Unthanks are brass-folk

THE award-winning North-East folk band, The Unthanks, are working on not one, but two, important pieces of human creation at the moment.

Musically, the band is planning a ground-breaking Durham Cathedral performance with national brass band champions, the famous Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band on July 8.

Personally, singer Rachel Unthank is due to give birth at Hexham Hospital any day now, having toured right up to eightand- a-half-months of her pregnancy.

Husband, and fellow band member, Adrian McNally admits that this is one of the most daunting periods of the band’s history, since 2004.

“We’ve got two very steep learning curves to undertake in the next month, being parents and learning how to write for a brass band,” says McNally.

“We have been at home since the tour finished which supported the release of our album, Last. It’s not always been ideal, but Rachel has really enjoyed performing on stage which has become the favourite part of her day. When she’s on stage, and singing, she forgets about physicality and enjoying some freedom from her pregnancy,” he adds.

McNally reveals that the couple have deliberately avoided discovering the sex of the new arrival because “we have no preference and can’t see the point in finding out. Lots of people around us have decided to be told, but we decided against”.

So can the Unthanks still “deliver” on both the important deadlines ahead?

“It’s very daunting, but an exciting prospect because I grew up in a small mining village about two miles from Grimthorpe, where another of the famous brass bands play. So brass music was part of the fabric of where I grew up, but I never dreamt I’d have an opportunity to collaborate with a top brass band. It’s a very steep learning curve,” McNally explains.

The project has become one of the centrepieces of this year’s Brass: Durham International Festival, which is in its fifth year.

“I couldn’t think of a more exciting opportunity because I’ve always been drawn to brass music,” says McNally who will be setting several of The Unthanks songs to brass and composing a selection of new works with the 30-strong Brighouse and Rastrick (affectionately known as Briggus).

“Both sounds come from the world of the working man, so I think there is a lot of common ground between the two. We’ll drawing half the concert from our existing repertoire, using our four albums, replacing the strong arrangements with brass.

The band’s leader, Sandy Smith, is using half that music as a template to re-work them for brass and I’m re-imagining the other half,” he adds.

A song by Durham miner Tommy Armstrong, called The Trimdon Grange Explosion, from the 1800s may well become a new composition by McNally for folk and brass. The Elliot family of Birtley, who run the Birtley Folk Club, and particularly performer Jack Elliot has inspired another piece and McNally has been given permission to use documentary footage of Jack at the festival.

He, Rachel, her sister Becky, Niopha Keegan and Chris Price are the nucleus of The Unthanks, although the band uses a further five musicians on tour. The Unthanks will be travelling down to Brighouse in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, for rehearsals.

“We haven’t actually met the band yet, but we’re in constant touch with the band leader who is giving us plenty of advice on how to write for brass. It’s an interesting prospect for me because I don’t actually write or read music. It’s a feat in itself that I’ve written scores for The Unthanks, but that’s down to our violin player Niopha Keegan sitting down beside me scoring for me while I compose at the piano.

“It’s one thing to do that for our string quartet, but a completely different thing to do it for a whole brass band. Now I’ve got a trumpet player, Lizzie Jones, sitting alongside Niopha doing some brass scoring as well. And she’s sending those off to Sandy Smith of Brighouse. He then sends them back with further suggestions. So it’s a tall order but we’re familiar now how with doing things that we didn’t know how to do, and worrying about it all later,” jokes McNally.

He feels the result is going to be something untypical of what is normally created for a brass band. McNally actually started out as the manager for the band when it was called Rachel Unthank and the Winterset and became part of the performance as the band looked to create something new in folk music.

“If a musician doesn’t know what a typical piece of folk music is, then they’re not likely to play one,” he says.

“The one thing we can’t legislate for is when Rachel is going to give birth. So the bestlaid plans are going to have to stay flexible. I’d like to be concentrating on Rachel, but she might not give birth for another two weeks… so we’ll just carry on as normal. We live at Corbridge, so we have Hexham Hospital on our doorstep,” he says.

• The Unthanks with Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band, July 8, Durham Cathedral. Box Office: brassfestival.co.uk or Gala Theatre, Millennium Place, Durham, DH1 1WA or 0191-332-4041 The festival last July 1-17 and has now spread across 24 locations this year, including Durham City, Spennymoor, Chester-le-Street and Bishop Auckland.