The Saint of Bleecker Street – an opera by Gian Carlo Menotti

Director – Stephen Medcalf
Set - Jamie Vartan
Costumes – Katia Duflot
Lighting – Simon Corder

Opéra de Marseille, 2010
Photographs – Christian Dresse
The Saint of Bleecker Street – Wikipedia

Franks Closet – New musical which draws on the traditions of British Music Hall.
Lighting Design – Simon Corder.

The show was presented at Hoxton Hall, built as a music hall in 1863 – one of only four remaining in Britain.

Music, Book and Lyrics – Stuart Wood
Director – Ian Burton
Choreography – Kirsty Davide
Set – Catherine Phelps
Costumes – India Banks
Photographs – Spencer Cartwright

Winter Garden - an installation at Elvet Bridge, Durham.
Simon Corder, November 2009.

“The fluorescent bulbs on the banks of the Wear would have dazzled even Dan Flavin, the American founding father of light art. [...] What Flavin would make of this display is another matter. Light art has come a long way since the industrial minimalism that saw syncopations of strip bulbs arranged in white gallery spaces. Contemporary artists are using low-emission technology to produce site specific work on a grand scale. Unlike the postwar modernists, their work has a social function: to transform cities. They are engineers of public space and sculptors of civic identity. [...]”

In Durham, the light installations were knitted into the fabric of the city. British artist Simon Corder stuffed the recycling bins under the historic Elvet Bridge with fluorescent white striplights and festooned the trees with hundreds of pink and purple rods to create a winter garden. Under the damp arches, neon-green light rods poked out of the muddy riverbed. [...]”

Sophie Grove, The Guardian, 16 November 2009 . here

Winter Garden was a new commission for Lumiere, a festival of light for Durham.
Produced by Artichoke, November 2009.
Photography – Matthew Andrews

Lumiere Durham

Dominoes 2009 – Station House Opera.
Photography – Simon Corder.

Station House Opera’s commission for CREATE09 took as its starting point the simplest of ideas… a line of dominoes. On Sunday 26th July 2009, thousands of concrete blocks were used to create a moving sculpture unfolding over the course of the day with the help of a huge production team supported by hundreds of volunteers.

Commissioned by Artsadmin
website – Dominoes 2009

Cascade – an installation and performance at The Alnwick Garden.

Simon Corder, June 2006.

Cascade was an artist commission for after dinner entertainment. It took place over three nights. The premiere was for the World Summit on Arts and Culture on 16th June 2006.

The premise of Cascade was that a local Jazz duo had been booked to play a set following dinner. This unassuming pair regularly play small gigs around the North East in hotels and bars. In an inversion of the famous Stonehenge incident in the 1984 movie cult classic Spinal Tap, the pair found themselves playing in the midst of the spectacular Alnwick Garden Cascade in Northumberland.

The audience was invited to walk around the installation and through the hornbeam pergolas, as a finale Will Todd performed a new twelve minute piece of music. There was an element of performance art as a waiter clambered through the cascade to deliver the musicians a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale while his umbrella bearers made an elegant progress balancing on the walls alongside him.

Cascade was a new commission by One North East.
The Alnwick Garden
Photography – Simon Corder
Main Photograph – Chris Henderson

A Village Romeo and Juliet – an opera by Frederick Delius

Director – Stephen Medcalf
Set &  Costumes – Jamie Vartan
Lighting – Simon Corder

Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, 2002
Photographs – Simon Corder
A Village Romeo and Juliet – Wikipedia

This production of A Village Romeo and Juliet will be at Covent Garden in 2011.

Badger Watch – a feral badger exhibit at Paignton Zoo

Some feral badgers moved into a paddock in the zoo. Badgers setts are protected in England, and the hoof-stock normally in the paddock had to be taken out because of the danger if they fell into the setts. So the zoo started a seasonal evening ‘badger watch’, which proved a great success. It was critical to get the lighting design right to allow visitors to see while not disturbing the animals; these are wild, not zoo-bred animals.

Badger Watch opened in 2000, Simon Corder presented a paper describing this projects at the Sixth International Zoo Design Conference in 2004.

Client – Paignton Zoo
Lighting Design – Simon Corder
Photographs – (badgers) Bryan Raynes, Simon Corder

Badger Watch
Paignton Zoo

Night Safari, Singapore – the first night zoo in the world

Constructed at a cost of S$63 million, the Night Safari was officially opened on 26 May 1994 and occupies 40 hectares (0.4 km²) of secondary rainforest adjacent to the Singapore Zoo and Upper Seletar Reservoir. Night Safari houses over 1,000 animals of 120 species, of which 29% are threatened; about a million visitors visit the safari per year. The lighting design was developed over several years, involving extensive prototypes and testing.

Simon Corder presented a paper about the Night Safari lighting to the American Zoo and Aquarium Association in 1995.

Client – Wildlife Reserves Singapore
Director – Bernard Harrison
Lighting Design Consultant – Simon Corder

Night Safari, Singapore 1994
Photographs – (B&W) Simon Corder
Night Safari – Wikipedia
Night Safari – website