About Carnyx & Co.
Origins
The reconstruction of the Deskford Carnyx was initiated by Dr. John Purser, and commenced in 1991 funded jointly by the Glenfiddich Living Scotland award and the National Museums of Scotland. In addition to John Purser as musicologist, the team comprised the archaeologist Fraser Hunter, silversmith John Creed, and trombonist John Kenny. After 2,000 years of silence the reconstructed Deskford Carnyx was unveiled at the National Museum of Scotland in April 1993. In the same year on BBC Radio Scotland, John Purser presented an hour long documentary, The Voice of The Carnyx, and Purser and Kenny joined forces to give illustrated lectures in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Nairn.
From 1994, as John Kenny continued to experiment with playing techniques for the carnyx, he has been able to incorporate the instrument into his solo recitals. In 1995 he composed a piece for 4 carnyces, multi-tracked in the great glass canopied hall of the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh; this became the title track of his solo CD The Voice of The Carnyx. In the same year Kenny recorded a solo carnyx improvisation featured on the CD Voyage Musicale d’Ecosse (AD056) on the French label AUDIVIS, and Ian Ritchie, artistic director of the newly established Highland Festival, proposed that a new piece for carnyx be commissioned from a major British composer. Nigel Osborne was approached, and with funding from United Distillers, in May 1996 his Forest~River~Ocean for carnyx & string quartet toured 10 venues in the Highlands in conjunction with a major educational project. At the end of this tour on June 6 1996, John Kenny and John Whiting recorded the carnyx in the giant Smoo Cave, a Viking hideaway near to Cape Wrath in north west Scotland. This recording appears on a CD entitled The Kilmartin Sessions: The Sounds of Ancient Scotland available from the Kilmartin House Museum. It was after the success of the Highland Festival project that Ian Ritchie and John Kenny came together to form the company Carnyx & Co.
Evolution
Carnyx & Co was originally established to explore the expressive potential of a reconstructed 2000 year old Celtic war horn – and to expose that extraordinary object to as many people as possible, through the medium of live performance – but it rapidly became apparent that the carnyx is a “Trojan Horse” which enables a unique blend of archaeology, history, mythology, musicology, and even physics, through the medium of music. No music existed for the carnyx, so it was necessary not only to develop playing techniques, but to invent a language for this ancestral voice – and thus a project which began with musical archaeology became a dynamo of contemporary creativity, which has extended into many fields. Currently, Carnyx & Co funds and administrates projects of widely varying styles, including the HeadSpace Ensemble which has facilitated the development of a unique instrument, Head=Space, allowing trumpeter Clarence Adoo, to perform again as a professional musician following a road accident which left him paralysed from the neck down.