Watch an excerpt from a film exploring the work of composer and musician Frank Denyer
“I studied Music with Frank at Dartington College of Arts,” explains filmmaker Suhail Merchant, “having come to England from India at the age of 19.” Merchant is the director of Some Sounds Are Gates, a film exploring music's enduring presence in human life through the compositions of Frank Denyer. “What he taught me has influenced my work hugely,” Merchant continues. “I wrote about Frank while at university, so I had some background in his early life and ethnomusicological work. Bob Gilmore, who also taught me, was one of my main sources on Frank's life and work, and I expected him to write a book about Frank someday. After Bob died, I realised that this wouldn't happen, and that there was a risk that Frank's music would remain pretty niche, and even worse, that the large body of material he collected during ethnomusicological field work might be lost. I studied film with Werner Herzog in 2011, so I figured that a documentary about Frank would be the natural thing to do. But the film isn't a biography. There are biographical elements, but my main interest is in how Frank's work and his way of thinking can deliver insights into the deepest mysteries of music – what it is, how it works in different times and places, and why there's so much of it. His music is made out of this stuff.”
Some Sounds Are Gates was screened at HCMF 2019. Read more about Frank Denyer in a six page interview in The Wire 432. Wire subscribers can also read via the digital archive.
Some Sounds Are Gates is now available to watch in full.
