Rocket In The Woods (2018)
STOP PRESS !!! A read-along storybook version of ROCKET IN THE WOODS is now available on YouTube here to enjoy with your kids, grandkids or perhaps, Dog. Click here to enjoy:
One of my kids did the absolutely fantastic narration on this recording but wants to remain anonymous, so despite their superb efforts, they shall remain sort of uncredited. I shall however take full credit for everything else, including the absolutely minimal direction when it came to plonking the microphone in front of the story being read out with such excellent talent. And so wtih apologies for completely appropriate Generation Game reference… didn’t they do well?
I wrote the book for Rocket In The Woods on a plane between London and Naples, fitting easily within a couple of sides of electronic A4 and the two hours when I could have the laptop out. I usually find something really irritatating about being sat next to someone on one of those flights whose “working”. Well unfortunately it was me this time as the idea materialised just after we rose above the grimy and expansive clouds covering the south east of the UK.
My protagonist, Ash, was deliberately named androgenously from the get go, I had a pretty well formed idea about where the story was going when I started it over Sussex, and the moral of the emerging story was, if anything, that absolutely anyone has the potential to be a part of something amazing in their life. Having worked in and around the recruitment of new blood into the Space industry on and off throughout my career, I’ve seen all sorts of people think they are unjustifiably deserving, whilst others who are better but don’t believe they stand a chance for all sorts of incorrect assumptions. Well, things have moved on just a bit during my time and mostly for the better; but not enough. Amongst many other discrepancies, there still isn’t a gender balance for example largely because of inappropriate beliefs back at school that maths and physics are the preserve of rich white boys from nice families. It’s tosh and it annoys me.
So, my protagonist could be anyone. I called then Ash so the listener can decide what they want them to be and what they might look like.
So what’s it all about? It’s about having an adventure. It’s about taking a few risks and putting it out there. It’s about making some terrible mistakes and not getting away with them.
In the vast majority of circumstances in my real world, we make mistakes all the time. Being able to progress seems to me to be all about what happens next. Do we do it again? Do we do it differently? Do we find someone to blame, or give up? If we are going to beat things like Climate Change, then we need zillions of people willing to give it a go, get it wrong, and try again. Like Ash.
Having written the book on the plane, I wrote the music sitting next to the pool over the next couple of weeks in lovely lovely Puglia. It was a million miles away from how I was imagining my characters and the adventure they were pursuing in the rain. As I sat with the odd glass of prosecco, it was comfortably hot, there was beautiful swimming, excellent pasta, olives and wine ubiquitous…… and the locals politely pretended to understand everything I said in Italian. What else can you ask for?
Night Critters (2024)
Night Critters is a little tone poem about the things that might scurry around in the back garden during the night. Whether you have a garden big enough to accommodate all these creatures, or even perhaps if you live in a city, is maybe moot. They certainly don’t all habitually slough around my modest back yard, but some of them do.
Dusk Bunny For Dinner
The scene is set at dusk. The sun giving up on the day, the light is fading and the field out the back is full of little fluffy bunnies contendly nibbling the grass on which the early evening dew is just forming, making it all very refreshing. And at the edge of the field, the guy with the big shotgun is looking for something free to go in his pot for dinner later. It’s all very Roald Dahl.
Having let off the successful shot and got one in the bag, night falls, and the first of the owls puts out his plaintive call to his mates. They’ve got to eat too.
The Spikeball Waddle
First out on the dark lawn is the hedgehog. The little ball of prickly spikes scurries super fast in an incredibly efficient waddle across the grass to find their own dinner. Probably not the traditional bowl of milky bread (which isn’t good for them). More like a few beetles and the odd slug. Cute.
Mousecatchers’ Menu Planning
The owl is back in the tree calling for his friends to join the hunt. This time he gets answered. They’ll be dining together tonight on mice pudding.
