In 2012 Guy Buttery sat down with the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra to perform three of his compositions, which had been arranged for the 52-piece ensemble. An exhilarating and terrifying experience, by his own admission, this performance launched Buttery into a 12-year long experiential deep dive into orchestral explorations that has resulted in his latest album, Orchestrations.
Buttery is an extraordinary multi-instrumentalist, who is well-known in his home country of South Africa, where he has been bestowed with numerous accolades, including the Standard Bank Young Artist Award in 2018 – the first time that the prestigious award was given to an artist falling outside the category of classical music. He is likewise lauded by foreign audiences because of his insatiable appetite for experimenting with new sounds and instruments, underpinning his work’s global appeal. Setting him apart throughout his career, Buttery’s voracious curiosity, combined with his acute sensitivity and attention to detail, is audible throughout Orchestrations, which in many ways is a tableau of these accumulated interests and investigations.
Orchestrations has been picked up, put down, abandoned, revisited, buried and resurrected countless times by Buttery over the last 12 years. Despite coming close to never seeing the light of day at all, the project has been described as something of a “magnum opus”. With Buttery’s own guitar forming the heartwood of the work, Orchestrations extends outwards like growth rings. Consisting of 14 tracks, the album features collaborative contributions from several renowned artists recorded across ten countries, including Kaki King in New York, Derek Gripper in Cape Town, Julian Sartorius in Berne, Madala Kunene in Durban, and Mudassir Khan in New Delhi. The overall structure is held together by Chris Letcher’s expansive orchestral arrangements that stretch out like a great canopy.
To mark the release of Orchestration, Guy has unveiled a live performance video featuring one of Africa’s most esteemed large ensembles, the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Buy / Stream Orchestrations on Bandcamp and all DSP’s
What is often not said about the creation of a magnum opus — which is true of any great work in art and in life — is that the loftiness can be at odds with the drudgery of returning, over and over, to the same path. Mixed in with the moments of elation, joy and the rush of creativity, there are times of boredom, of despair, and a certain kind of madness that commits to pushing every aspect of a soundscape through to its limits, and often beyond those edges.
Orchestrations is not short on the high moments, which are complex, swooping, elated. It also dives right down, and herein lies the depth of the project, where Buttery has insisted on returning, listening again and again with ever increasing sensitivity to everything each sound could be. It holds the listener like a great big bowl, and with the certainty of a root system, upon which multiple influences, collaborations and experimentations weave themselves into an elaborate network of outstretched branches.
In celebration of the album, Guy Buttery will offer an extremely rare opportunity to see and hear him in a very intimate setting playing live tracks as well as sharing snippets from Orchestrations and unpacking this creative process in a Q&A format. This is an invitation to immerse in an intimate evening of sound and storytelling, where Guy will take you on a sonic journey.
Date – Friday, 21st February 2025
Venue – Westville Theatre Club, Durban, KZN, South Africa
Date – Saturday, 22nd February 2025
Venue – Soul Centre, Umhlali, KZN, South Africa
Guy Buttery is thrilled to announce a series of shows across the USA this March and April. For full details and ticket information, visit the link below.
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