Shandean (2019)

Sound installation at Assembly Rooms, Newcastle upon Tyne

In 1735, the Newcastle-born composer Charles Avison performed his first subscription concert in Assembly House.

 

Avison was mentioned in Laurence Stern’s fictitious auto-biographical novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman; in which the story of Shandy’s life ‘rarely flows in a tolerable straight line.’ The narrative is full of meandering digressions, loops, and changes of direction. It neither reaches a conclusion or ever truly begins- Shandy’s birth is not mentioned until volume three of the novels.

 

A perpetual prologue: Avison’s orchestra warms up for a performance.