Funding application with Patrick Wildgust

Application from The Laurence Strene Trust to PRS Foundation New Writing fund.

Artistic rationale

Craig Vear’s compositions have been described as wholly original. They concentrate the mind on a place and its people. His award winning composition ‘Antarctica’, his installation ‘Singing Ringing Buoy’ and his recent commission ‘Superfield [Mumbai]’ push the boundaries of our understanding of music. But they also capture the essence of these imaginary landscapes, and present them in a way that is accessible and extraordinary.

Sterne is recognized internationally as an important figure in the world of meta-fiction and meta-narrative. He constructed narratives that are non-linear and that use surprising and often bewildering techniques to entertain and arrest the reader's attention. Vear has worked successfully with the Trust in the past and the artistic relationship has been fruitful.

Our proposal is to create an experimental digital opera created from Sterne’s book - A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy. It begins as a bawdy account of Yorick’s tour by coach through France and Italy, but soon digresses into poetic meanderings, transferring our interest from the macro to the micro, from the outer to the inner.


Vear’s opera is not about Sterne’s book but something from within the book: the imaginary dimension that is generated when the book is read. It will function using the phenomenological qualities of sound, music and theatre - the main concern is to take the mind of the audience to other places, and create a ‘dimension’ for their minds ear to wander.


The staging will be just as innovative with lights and projection focusing the eye on the ear. Performed in the round, a 360˚ visual horizon will be sensorial and not cognitive. A national tour is under development, as is forays into Europe and US.


The proposed work would generate further interest both in the original text and also in the possibilities for other artists to use Sterne's work as a starting point for new work. The Trust envisages that the resulting work will attract attention both nationally and internationally and will be seen as part of an adventurous and imaginative programme of commissions and partnerships with contemporary artists.


Vear's approach to the creation of new music fits well with Sterne's experimental and exploratory approach to narrative. The Trust anticipates that the collaboration with Craig Vear would be beneficial to the organisation and to the performers, and will work hard to promote this new composition nationally and internationally.

Organisations aims and activities

The Laurence Sterne Trust promotes the writings of its eighteenth century author in a wide variety of interpretations, exhibitions and projects. Artists have always responded to Sterne's work - from William Hogarth to Patrick Caulfield (his tapestry based on Tristram Shandy is displayed in the British Library) - and his inventive and humorous approach allows for a wide variety of interpretation.

A wide variety of novelists, painters, musicians and poets have been involved with the Trust over the last five years (including Tom Phillips RA, Corenlia Parker, Michael Nyman, Harrison Birtwistle, JM Coetzee, Hilary Mantel) and the resulting exhibitions have received popular and critical acclaim.


In 2009 Martin Rowson (Guardian political cartoonist) was commissioned to create a modern version of Sterne's 'life and times' in the style of Hogarth's A Rake's Progress which was exhibited in the Trust's gallery.


In the same year 73 artists and writers – including Vear – were invited to create new works to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the publication of Tristram Shandy - the resulting works can be seen on www.blackpage73.blogspot.com. Tom Phillips RA was commissioned to create new pages for his ongoing work A Humument (www.tomphillips.co.uk) - all collaborations have resulted in popular attractions for visitors to the museum.

Statement from the composer

This is an exceptional opportunity to work with the genre-bending author.

Described as a 'picaresque novel transformed into abstract art' Strene's sentimental journey digresses through the folds and creases of an individual's mind into a world where anything might happen.

For all its levity and wit the book is fundamentally philosophical, a reflection on the emotions of the heart, of pleasure, fun and wholehearted joy.

This opera will not be 'about' the book, but will embody it. The music will peep and peer through its pages and people using voice, music, found sound, computer technologies and illuminating visuals.