Mr No Mates
The domestic cat: calm, elegant, solitary. Walking the perimeter fence to check that everything is in order, sniffing here and there to ensure that it’s all still theirs. No interlopers. We don’t want anyone else coming in here. It’s ours. Go away.
Fairies Behind The Clouds
An ethereal mist lets a shaggy moonlight dust the wet grass. Little twinkles on the ground, in trees, in the shifting clouds, they sparkle tentatively and disappear before they can be properly seen. Are they fairies?
Foxy Date At The Bins
The urban fox is out and on the pull. He’s on a dinner date. There’s always something to eat that’s been thrown out by the people at number ten. Just have to knock it over, and there it is. Plenty to go around. Party time.
Dawn Magic
It’s been a long cold night, and the first hints of new light are going to appear soon.All those birds know. Better get in quick so their call can be heard before the cacophany starts and it gets lost in the mele.
Kat and Mud (2018)
It’s the same glorious voice doing the reading, so settle down for another bedtime story.
In fact, Kat and Mud was written first. I didn’t have a nice summer holiday for this one, and it’s not quite as polished. It turned out well enough to warrant writing Rocket.
Kat is I think the hero of my story, although Mud would like to be. Where these characters come from is likely to be the digested mulch from all those books I remember from my own school days and library visits. There’s probably a bit of Romeo and Juliet in there too for good measure.
What’s it about? Confidence maybe? The rights and wrongs of nicking bikes? More than likely it’s subconciously about there being more than one way to win over on the bullies, and thumping them back like in the films usually doesn’t work, however much our animal instinct wants to.
String Quartet 8 – Rodents (2022)
In C Minor
It may have been the eighth to have been written of my nine string quartets to date, but it was the last to be recorded. It was actually penned quite quickly during a fairly productive period, hot off the heels of the seventh. But I didn’t have enough budget to get both recorded, and so it sat on a shelf at the time until it found its home here amongst the other scurrying things on this album.
I returned to my long standing colleagues in Ukraine, Oleh MStudio, to consider recording the piece. Oleh’s initial reaction was that it was quite tricky and it might take a little while. It turned out however to be much easier than the recording of the sixth, which I think nearly drove him mad with its intricate complexities. (You can find that on the Sinfonietta album, as Concerto Grosso).
This one is tricky but relatively traditionally structured, albeit with a few flats, and random time signature challenges. I left the interpretation to Oleh and his team, and was absolutely delighted with result, having given them the minimum of direction along the lines of:
“It’s about mice, voles and rats. I should sound a bit like scurrying.”
And that’s pricesly what they did.
Four Blind Mice
Mice first. In case you missed it in the opening bars, the borrowed theme is the nursery rhyme Three Blind Mice, but of course played by four players – hence the title. They just run around having a laugh and chasing each other up and down and round and round, hiding and, yes, scurrying.
A Nest Full Of Sleeping Voles
For the middle movement, I imagined a tiny nest jam packed with those tiny baby voles – only just old enough to be furry – stuffed into each others’ space like socks in a draw to get the most of the available warmth. Dark, blind, silent, safe.
A Raucous Chorus of Rats
And then there are the rats, gathering for a good old sing song. I imagined that rats don’t sing particularly well or in tune, but that they party gratuitously.
Players
Rocket in the Woods orchestra programmed by Steve Chowne.
Night Critters wind orchestra performed by Symph Studio under Miguel Vargas in Venuzuela in 2024. Piano performed by Steve Chowne in the UK in 2024.
Kat and Mud orchestra programmed by Steve Chowne.
String Quartet 8 Rodents performed and recorded by Oleh MStuio under Oleh Mytrogfanov in Ukraine 2024.
All the superb mixing and mastering again by Luca Zara in Italy.
Sheet Music
My String Quartets 1-9 are available to purchase as a single volume containing all separate parts; please enquire through Bandlab. A copy is also available to hire from NewSPAL – New Surrey Performing Arts Library,
Bedtimes Stories was released on 30th January 2025 on BandCamp and all major streaming services.
Steve Chowne Music 