Tell us about your art form, or how you best describe your art?

 

It lies somewhere betwixt the muses of music, theater, puppetry, poetry and storytelling. There I am haunted by the ambiguous effigies of my ancestors. What makes each art form fascinating to me is being able to express them simultaneously in a complete work. 

 

At what age did you discover your passion for the arts? 

 

My first love was music. As a very young boy I made up songs and unexpected sounds to go with them. I recall using the rubber bottom of my Dad's slippers to make a sort of scratchy hip hop beat. At age 12 I began taking classical guitar lessons and from that moment on I became completely devoted to music. My first record came out when I was seventeen and I have been pursuing the lost chord ever since. 

 

What is your creative process?

 

I do not force the creative spark, nor that illuminating moment of ah ha! The supreme moment, referred to as kairos by the Greeks, comes when I sit at the piano, the harp, the guitar, the blank page or the wood carvers chisel and simply create. I do not pay attention to what key I am in, or if anything I write makes sense, or if anything I carve looks pleasing. As Horace says in the Ars Poetica, "The best poem is the one which conceals the effort of creation." I agree that creating a work of art takes a tremendous amount of effort, yet my experience has always been as if I am receiving the insights from the phenomenal, liminal and otherworldly realm, which exists just on the periphery of my consciousness. 

Dalrymple's new album,  Make Believe,  reflects three years of classical music theory and analysis, history, ear training, piano, vocal, and composition studies.

What is the art project or piece you are most proud of?  

 

Not hard to answer. I just finished writing, composing and recording the archetypal fairy tale cantata, Make Believe. This took three years to complete, is eighty minutes in length and incorporates thirty-five musicians with a medieval and a children's choir.  It marks the first work, which I am releasing under my own name, Dalrymple MacAlpin. After recording six albums with my past ensemble Lasher Keen, I felt I could go no further and I wanted to hone my knowledge of orchestration and composition, moving into more of a classical esthetic. That said, I feel Make Believe is just scratching the surface of what I intend to explore.

 

You have a play opening soon. How do you marry the several disciplines that you work with - are you fairly structured between them in terms of the attention you give each?

 

I find it is when wring a play I can weave each of my artistic disciplines effortlessly into a cohesive whole. With my current play Make Believe, a tale is being told with music, poetry, acting, dance and bardic storytelling. The total universal artwork referred to as Gesamtkunstwerk in Germany. A poem begins the story and a song picks it up from there, then players act out a scene which turns into a dance and rounds itself off with a storyteller narrating what is to come next. Within the theater I have found the alluring realm of fantasy to be most compatible with presenting my visions to an audience. I have in a sense, come home. 

 

What do you love best about our arts community in our county?

 

The support I have garnered from this community is astounding. I have never felt so appreciated and respected as an artist as I do within this county. Mikail Graham, Paul Emery and Sara Zahn are three who immediately come to mind as championing my work and whom have successfully produced and promoted my shows and plays. The amazing array of talent here is also very inspiring. Getting to work with opera singer and basso Profundo oktavist, John Ames, has been an honor, Poly rhythm virtuoso James Word, amazing musicians Lisa Stine, Cathy Collings, Randy and Callum McKean, Chris Streng, Jhon Renoir, The list could go on for far longer than you have room for I'm afraid.  I am truly thankful to be a part of this thriving artistic community. 

 

Name two Nevada County artists whose work you admire, and why.

	... In the days of Lasher Keen, with whom he recorded six albums ...

 

Tynowyn Woolman was the first one to come to mind when asked this question. She has been tirelessly working in the community since the 1970's, I have been collaborating with her for years in various settings. She is a composer, musician, actress, dancer, seamstress, weaver, painter, puppeteer, you name it, a true renaissance woman. Tynowyn does not advertise, you won't find her on facebook, social media, websites etc. She simply does her art and pays no attention to the technological demands of this age. I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for her.  

 

Benjamin A, Vierling is another Nevada County artist whose work I not only admire, but firmly believe is imbued with such potent magic, even the most skeptical naysayer would see one of his paintings and not help but notice they are actually more than paintings, they are true works of art and have life of their own. What I mean to express here is that his paintings are alive. When given a tour of his studio I was witness to this marvel and have remained in awe ever since. I am honored to have his work featured on the cover of the Make Believe record. 

 

What is your current or next art venture?

 

Make Believe is my next artistic venture. The record I mentioned above in this interview is the soundtrack for the Make Believe play; an archetypal musical fairy tale for the young and young at heart. It incorporates a live nine-piece chamber ensemble, fifteen actors and live cinema projections. A veritable tapestry of sights and sounds studying the dual nature of darkness and light, we witness six girls make their way from a drab dilapidated orphanage into the otherworld, with the help of their mystical guardians. It will premiere at the Nevada Theater January 25th-Febuary 3rd 2019. My wish with Make Believe is to remind the audience, magic not only exists, it also contains an inescapable soul, which has in fact never left us.

After Make Believe I will be debuting my first marionette opera, based on an original back-story of how Rumpelstilzchen acquired his ability to spin straw into gold. This is a project I have slowly been working on for years and am very excited to unleash.