An inspirational mix of words and music on Sussex themes by classical guitarist Linda Kelsall-Barnett and poet Barry Smith is the promise behind Sussex Serendipity at this year’s Festival of Chichester.
00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, group arts editor at Sussex Newspapers and also chairman of the Festival of Chichester.
00:07And I'm lovely to see Barry Smith again for so many years, our Festival of Chichester coordinator, one of the absolute founding fathers of the festival.
00:15Lovely, Barry, that you're still absolutely in the thick of it. We wouldn't let you not be.
00:19But you're back this year with, well, Sussex Serendipity.
00:24And it's Barry's poems and Linda Castle Barnett playing the guitar.
00:28Now, it's on Friday, July the 18th from three to four p.m.
00:34Barry, explain that title, Sussex Serendipity.
00:38Well, it's the lucky dip aspect, really.
00:41Looking at all the different places and all the different moods and all the different aspects of our wonderful county of Sussex and sticking our fingers in and seeing what we come up with.
00:53There's all sorts of things to explore in Sussex, from clowns to the beauties of the landscape.
01:01And Linda, the curious thing is, it's obviously guitar and Barry's poetry.
01:05But simultaneously, how does the music and the poetry work together?
01:10Well, I choose pieces to play that fit the mood of Barry's poems and music intertwines with Barry's speech.
01:18And the nice thing about the guitar, it's not overbearing, it's not overpowering.
01:22And I can raise and lower the volume according to the intensity of the words.
01:27So it's a continual creative process while we're performing together.
01:31It's never the same twice.
01:34It's quite an exciting experience to be performing alongside the speaker.
01:40And we never quite know what the result is going to be.
01:43And it's amazing how magical it can be.
01:46And sometimes we have these wonderful coincidences when it really rises to a point.
01:51And we get these fantastic moments of stillness as well.
01:56So, yeah, it's just a lovely creative process.
01:59It sounds so appealing.
02:01Barry, from your point of view as a poet, what does the music add?
02:05Yeah, it gives a flow, a musicality, like a stream, really, that the words can float on.
02:13Or maybe a breeze in the air that they can flicker and fly in.
02:18It gives it a context and it gives it another dimension, really.
02:23So that amongst the words, the music seeps through and takes over and takes us somewhere else.
02:30And then listening carefully to Linda, I try and judge the exact moment to come back in and take us on.
02:39It sounds a lovely balance because it sounds as if by combining the two, you're more conscious of both the music and the poetry.
02:45Absolutely. Absolutely. We have to listen really carefully to each other.
02:50And I think we're beginning to get to understand where it's right to let the other one go and, you know, just take the back seat for a while.
02:59Oh, it sounds seamless. It sounds fabulous.
03:02And curious time, slightly curious time, three to four o'clock on a Friday afternoon.
03:06Why's that?
03:08Why's that, Linda?
03:09Yeah, we thought it was a good idea.
03:14That's the time we did last year and it was quite a success.
03:18So we decided to keep it there.
03:21And St John's Chapel, great place to be, isn't it?
03:24Lovely acoustic, fantastic music to play in.
03:27Brilliant. Well, good luck with it.
03:29Really lovely to speak to you.
03:30And Barry, I'm so pleased that you maintain that faithful connection.
