Laura Marling and
12 Ensemble
Sunday 6 September, 7.30pm–c9.00pm
Tracks to include:
Tap at My Window
Goodbye England (Covered in Snow)
What He Wrote
Salinas
The Suite: Take the Night Off – I Was an Eagle – You Know – Breathe
Once
The Valley
Next Time
Song for Our Daughter
Fortune
The End of the Affair
For You
Blow by Blow
Laura Marling singer/guitar
Nick Pini double bass
Rob Moose arranger
12 Ensemble
This concert is broadcast live by Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 3, on Â鶹ԼÅÄ Four at 8.00pm and on Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 6 Music on Monday 21 September. You can listen to any of the 2020 Proms concerts on Â鶹ԼÅÄ Sounds or watch on Â鶹ԼÅÄ iPlayer until Monday 12 October.
Welcome to tonight’s Prom
Featuring brand-new string arrangements by instrumentalist, arranger and producer Rob Moose, performed by the London-based 12 Ensemble, tonight’s Prom journeys through the back catalogue of singer-songwriter Laura Marling, whose recent live performance at Union Chapel The Guardian described as ‘like being dosed with a vitamin I had been leaving out of my diet’.
The BRIT Award winner and four-time Mercury Prize nominee takes to the Royal Albert Hall stage for a one-off acoustic retrospective. Songs from her latest album including ‘Fortune’ and the album’s title-track, ‘Song for Our Daughter’, sit alongside a selection from earlier albums including Alas, I Cannot Swim – released when Marling was just 18.
Welcome to tonight's Prom
Featuring brand-new string arrangements by instrumentalist, arranger and producer Rob Moose, performed by the London-based 12 Ensemble, tonight’s Prom journeys through the back catalogue of singer-songwriter Laura Marling, whose recent live performance at Union Chapel The Guardian described as ‘like being dosed with a vitamin I had been leaving out of my diet’.
The BRIT Award winner and four-time Mercury Prize nominee takes to the Royal Albert Hall stage for a one-off acoustic retrospective. Songs from her latest album including ‘Fortune’ and the album’s title-track, ‘Song for Our Daughter’, sit alongside a selection from earlier albums including Alas, I Cannot Swim – released when Marling was just 18.
Laura Marling and the Art of Song
Laura Marling didn’t take lockdown lightly. When the UK received its stay-at-home orders at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the 30-year-old singer-songwriter decided to release her seventh studio album, Song for Our Daughter, months before it was originally due to come out. ‘I saw no reason to hold back on something that, at the very least, might entertain, and might even provide some sense of union,’ explained Marling. The heartfelt, delicate collection of songs united both fans and critics, who praised the intimate body of work, many branding it her finest yet.
Her first album to be written while not on the road, Song for Our Daughter was created during a period of inner reflection after Marling moved to North London to live near her two older sisters following a decade of globetrotting and soul-searching, including stints in Los Angeles and on England’s South Coast.
With her world tour cancelled because of the coronavirus, Marling became one of the first artists to experiment with streaming live music to fans while the UK’s venues found themselves shuttered indefinitely. Tonight she makes a return to the Proms (she previously made an appearance at the Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 6 Music Prom back in 2013), having played a pair of solo shows to an empty, candle-lit Union Chapel in Islington back in June. She is accompanied by London-based string orchestra, the 12 Ensemble, playing material from across her storied career. The string arrangements have been newly created by Rob Moose, an accomplished instrumentalist and founder of classical group yMusic. Moose has previously written and recorded with Bon Iver, as well as working as conductor and orchestrator for Sufjan Stevens and Antony and the Johnsons. Marling is also accompanied by double bass player and jazz musician Nick Pini.
Born to musical parents in Berkshire – her father ran a recording studio and her mother is a music teacher – Marling made her name as a prodigious 16-year-old, silencing the crowds at London’s pubs and clubs with her devastating solo sets during the indie boom of the mid-2000s. But her youth wasn’t necessarily an advantage; she once resorted to gigging on the street after a venue refused to let her in because she was under age. Marling’s finger-picked acoustic sound – as well as her fuss-free attitude – quickly found favour in the pages of NME and broadsheet newspapers alike.
