Royal & Derngate Theatres and Atlantic Screen Music have announced the release of a contemporary classical and electronic music album INCIDENTAL: Music For The Stage featuring original compositions for theatre inspired by some of the most famous plays and novels in the English Language. The charity compilation album will contain original music from stage productions by composers such as White Lies, Anne Dudley, These New Puritans, Rachel Portman, Valgeir Sigurðsson, Isobel Waller-Bridge, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Renell Shaw alongside spoken performances from actors including Judi Dench, Amanda Seyfried, David Harewood, Felicity Jones, Giles Terera, Patricia Routledge, James Norton, Sharon D Clarke, Iain Glen, Lesley Sharp, Stephen Fry, Indira Varma, Maxine Peake, Roger Allam, Anton Lesser and Simon Russell Beale.
Together they will raise vital funds to support Northampton Royal & Derngate Theatres’ reopening, helping the venue to recover from the devastating impact of the pandemic and to continue to produce their award winning Made in Northampton productions. The album is available to pre-order at incidentalmusicforthestage.com or pre-save on Spotify, Bandcamp, iTunes, Deezer and Tidal here. To launch the project today, two singles from the album are being released: Rachel Portman’s prologue to A Tale of Two Cities featuring Judi Dench and White Lies’ prologue to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof featuring Amanda Seyfried, both of which are available to listen to here and to download here.
Further single releases will see Renell Shaw collaborating with David Harewood and Valgeir Sigurðsson with Giles Terera (both August 12th) and a full E.P. from These New Puritans (9th September).
Over the past decade, Royal & Derngate’s Artistic Director James Dacre has commissioned 12 of the most influential composers working today to write original music for his stage productions – including Number 1 selling musicians White Lies, Guy Chambers and These New Puritans; Oscar and Grammy award winning film composers Rachel Portman and Anne Dudley; leading opera composer Orlando Gough, British Bhangra pioneer Kuljit Bhamra, ground-breaking classical and electronic composers Isobel Waller- Bridge and Valgeir Sigurðsson, pioneering rock musicians James Johnston and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and 2020 Ivor Novello Award winner Renell Shaw. This album features their compositions for the stage accompanied by narration and monologues from the plays and novels which inspired them, directed by Dacre and read by some of the world’s most celebrated stage actors, with accompanying sound design to give a sense of the original staged work.
The full alphabetical list of actors who appear on the album includes: Roger Allam, Simon Russell Beale, Bertie Carvel, Sharon D Clarke, Denis Conway, Judi Dench, Simon Dormandy, Charlotte Emmerson, Stephen Fry, Nicholas Gleaves, Iain Glen, David Harewood, John Heffernan, Michael Henry, Douglas Hodge, Felicity Jones, Asif Khan, Anton Lesser, Emma Lowndes, Joseph Marcell, Taz Munya, James Norton, Maxine Peake, Patricia Routledge, Amanda Seyfried, Lesley Sharp, Jamie Sives, Giles Terera, Joseph Timms, Indira Varma, Jessica Walker, Sophie Ward, Finty Williams and Nicholas Woodeson.
The album is directed by James Dacre, creatively produced by Jim Barne, produced by Rupert Hollier (Filmtrax), James Vella (Phantom Limb) and Rosie Townshend (Royal & Derngate). Sound Design is by David Gregory, Adrienne Quartly and Claire Windsor. The mastering engineer is Dietrich Schoenemann.
Leading contemporary artist Rhona Bitner has created artwork for the album cover with graphic design by Rebecca Pitt, animation design by Phil Bearman and website design by Jono Renton.
Incidental: Music For The Stage will be available to stream on Spotify, iTunes, Deezer, Amazon from Friday 24 September, pre-save here. To pre-order a physical copy please go to incidentalmusicforthestage.com.
