Last Thursday's world premiere of Björk's multimedia extravaganza Biophilia packed all the wonderment one has come to expect of Iceland's greatest export. Performing in the round at Campfield Market Hall as part of the Manchester International Festival, the 45-year-old singer and serial risk-taker unveiled 10 new songs exploring the links between music, nature and technology.
Each song was cued by the unmistakable voice of the naturalist and fellow lover of life, Sir David Attenborough, while Björk - resplendent in shaggy orange wig and a chinstrap of blue face paint - enjoyed backing from a 24-piece, all-female Icelandic choir that struck tableau vivant poses. The electronics ace Matt Robertson and the virtuoso percussionist Manu Delago completed the able line-up, the music created by the ensemble an ongoing war against cliché.
To magical effect, the show utilised a bespoke array of newly invented instruments, some of which seemed pleasingly retro-futurist. We got four huge "pendulum harps" ("played" by the pull of gravity), a digital pipe organ that Björk controlled via an iPad, and a synthesizer that "played" lightning (the song Thunderbolt was accompanied by the lusty crackle of two Tesla coils placed at the side of the stage).
Up above the proceedings, an octagonal formation of video screens relayed animated footage from apps specially commissioned for each song. That for Virus took a playful look at invaded molecular structures, and Björk's equally playful lyric wasn't so much "sympathy for the devil" as sympathy for the virus. "Like a flame that seeks explosives / as gunpowder seeks a war / I feast inside you," she sang to a spare, music-box-like accompaniment. This time the featured instrument was a "gameleste", an odd hybrid of gamelan and orchestral celeste.
Thursday's show was the first of six the singer has scheduled for her three-week residency at the Manchester International Festival. A biennial event that has become a key showcase for new, often innovative artworks, the festival's inaugural run hosted the first performances of Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett's Monkey: Journey to the West in 2007, while in 2009, Rufus Wainwright premiered his opera Prima Donna at MIF.
Other 2011 bookings include Snoop Dogg and Sinead O'Connor. It is Biophilia, though - a many-pronged and "explicitly educational" venture that has busied Björk and her team of app developers, scientists and inventors for the past three years - that has folk most excited.
Björk has never baulked at artistic challenges. Biophilia may be her most daring venture to date, though, its live shows a portal to a more interactive and, yes, innovative experience that's best described in chunks.
First there's Biophilia the album, due later this year. Traditional formats will be augmented by an iPad app version developed by Björk and leading programmers such as the precocious Max Weisel, the high-school student behind the rated "musical geometry" app, Soundrop. Apple was reportedly surprised that Björk had managed to persuade various rival programmers to work on the same project, and that they offered to do so on a "no money upfront, profit-share only" speaks volumes about their enthusiasm for the singer's venture.
Biophilia packs 10 apps, each tailored to a specific song and merging a natural phenomenon with a musical idea. That for Moon, for example, has music inspired by lunar phases, while that for Crystalline compares certain musical structures with those found in crystals. Each individual app also packs an animated score, a scientific essay, and an interactive game designed to promote further understanding of the concept being explored.
While that might sound a little dry on paper, pre-show demos at the MIF showed the Biophilia apps suite to be highly engaging in practice. One of Björk's motivations was to create programs in which children could explore and understand music physically and intuitively, rather than through "stuffy" music theory and traditional forms of notation. "Music changes into something else when you read it," she recently told the music website Pitchfork, citing the formal musical education she had railed against as a youngster back in Iceland. "I was always complaining that [my training in music] was too academic."
Accordingly, another strand of the singer's Manchester residency is Music School Biophilia, a playful educational programme allowing children from two local schools to explore the venture's new instruments, apps, scientific concepts and technologies, then "offer up creative responses". With her feral voice, childlike sense of exploration and unbridled enthusiasm, Björk seems the perfect figurehead for such a project, and Thursday's live show had many moments in which she used potent simile to illuminate complex ideas for young minds. "As fast as your fingernail grows / the Atlantic Ridge drifts," she sang on Mutual Core. It felt like Sesame Street merging with the National Geographic as only Björk could manage.
Of course, with Iceland situated above the collision of two tectonic plates, the singer is no stranger to continental drift. Not for nothing did the volcanic beats on Jöga, from 1997's Homogenic, attempt to realise Iceland's physical geography in sound. For Björk, a woman who has often said that she likes to do her composing al fresco, Biophilia marks a natural progression, a deepening of the natural world empathy that has long been a fixture of and a touchstone for her music.
"When I'm in nature everything falls into place," she told me when I interviewed her for The Independent in 2008. "If people spend too long in cities they get neurotic and paranoid, but if you put them in the mountains for two weeks, all those small worries drop down like dead flies." In the same interview, we talked about the animated video for the Volta album track Wanderlust, in which Björk journeys downstream on the backs of two giant yaks, singing "I am leaving this harbour / Giving urban a farewell," and about her 2006, ultimately unsuccessful protest against the plan by the US company Alcoa and the Icelandic government to build a dam to power an aluminium smelter in the wilderness of east Iceland. (Concerns had included the displacement of reindeer herds, and the possible desiccation of a stunning aquatic region.)
All of the above underlines why the Biophilia project is so dear to the singer's heart, and another highlight of Thursday's premiere came when Attenborough cued the song Cosmogony, adding the qualifiers, "music of the spheres, equilibrium". The Icelandic choir began the song crouched down, their massed voices harmonising on a sustained note that gained volume and momentum as they rose to a standing position. If they intended a metaphor for the Big Bang, it worked well.
The body of Cosmogony turned out to be an intensely melodic, rather olde worlde-sounding hymn to our Blue Planet, Björk indeed tapping into the music of the spheres. You could understand why Attenborough was down with the programme, for Biophilia is a remarkable undertaking that furthers his own good work in the field of wonderment.
