As regards classical music, this month appears to be opening with London’s second annual Baroque At The Edge festival across the 4th, 5th and 6th January. Dividing its time between the Clerkenwell classical-church venues of LSO St Lukes and St James Clerkenwell, it starts from a baroque basis but roughly postulates (as it did last year) along the genre-blurring lines of “imagine if Bach was a jazzman, Purcell a folk-fiddler, and Monteverdi a minimalist…”
Following on from 2018’s debut festival, there’ll be a return engagement with concert dramatist Clare Norburn. Having tackled the murderous guilt and glory of Carlo Gesualdo last time around, Clare’s new work ‘Burying The Dead’ (premiered in the West Country last May) is another deathbed dream drama: this time set in 1695 and focusing on the final protracted thoughts and hallucinations of Henry Purcell as “dream-like memories of the Plague, the Fire of London, family life and the vibrant Restoration stage merge seamlessly with his exquisite vocal and instrumental music.” Said music will be provided by London-based baroque ensemble Ceruleo, who commissioned the play, while actor Niall Ashdown features as Purcell.
There’s more Purcell-related goings-on via Cecil Sharp House choir director and Wing-It Singer leader Sally Davies, who with her chorally-minded pianist daughter Holly Cullen Davies is running an open-to-all English folksong workshop, focussing on the songs Purcell would have known and referred to. In a similar spirit, the festival’s closing concert features a team-up of Dipper Malkin (John Dipper on fourteen-string viola d’amore, Dave Malkin on guitar and vocals) and singing storyteller Nick Hennessy – all three keen folk-steeped reinventors, on this occasion exploring how “the sophistication of Purcell meets the soul of English folk.”
Several more cross-disciplinary players are taking part. Violist Liam Byrne promises a concert in which you can “expect anything, anyhow, from (Marin) Marais to (Nico) Muhly”, although he’s keeping schtum on whether he’s playing pure and acoustic or with the electronics or conceptual tricks which make up the other side of his playing. Path-forging post-classical singer Nora Fischer, accompanied by theorbo lutenist Mike Fentross, will delve into the world of seventeenth century song with “intimate and exquisite re-imaginings of works by Purcell, Peri, Monteverdi and others.”
Elsewhere in the festival, vigorous violinist Elicia Silverstein will join the dots between Bach and Biber (representing the baroque) and Luciano Berio and Salvatore Sciarrino (representing the contemporary), as demonstrated on her 2018 debut recording ‘The Dreams And Fables I Fashion’. Replacing a planned baroque piano concert from Gabriela Montero (after she had to drop out following surgery), her fellow pianist David Greilsammer provides his ‘Scarlatti:Cage:Sonatas’ dual keyboard programme which constantly interlaces the music of Domenico Scarlatti with the twentieth-century prepared piano compositions of John Cage (hardware, wood and rubber resonating and burring between the strings).
Less compressed information, plus full dates and ticket info, can be found at the festival’s homepage and Facebook page.
‘Baroque At The Edge’ LSO St Luke’s, 161 Old Street, St Lukes, London, EC1V 9NG, England St James Clerkenwell, Clerkenwell Close, Clerkenwell, London, EC1R 0EA, England
Friday 4th January to Saturday 6th January 2019 (various times) – information here and here
William Howard writes “Throughout my professional career I have enjoyed working with composers and commissioning new works. While I was preparing to record my album of romantic love songs for piano, I started wondering what their contemporary equivalents might sound like. I thought many composers might not take to the idea of writing a piano ‘love song’, with its suggestions of a romantic genre, but almost every composer I approached reacted with great enthusiasm. Since love is a theme common to music across the world and across the centuries, I realised that a collection of twenty-first century piano love songs could provide a perfect introduction to the different musical languages of living composers, especially for listeners who come to new music somewhat reluctantly.”
This is the outcome.
Hoxton Hall/Spitalfields Music presents:
William Howard & Judith Weir: ‘Love Music?’ Hoxton Hall, 130 Hoxton Street, Hoxton, London, N1 6SH, England
Wednesday 26th April 2017, 7.30pm – information
“How do today’s composers write about love? Join pianist William Howard and composer Judith Weir, Master of the Queens Music, to explore a fascinating selection of new piano pieces expressing different aspects of love through different musical styles.
“This is an informal evening with contributions from several composers. Questions and feedback from the audience will be welcome.”
Having selected the concert pieces, William’s just commented“they are all very different in character, mood and level of difficulty and offer a fascinating taster menu of different ways in which composers approach writing music of a very personal nature. ‘Camille’ by Joby Talbot is dedicated to his eight-month-old daughter, Robert Saxton’s ‘For Teresa’ is dedicated to his wife. Richard Reed Parry’s ‘Fast Cloud’ is a fantasy of swirling fast notes, Pavel Zemek Novák’s ‘Little Song of Love and Mercy is a spiritual reflection. The two winning pieces of my composing competition are also very contrasted. Chia-Ying Lin‘s ‘Chanson Perpétuelle’ describes “the kind of love which is everlasting and constantly renewed over time” in an imaginative sound world of crystalline textures, while Freddy Viner‘s ‘Herz an Herz’ is an unashamedly romantic piece evoking the spirit of Wagner. The concert will end with Cheryl Frances-Hoad‘s glorious tribute to Dusty Springfield.”
