The Rhubarb Rhubarb Rhubarb website is now online @ http://www.rhubarbrhubarbrhubarb.co.uk/
with recordings, recipes, film and photographs of the project
also coming in the Huddersfield Festival (21st November) a solo performance with Rhubarb sounds in the dark !
A project for the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2011
The Rhubarb Sheds of Yorkshire (its picked by candlelight to avoid the leaves turning green)
(from the HCMF website http://www.hcmf.co.uk/Playing-the-rhubarb-triangle)
West Yorkshire’s proud history of rhubarb-growing is providing inspiration for a new Learning and Participation project created by Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb involves sound artist, musician and educator Duncan Chapman working with pupils from Overthorpe Junior, Infant and Nursery School in Thornhill, Dewsbury to create an interactive online installation using audio and visuals from the farming of local rhubarb.
Yorkshire’s famous ‘Rhubarb Triangle’ is an area between Wakefield, Morley and Rothwell known for producing forced rhubarb. This technique for growing rhubarb, which is originally native to Siberia, became popular in the 19th century. The plants are grown outside for two years then transferred indoors to sheds that are heated and kept in complete darkness, prompting the sprouting of new stems with a prized tenderness and sweet flavour. In 2010 Yorkshire Forced Rhubarb was awarded European Protected Designation of Origin status, putting it in the same category as champagne, gorgonzola and Swaledale cheese.
Here are a few sound samples of the project so far
a mix of lots of popping sounds that it makes as it grows (with some pitch manipulation)
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more pops
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snapping
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Here’s a short film of it growing in the sheds (the camera is still there taking one photo every 4 hours so there will be more to come soon !)