“I saw no reason to hold back on something that, at the very least, might entertain, and might even provide some sense of union”
Released to widespread acclaim when she was just 18, Marling’s sparkling debut, Alas I Cannot Swim, was nominated for the Mercury Prize and showcased her preternatural songwriting ability, as evidenced in the lilting ‘Tap at My Window’, based on the opening line of Philip Larkin’s poem ‘This Be the Verse’.
Two years later, 2010 saw her second album, I Speak Because I Can, and also her second Mercury Prize nomination. Documenting Marling’s move from teenager to womanhood, this rootsier collection contains one of her best-loved songs, ‘Goodbye England (Covered in Snow)’, all about missing home while touring. Hushed and wintery, Marling has previously branded the romantic track ‘sort of soppy’, adding that the lyric ‘We will keep you, little one’ concerns her relationship with her parents and siblings. ‘In my family I’m “Little One”, even though I’m about twice the size of them all,’ says Marling. ‘There’s some lines like that in my songs that I think only people who know me would know where that sits with me. That’s one of them.’
Proving her prolific output, in 2011 Marling released her third album, A Creature I Don’t Know. Now weaving in influences from jazz and stepping away from her traditional folksy sound, she also expanded on her literary references, with the rolling ‘Salinas’ named after the Californian town where writer John Steinbeck was born. This storytelling song also bore the delicate pulse of country music and, like much of Marling’s work, looked at the family ties that bind, as she sang from the viewpoint of a tearaway youth, exclaiming: ‘My mother was a saviour of six foot of bad behaviour.’
There was yet another Mercury Prize nod for 2013’s Once I Was An Eagle, in which Marling dramatically experimented with structure. The first four songs from her fourth album rolled into each other as one starkly powerful suite, with ‘Take the Night Off’, ‘I Was an Eagle, ‘You Know’ and ‘Breathe’ a continuous, dramatic piece in which you can find heartbreak, hope and heroism in equal measure. ‘I will not be a victim of circumstance,’ she determines in ‘I Was an Eagle’, cathartically moving through a break-up and coming out with an enviable sense of self-possession.
This feeling of confidence continued through to 2015’s Short Movie, which was self-produced and also saw Marling playing electric guitar for the first time. That was followed in 2017 by Semper Femina, whose title is borrowed from the ancient Roman poet Virgil, which prompted Marling’s first ever GRAMMY nomination. An incisive study in female relationships and desire, the first song written for the record, ‘The Valley’, is a spiralling, strangely uplifting ballad inspired by seeing a close friend mourn the death of her father.
Which brings us to 2020 and Song for Our Daughter, Marling's latest album to receive a Mercury Prize nomination (the results are announced on 24 September). This seventh album is something of a guidebook for Marling’s imagined offspring, especially in its sparse but deeply melodic title-track. ‘How would I guide my daughter, arm her and prepare her for life and all of its nuance?’ asks Marling, who has now begun to consider the possibility of becoming a mother herself. ‘I want to stand behind her and whisper in her ear all the confidences and affirmations I had found so difficult to provide myself.’ Tonight Marling will be playing songs from all these albums and more.
Programme note © Leonie Cooper
A regular contributor to ‘NME’, ‘The Guardian’ and ‘Time Out’, Leonie Cooper is a London-based music and arts journalist.
Laura Marling Trivia
She is currently studying for a Master’s degree in Psychoanalysis. Before lockdown hit the UK, Marling was travelling by bus on a daily basis to study for her course in the reading rooms of the British Library.
In 2011 Laura Marling won the BRIT Award for Best British Female Solo Artist, beating Ellie Goulding, Paloma Faith and Cheryl Cole. The following year the award was picked up by Adele. She was nominated again in 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018.
While living in Los Angeles, Marling attempted to become a yoga teacher, but soon realised her stretching skills weren’t quite up to task. ‘You need to know a lot more than I know to do it well,’ she later admitted.
Marling plays in the band LUMP alongside Mike Lindsay of avant-garde folk band Tunng. They released their debut album in 2018 and will be following it with a second release next year. Marling has said lyrics on the new album will be inspired by her psychoanalysis studies.
