For the launch of their new season, Kammer Klang team up with the London Sinfonietta for a set of chamber pieces performed by Sinfonietta solo instrumentalists or as playback items, all of which dovetail into the Sinfonietta’s 50th anniversary celebrations.
Kammer Klang & London Sinfonietta present:
Kammer Klang: Tim Gill + Alistair Mackie (playing Javier Álvarez/Jonathan Harvey/Lauren Marshall) + Trevor Wishart
Café Oto, 18-22 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London, E8 3DL, England
Wednesday 8th November 2017, 7.30pm – information here, here and here
Cellist Tim Gill and trumpeter Alistair Mackie (assisted by sound design setups from Sound Intermedia) will be applying their talents to electro-acoustic pieces. One, by the late Jonathan Harvey, sees a solo trumpet transformed into a garrulous ensemble. Another, by the Mexican-Korean-influenced Javier Álvarez is a fabulously dramatic ritual, teeming and menacing, for string sounds and and-bowed-gong ritual inspired by a pairing of two short silent films from the 1920s (a Man Ray image sequence, preceded by horribly compelling footage of a feeding snake). There’ll also be a stereo diffusion playback of Trevor Wishart’s software-driven studio piece ‘Globalalia’, a rapid-fire collage of vocal samples which he describes as “a universal dance of human speech as revealed in twenty tales from everywhere, spoken in tongues”.
In addition, Tim will be performing the evening’s usual ‘Fresh Klang’ item – in this case, a cello-and-electronics piece by Lauren Marshall, principal composer with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. Online examples of Lauren’s work are still quite rare, but I’ve included a couple of her Soundcloud clips in the roundup below: ‘Hi-Seas’, her violin/string ensemble/electronics mediation on disassociative loneliness, and her luxuriant expanded-orchestra fantasia ‘Suspended Between Earth And Air’ (hailed in ‘Seen And Heard‘, after its premiere back in January, as “a miracle of inspiration (with) stupendous impact”). Both display the work of a young composer with a remarkable flair for slow reveal and the implementation of artful drones with a dreamy Romantic melodicism. Her assured talents translate down well from full Wagnerian orchestras to smaller ensembles, so the same should hold true of this new duet between cellist and software.
Programme:
Fresh Klang: Lauren Marshall – Chang’e flies to the moon (for cello and electronics) – performed by Tim Gill
Jonathan Harvey – Other Presences (for trumpet & electronics) – performed by Alistair Mackie with Sound Intermedia electronics
Jonathan Harvey – Ricercare una Melodia (for trumpet & electronics) – performed by Alistair Mackie with Sound Intermedia electronics
Javier Álvarez – Le repas du serpent & Retour à la raison (for cello & electronics) – performed by Tim Gill with Sound Intermedia electronics)
Trevor Wishart – Globalalia (stereo diffusion)
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For those of you interested in the workings and applications of the graphic score, there’s an event a couple of days after Kammer Klang which delves into the world of this intriguing avant-garde tool, as part of the Royal Academy’s Jasper Johns exhibition…
Club Inégales & EFG London Jazz Festival presents:
‘Visualising Music: The Art of the Graphic Score’
The Reynolds Room @ Burlington House, Royal Academy of Arts, Piccadilly, Mayfair, London, W1J 0BD, England
Friday 10th November 2017, 6.30pm – information here and here
“In response to the dynamic that brought Jasper Johns and John Cage together in the 60s, musicians from Club Inégales combine with trumpeter/composer Kim Macari (leader of Family Band, founder of the Apollo Jazz Network and the Orpheus Project) and saxophonist/composer Raymond MacDonald (Professor of Music Psychology and Improvisation at Edinburgh University, co-founder of the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, and veteran of over sixty album releases), for a performance and discussion exploring the world of graphic scores, improvisation and structure.
“A ground-breaking composer and associate of Jasper Johns, John Cage was a keen graphic score composer, using visual symbols beyond traditional music notation to guide musicians in the performance of his work. Since then, composers and artists have played with pictures to create extraordinary visual scores to redefine the possibilities within composition, merging art and sound.
“In this exclusive event, Kim Macari will then be joined by founder of Club Inégales Peter Wiegold and Professor Raymond MacDonald, chair of Music Psychology and Improvisation at The University of Edinburgh, to explore the art of the graphic score.”
Misfit City 