The premiere of Sarong Song, my short film made in conjunction with Positive Note Films in the UK, will premiere September 17, 2022 at 1 pm EST at the following YouTube link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDWBcvC1GgM
The film will remain up at the link after the premiere.
Sarong Song is song #2 of The Soul Fox, a song cycle I composed in 2013 to a poem by David Mason, my frequent collaborator. The cycle set Mason’s autobiographical poems to create a narrative about the upheaval in Dave’s life as his second marriage dissolved. This song seizes on the moment Dave from Colorado met Chrissy from Tasmania — and her mesmerizing effect on him, which later resulted in their marriage and move to Tasmania.
The film alternates between a superb performance of the song by mezzo-soprano Kitty Whately and pianist Simon Lepper and slow animation created from famed illustrator Ian Beck‘s custom watercolors. The musical blending of these elements by director Jeremy Hamway-Bidgood creates a new kind of film — a hybrid presentation of classical song, poetry, and original art.