Adrian Freedman - Composer & Musical Director for Souterrain

The soundtrack for Souterrain features a tapestry of musical influences from across the globe - songs and tunes on the themes of love and loss, woven together with original music. In the early stages of production I asked director Bill Mitchell for some musical clues as starting points and Bill provided a selection of music including some Sephardic Romance songs from medieval Spain. These songs, Avre Tu Puerta and La Serena, became -starting points for the devising process, and in time I came to incorporate eight very contrasting arrangements of these two Sephardic songs into the score (Tracks 6, 13, 18, 24, 27 and 28 on the CD).

Another strong flavour comes from the Japanese musical influences which pervaded the scenes with Hades and Persephone. These included a Japanese Enka ballad, and new pieces featuring the shakuhachi (bamboo flute).

There are also funeral and wedding marches from New Orleans, Peru and Rajasthan, jazz pieces by Sonny Rollins and Bill Laswell, a Klezmer tune, American country and spiritual songs and Cornish songs and dances. In each of the locations where the show was produced, we identified local brass bands, jazz bands and community choirs who became part of the performance team. Each location brought its own delights: in Amiens a gospel choir and a jazz-funk street band, in Bethune a colliery band, in Cornwall massed choirs from across the county.

Unfortunately we are not able to feature all of the 300 musicians and singers who took part in the production on the CD, but we would like to thank all of them, and especially the assistant music directors and choir leaders in each of the locations. Special mention also for Neil Davey (bouzouki) and Rebecca Jackson (cello) who toured the entire production