Overview

Canary Wharf: the rock opera is a 48 minute audio work that tells a story about financialisation and how it affects people both working in and outside London’s finance industry. It was composed and recorded primarily in Melbourne over 2020 - 2022, and includes narration and voices by British and Australian actors. The music spans electronica, soundscape, ‘80s influenced dance pop, punk rock and more.

There’s a lot of ideas, real events and financial terms jampacked into this audio journey. With the assistance of former BBC producer Bill Garrett, I’ve also put together a 50 minute film to help convey the story visually. I’ve broken down the opera into 10 ‘scenes’ below so you can follow the story in chunks and get more info about what is going on in each scene. You can also watch/ listen to the whole work here and read the script and lyrics here.

Trading in Air is the first song in the opera where John, Ruth and David reminisce about meeting in London just after Thatcher’s 1986 Big Bang of financial market deregulation. This 4 minute video includes fascinating archival footage of the London stock and metal exchanges and banks from the late ‘60s onwards (acknowledgements in credits).

The music from Canary Wharf is available across mainstream digital outlets including Spotify. However, if you want to support me as an artist, the best place to go for streaming and downloads is my Bandcamp site.