Marling co-wrote and starred in Woman Driver, a short film about a female hitchhiker who is picked up in Marfa, Texas, by a man driving a converted school bus. After premiering at the London Short Film Festival in 2015, it won Best Musical and Best Actress in the 72-Hour National Film Challenge
In 2016 Marling hosted a podcast called Reversal of the Muse, in which she spoke to legendary female musicians about their creative process. Described as ‘an exploration of femininity in creativity’, the show saw her in discussion with artists such as Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris and sister trio Haim.
Biographies
Laura Marling singer/guitar
Singer-songwriter Laura Marling was born in the South of England in 1990. She was a member of the original line-up of indie folk band Noah and the Whale, but left in 2008. She came to prominence the same year with the release of her debut solo album Alas, I Cannot Swim, which was nominated for the Mercury Prize.
She has since received three further Mercury Prize nominations for her albums I Speak Because I Can, Once I Was an Eagle and Song for Our Daughter, the last of which was released in April. Other accolades include Best British Female Solo Artist at the 2011 BRIT Awards, Best Solo Artist at the 2011 NME Awards and a GRAMMY nomination for Best Folk Album for her 2016 record Semper Femina.
While living in Los Angeles she acted in the short film Woman Driver. The film premiered at the London Short Film Festival in 2015 and featured three of Marling's songs in its soundtrack.
In 2018 she teamed up with Mike Lindsay of the English folk band Tuung and released LUMP, a self-titled album described by The Guardian as having ‘an unusual but uncomplicated beauty’. She is currently studying for a Master’s degree in Psychoanalysis.
Rob Moose arranger
Rob Moose is a GRAMMY Award-winning arranger and multi-instrumentalist based in Brooklyn, New York. He has written and recorded charts for over 400 albums, including work by Bon Iver, Paul Simon, Taylor Swift, Alabama Shakes, John Legend, Kesha, Bruce Hornsby, HAIM, Mumford & Sons and FKA twigs.
As an orchestrator, he has been repeatedly featured on the DECLASSIFIED® Series at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC alongside artists such as Regina Spektor, Blake Mills, Emily King and Ben Folds. He recently served as Music Director for Sara Bareilles’s ‘Amidst The Chaos’ tour and is a regular contributor to the podcast Punch Up The Jam.
Nick Pini double bass
Double bass player Nick Pini studied at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance and now works as a jazz musician and session player. He has performed on Laura Marling's albums Semper Femina (nominated for a GRAMMY Award), Short Movie and Song for Our Daughter (nominated for the Mercury Prize). He has also worked on albums by Black Eyed Dog, Sam Brookes, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Idea Mae, Tom Jones, Jordan Mackampa, Nick Mulvey, Dom Pipkin and Izzie Yardley.
12 Ensemble
Formed in 2012 by Artistic Directors Eloisa-Fleur Thom and Max Ruisi, the 12 Ensemble is an unconducted string ensemble of London-based chamber musicians. The group performs music of the past alongside ground-breaking new commissions and is flexible in size, ranging from a core of 12 players to performances with 23 strings and beyond.
The 12 Ensemble is in demand internationally, recently performing at leading venues such as the Barbican Centre, Berlin Philharmonie and Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg. Past highlights include performances in the USA, South Korea and Iceland, as well as multiple broadcasts on Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 3. The group has also made appearances at prominent festivals worldwide, including the Â鶹ԼÅÄ Proms, La Folle Journée in France and the Barbican Centre’s Sounds and Visions festival, where it was in residence for a weekend.
The ensemble has collaborated with artists such as Keaton Henson, Max Richter, The National, Elena Tonra and choreographer Alexander Whitley. It has also released two critically acclaimed albums, Resurrection (2018) and Death and the Maiden (2020).
First Violins
Eloisa-Fleur Thom
Zara Benyounes
Venetia Jollands
Yume Fujise
Alanna Tonetti-Tieppo
Ellie Consta
Second Violins
Roberto Ruisi
Oliver Cave
Hannah Dawson
Charlotte Saluste-Bridoux
Guy Button
William Newell
Violas
Luba Tunnicliffe
Elitsa Bogdanova
Matthew Kettle
Freya Hicks
Cellos
Max Ruisi
Sergio Serra
Clare O’Connell
Colin Alexander
Double Bass
Toby Hughes