London 2012 Closing Ceremony to Showcase "Symphony of British Music"

(ATR) The artistic director of the closing ceremony says to expect "an elegant mash-up of British music" at the end of the 2012 Olympics.

Kim Gavin was speaking alongside other members of the creative and design team for the ceremony at London’s 3 Mills Studios to reveal more information about the event, to be titled "A Symphony of British Music".

"This is to celebrate who we are, what we are and one of the biggest British exports at the moment is British music," he said.

"Clearly we do have a very strong pool to pick from in terms of music. This is to showcase British creativity and British imagination."

Gavin did speak of the pressure on the closing ceremony and the fact that his team will only have 17 hours to transform the Olympic Stadium from an athletics venue into a performance space.

"We come out of the Games, and we have 17 hours to come in and actually construct the show – we don’t have the three weeks that the opening ceremony has. It kind of steers you in one direction creatively, but that’s not the only criteria," he said.

"17 hours to create the biggest after-show party – the show being the sport."

Overall creative director for the London 2012 ceremonies is three-time Academy Award-nominated director Stephen Daldry, who reiterated just how spectacular the shows will be on a much smaller budget than previous ones – a common theme now with the London Olympics.

"We’ve got $28 million to spread over four ceremonies. Obviously, a big chunk of that is set aside for the opening ceremony, Kim will have a certain amount of money and so will the Paralympic ceremonies," he said.

"I’ve said it before, the amount of money this country is spending on the ceremonies is significantly less than Beijing, than Athens, Sydney – in fact, you have to go quite a far way back, decades back, to find a cheaper ceremony."

The music director of the ceremony will be composer David Arnold, who has previously composed music for the last three James Bond films.

According to Arnold, the ceremony will incorporate all aspects of British music.

"Without revealing who we’ve booked, we’re going to go through a journey from Elgar to Adele," he said.

Any headline acts who will be booked will have to adjust to some budget requirements, though. Daldry confirmed that artists featured would be paid the incredible sum of "£1".

"This is not just a line-up show, this is completely different," he said, adding that unlike previous closing ceremonies, live music would be featured alongside recorded elements.

With just under six months to go until the ceremony on August 12, Gavin also confirmed that nearly all volunteers, dancers and extras had been recruited and auditions were continuing at the moment.

"We’re pretty down the road. November to December we had a first look at volunteers, groups and musicians to come and be a part of this ceremony and it was a very successful time," he said.

"Now we’re filling gaps, we know how many people we need and we’re getting close now to filling all the spaces."

Reported by Christian Radnedge

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