash up and freestyling mixtape of Desire, Lust and Arousal. A sound installation searching for the intrigue that is Courtly Love.
Violin, Vocals, Kora, Djembe, Singing Bowls, Recorder.
Vocals, Piano, Djembe, Singing Bowls.
Catherine Shrubshall
Lots of saxophones and clarinets!
The Trobairitz, writing in the 12th century, are now acknowledged to be the first known female composers of western secular music (Troubadours being the male equivalents). They composed music, wrote poetical verse and performed for the noble courts in parts of France, Spain and Italy (collectively known as Occitania), and used this new art form to convey their most personal desires and life experiences in a secular setting. Racy and all extremely fascinating I hope you’ll agree! So…. bringing you back up to date with the here and now, “Tricksy Trobairitz (TWN Collective)” have come together to link the 12th century to the 21st century with our own frisky take on “fine amor” (courtly love). The aim: to process our intriguing mash of composition and improvisation on tour around the world…..taking in Occitania of course!
www.tricksytrobairitz.com - website coming soon
Father's Footsteps Exhibition | Project Surprise Artist's Collective
Malta ~ Sicily ~ Italy ~ Germany ~ France ~ England
‘Father’s Footsteps’ was a multi media exhibition documenting an artistic journey through Europe made in April 2006 but inspired by a homecoming journey made in 1956.
"The 2006 project emerged from the discovery of Able Seaman Alan Shrubshall’s diary on a shelf in his workshop by his daughter Catherine shortly after his death. Nineteen year-old Alan had spent his National Service aboard HMS Surprise, and along with shipmate Bernard Hooper was granted unique permission by their Captain to disembark at Malta and hitch-hike home through post-war Europe. They travelled part of the way with Anita Schon, German au pair to the Captain of HMS Surprise. The handwritten diary records their preparations, the expenses and the adventures en route while betraying an increasing desire to get ‘home’. Once back in England, Alan never travelled overseas again nor did he reminisce to his children of the experience, but he kept the diary in his own creative workshop until it resurfaced as a catalyst for a group of artists keen to explore the nature of documentation in the 21st century.
The exhibition featured work from the artists who retraced Alan’s steps: original compositions by musician Catherine Shrubshall, photographic work by Stevie McGarrity-Alderdice, video footage by Jack Henderson, travel stories from Dana Captainino, and work by cartoonist John Clube. There were also contributions from other artists in the collective. The media used includes the original 1956 Agfa camera of Alan Shrubshall, disposable cameras, mobile phones, video camera, mini-discs, a blog 
and a saxophone. Unable to hitch-hike with such cargo, the Father’s Footsteps team travelled by boat, train and car along the same route from Malta to Chatham Dockyard in Kent where 50 years previously Alan Shrubshall was officially demobbed.
The original artworks created during and after the journey through Europe formed the major part of the Father’s Footsteps London exhibitions at the Waterloo Gallery in 2006 and at the European Commission Gallery in 2007. Artefacts and memorabilia from Alan’s time aboard HMS Surprise formed a supporting role to the new works, and Catherine Shrubshall’s musical compositions reconnected past and present throughout the exhibition space (“a collection of musical journeys, meetings and postcards…..”)
Father’s Footsteps excited much interest and was featured on Radio 4’s Excess Baggage and the arts programme on Radio London. Concerts in London and Essex combining story-telling and musical performance to evoke the two journeys and the years separating them were not only warmly received, but successfully raised funds for the staging of the exhibition."
10th June 2006
Sandi Toksvig is also joined by two people Ken Wood and Catherine Shrubshall who took journeys in which they retraced the steps of their fathers as they travelled around Europe - in one case during the Second World War and in the other almost exactly fifty years ago.