Fixtures
Tuesday - 5.15pm: Team Lebanon v Alger Corsaires; 8.30pm: Abu Dhabi Storms v Pharaohs
Wednesday - 5.15pm: Pharaohs v Carthage Eagles; 8.30pm: Alger Corsaires v Abu Dhabi Storms
Thursday - 4.30pm: Team Lebanon v Pharaohs; 7.30pm: Abu Dhabi Storms v Carthage Eagles
Friday - 4.30pm: Pharaohs v Alger Corsaires; 7.30pm: Carthage Eagles v Team Lebanon
Saturday - 4.30pm: Carthage Eagles v Alger Corsaires; 7.30pm: Abu Dhabi Storms v Team Lebanon
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The Florida Project
Director: Sean Baker
Starring: Bria Vinaite, Brooklynn Prince, Willem Dafoe
Four stars
The specs
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Transmission: ten-speed
Power: 420bhp
Torque: 624Nm
Price: Dh325,125
On sale: Now
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
RESULTS
2pm: Handicap (PA) Dh40,000 (Dirt) 1,000m
Winner: AF Mozhell, Saif Al Balushi (jockey), Khalifa Al Neyadi (trainer)
2.30pm: Maiden (PA) Dh40,000 (D) 2,000m
Winner: Majdi, Szczepan Mazur, Abdallah Al Hammadi.
3pm: Handicap (PA) Dh40,000 (D) 1,700m
Winner: AF Athabeh, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel.
3.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh40,000 (D) 1,700m
Winner: AF Eshaar, Bernardo Pinheiro, Khalifa Al Neyadi
4pm: Gulf Cup presented by Longines Prestige (PA) Dh150,000 (D) 1,700m
Winner: Al Roba’a Al Khali, Al Moatasem Al Balushi, Younis Al Kalbani
4.30pm: Handicap (TB) Dh40,000 (D) 1,200m
Winner: Apolo Kid, Antonio Fresu, Musabah Al Muahiri
The specs
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Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
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The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
Turning%20waste%20into%20fuel
%3Cp%3EAverage%20amount%20of%20biofuel%20produced%20at%20DIC%20factory%20every%20month%3A%20%3Cstrong%3EApproximately%20106%2C000%20litres%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EAmount%20of%20biofuel%20produced%20from%201%20litre%20of%20used%20cooking%20oil%3A%20%3Cstrong%3E920ml%20(92%25)%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3ETime%20required%20for%20one%20full%20cycle%20of%20production%20from%20used%20cooking%20oil%20to%20biofuel%3A%20%3Cstrong%3EOne%20day%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EEnergy%20requirements%20for%20one%20cycle%20of%20production%20from%201%2C000%20litres%20of%20used%20cooking%20oil%3A%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3E%E2%96%AA%20Electricity%20-%201.1904%20units%3Cbr%3E%E2%96%AA%20Water-%2031%20litres%3Cbr%3E%E2%96%AA%20Diesel%20%E2%80%93%2026.275%20litres%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Results
2.30pm Maiden (PA) Dh40,000 1,200m
Winner Lamia, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel.
3pm Handicap (PA) Dh40,000 1,000m
Winner Jap Al Afreet, Elione Chaves, Irfan Ellahi.
3.30pm Handicap (PA) Dh40,000 1,700m
Winner MH Tawag, Bernardo Pinheiro, Elise Jeanne.
4pm Handicap (TB) Dh40,000 2,000m
Winner Skygazer, Sandro Paiva, Ali Rashid Al Raihe.
4.30pm The Ruler of Sharjah Cup Prestige (PA) Dh250,000 1,700m
Winner AF Kal Noor, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel.
5pm Sharjah Marathon (PA) Dh70,000 2,700m
Winner RB Grynade, Bernardo Pinheiro, Eric Lemartinel.
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Director: Jon Watts
Stars: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon
Rating:*****
The%20specs
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TOP 5 DRIVERS 2019
1 Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 10 wins 387 points
2 Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes, 4 wins, 314 points
3 Max Verstappen, Red Bull, 3 wins, 260 points
4 Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, 2 wins, 249 points
5 Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, 1 win, 230 points
UAE SQUAD
Ahmed Raza (Captain), Rohan Mustafa, Jonathan Figy, CP Rizwan, Junaid Siddique, Mohammad Usman, Basil Hameed, Zawar Farid, Vriitya Aravind (WK), Waheed Ahmed, Karthik Meiyappan, Zahoor Khan, Darius D'Silva, Chirag Suri
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
CHINESE GRAND PRIX STARTING GRID
1st row
Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari)
Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari)
2nd row
Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes-GP)
Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes-GP)
3rd row
Max Verstappen (Red Bull Racing)
Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull Racing)
4th row
Nico Hulkenberg (Renault)
Sergio Perez (Force India)
5th row
Carlos Sainz Jr (Renault)
Romain Grosjean (Haas)
6th row
Kevin Magnussen (Haas)
Esteban Ocon (Force India)
7th row
Fernando Alonso (McLaren)
Stoffel Vandoorne (McLaren)
8th row
Brendon Hartley (Toro Rosso)
Sergey Sirotkin (Williams)
9th row
Pierre Gasly (Toro Rosso)
Lance Stroll (Williams)
10th row
Charles Leclerc (Sauber)
arcus Ericsson (Sauber)
QUARTER-FINAL
Wales 20-19 France
Wales: T: Wainwright, Moriarty. Cons: Biggar (2) Pens: Biggar 2
France: T: Vahaamahina, Ollivon, Vakatawa Cons: Ntamack (2)
