Two more quick boosts for imminent concerts…
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London-based concert series 840 specialises in new experimental and minimal music. Here’s what they’re offering this month:
“840 presents an evening of new music for viola and cello, performed by Jennifer Ames Alexander and Colin Alexander (Tre Voci). Showcasing the versatility of this duet format, the programme will feature intimate, resonant pieces from Eva-Maria Houben (Wandelweiser) and Marc Sabat alongside brand-new works from Colin Alexander and from 840 curators James Luff and Alex Nikiporenko.
“We are also excited to be featuring work by two wonderful Irish composers, with a piece from Amanda Feery in which disjointed fragments replace seamless transitions, and a newly-composed work from Garrett Sholdice, known for writing music of “exquisite delicacy” (‘The Irish Times’).”
840 presents:
840: New Music for Viola & Cello
St James’ Church Islington, Prebend Street, Islington, London, N1 8PF, England
Saturday 7th July 2018, 7.30pm -information here, here and here
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And a week later, there’s this…
“London Symphony Orchestra‘s Discovery’s Soundhub programme presents new music by first year composers, performed by LSO musicians and guests.
“Join us to hear ‘Twenty One Minute Pieces’, Robin Haigh’s survey of nine hundred years of musical language and instrumentation alongside Lillie Harris’ ‘My Last Duchess’ an interactive insight into coercion and control in a Gothic-Romantic monologue. Then take the fragile journey from sorrow to hope through music and dance with Yvonne Eccles’ ‘Towards hope’ before Nick Morrish Rarity explores ghostly sounds etched into the brittle grooves of shellac records in ‘the traces left behind’.”
Here’s the opening section of ‘My Last Duchess’:
The evening’s ensemble includes Early Music recorder specialist Tabea Debus, flute and piccolo player Stuart McIlwham, flautist/bass flautist Carla Rees (who’s appeared plenty of times in here with her ), clarinettist Heather Roche, percussionist Paul Stoneman and viola player Anna Bastow. Broadening the sonic perspective, violinist Julian Gil Rodriguez and cellist Jennifer Brown will both also be playing Stroh versions of their respective instruments, and acoustician Aleksander Kolkowski will be playing a phonograph and an assortment of antique shellac discs for the Rarity piece. (Presumably, that’ll be Rarity played using rarities. Don’t all of you laugh at once, now.)
A quick note – this is one of the few times I’ve heard of Stroh string instruments being used in classical concerts, although a century ago they’d have been quite common. Late Victorian devices, they’re trimmed-down solid-body versions of acoustic instruments (mostly from the orchestral string section, but also sometimes guitars and lutes) with their sounds amplified by built-in metal resonators and horns, like early phonograms. Designed to replace traditional string instruments which might be drowned out in noisy environments, they were used in early recording studios before being killed off by amplification technology and better microphones.
These days the ones which aren’t in museums or the backs of cupboards are mostly used to lend antique sonic retrofitting to experimental rock and pop songs. My guess is that for this concert they’re being used alongside the shellac to add compression and metal plating to the Rarity piece…
London Symphony Orchestra presents:
LSO Soundhub Showcase: Phase I
LSO St Lukes, 161 Old Street, St Lukes, London, EC1V 9NG, England
Saturday 14th July 2018, 7.00pm – information here, here and here
Misfit City 
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