The Storm Cone

The Storm Cone is an immersive artwork by artist Laura Daly, with new music composition by Lucy Pankhurst, that reveals the lost bandstands in our municipal parks and explores their forgotten histories. At its centre is a journey through music and sound that considers our relationship with the past, while charting the fading away of a brass band during the interwar years (1918-1939).

The Storm Cone is experienced in the park setting, through a free app and using headphones. Initially it immerses the visitor in the 360 sound of a band performing as a full ensemble in the park. Moving amongst the absent bandsmen, the audience will hear the detail of every instrument, before following the departed musicians into eight spatial sound works, where solo musical phrases merge into new environments.

The Storm Cone will be located on the site of the original bandstand in Peel Park, Salford. It will also be presented at NetPark in Chalkwell Park, Southend, as part of Estuary 2021.

The music for The Storm Cone is a newly commissioned composition. Lucy Pankhurst worked closely with Laura Daly to evolve musical themes and phrases that reflect the artist’s ideas and narrative for the overall project. She has created an innovative and contemporary score that utilises sound spatialising technologies to move music around the listener; with instruments calling and responding across the ‘bandstand’. The resulting piece is sculptural in its approach.

Students, staff and friends of The University of Salford performed and recorded the commission. For many of the younger musicians it was their first recording session. It was the only live music performance at the University. The sound works bring together vocal contributions from a wide range of people including the University’s drama and music students and Manchester choir, Chorus of Others.

The title of the work comes from Rudyard Kipling’s 1932 poem that forewarned of the Second World War. It considers key aspects of the interwar period and the ensuing break-up and reshaping of communities. Serving as warning shot, The Storm Cone contemplates the residual impact of this time and the cyclical nature of history in terms of current events, including the economic downturn and rise of populism, extremism, racism and antisemitism. It is also a commemoration of creative legacy. The resulting experience is an artwork that is imbued with a sense of both loss and celebration, underlining human strength and fragility.

The Storm Cone is commissioned by University of Salford Art Collection and Metal in collaboration with Salford Culture and Place Partnership on the occasion of Rediscovering Salford. Generously supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. Also supported by PN Daly Ltd, Zinc and Copper Roofing, Southend on Sea Borough Council, and Goldsmiths.