Programme (in no particular order):
David Knotts – Album Leaf
Chia-Ying Lin – Chanson Perpétuelle (winner, Over 25 category)
Pavel Zemek Novák – Little Song Of Love And Mercy
Richard Reed Parry – Fast Cloud
Robert Saxton – For Teresa
Joby Talbot – Camille
Frederick Viner – Herz an Herz (winner, Under 25 category)
Cheryl Frances-Hoad – Love Song For Dusty
It’s a pity that there doesn’t seem to be a chance of hearing the runner-up pieces (Simon Mawhinney’s ‘ Daniel Josiah is Sleeping ‘, Nathan James Dearden’s ‘love holds me captive again’, Samuel Cho Lik Heng’s ‘Arbophillia’ and Daniel Fardon’s ‘Saudade’) but perhaps they’ll surface at some point. Meanwhile, William has a couple of follow-up Love Songs concerts scheduled:
(venue t.b.c), London, Monday 26 June 2017, 7.30pm – including world premieres of piano love songs by Bernard Hughes, Howard Skempton and Judith Weir (was to have taken place at the Forge – check William’s Facebook page for updates)
Following the previous post’s coverage of the Daylight Music prelude for Piano Day, here’s all of the information that I could gather up about the main event, which is taking place all around the world on Monday 28th March.
This is the second Piano Day, following its very successful launch in 2015 by Berlin-based pianist and piano specialist Nils Frahm as a day for musical unity. As Nils puts it: “why does the world need a Piano Day? For many reasons, but mostly because it doesn’t hurt to celebrate the piano and everything around it: performers, composers, piano builders, tuners, movers and most important, the listener.” For anyone who plays, or loves, or has wrestled with the wood-strings-felt-and-levers monster, or its digital facsimiles, this is a day for you.
The event kicks off in Germany with a piano marathon…
Justė Survilaitė presents:
Piano Day | Berlin: ‘24 Hours Piano Non-Stop Session’ Michelberger Hotel, Warschauerstrasse 39/40, 10243 Berlin, Germany
Sunday 27th March 2016, midnight, to Monday 28th March 2016, midnight – more information
Twenty-four pianists play through a full twenty-four hour period, beginning at midnight on Sunday 27th March, and going all the way through into Monday, finishing at midnight on the 28th.
The contributors come from the wide range of creative musicians who make their home in, or are drawn to, the energised art scene of contemporary Berlin; and represent its cultural breadth. There are classical players (Víkingur Ólafsson, Marina Baranova); there are jazz and improv players (Declan Forde, Jo Junghanss, Rieko Okuda, Marco Maria and Amine Mesnaoui, the Moroccan jazz/New Music electric pianist who specialises in playing inside his Fender Rhodes). There are musicians from the dance scene – techno star/DJ/label boss Lucio Aquilina, electronica producer-composer Florestano (whose musical ideas all start on “an old black piano”) and Sonar Kollectiv mainstay Arnold Kasar (whose work is informed by dance music, Arthur Russell and prepared piano).
Extra genre spice is added by English singer-songwriter and crossover multidiscipline musician Tom Adams, Anglo-Czech prodigy Emika (whose work spans from dubstep to classical), , Claudio Donzelli of folk trio Mighty Oaks, Doron Burstein (the composer/player behind the ‘Don’t Shoot the Pianist’ speakeasy event at Berlin’s Fahimi Bar) and Eike Schulz (who as well as being a pianist is one of the three scriptwriters behind recent one-take heist film ‘Victoria’) Other contributors to the day are more difficult for me to track and pin down from five hundred miles away (Kolja Ulbrich, Ellas, Janek Prachta, Christian Badzura, Solaris 4.1, Susann Helm) and even more special guests are promised for the twenty-four hour stint.
In addition, there’s a second associated Berlin event:
“When is something old actually something new? Does music evolve in the imagination of the composer, in the hands of the musician or the listener’s head? And do these questions have a practical application in the concert hall?
On Piano Day, composer Frieder Nagel and Jochen Küpper (founder of Stattbad) will launch their new discussion series ‘Raw Classic Podium’, which offers the public the opportunity to enjoy art unpolished – together with selected artists from the neoclassical scene. Martin Kohlstedt opens the new series of events with an insight into his creative process. The idea of the finished work is abandoned – a workshop starts. Working on techniques of modular composition, the pianist draws the audience into his activity. One way or another, expect an intense experience.”
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There are three concerts in England (all of which are in London):
Alev Lenz presents:
Piano Day | London: Alev Lenz + Lucy Claire + Yuri Kondo + Marie Schreer One Good Deed Today, 73 Kingsland Road, London, E2 8AG, England
Monday 28th March 2016, 7.00pm – free event – more information
“Last year, Alev Lenz and Lucy Claire brought us two new Piano Day tunes fresh from Alev’s London studio. This year the two have decided to celebrate Piano Day with a special acoustic piano concert together with Yuri Kono and Marie Schreer. You will not only be able to hear the four women’s collaborative tracks premiered at the celebration (all of which you will be able to find on Lucy Claire’s new EP, ‘Collaborations No. 2’), but also short solo sets from all four artists: and you will have the opportunity to buy their respective works (including the brand-new EP) in a one-day-only special Piano Day pop-up shop.”
Float PR/Drowned in Sound/LateNightTales present:
Piano Day | London: Anna Rose Carter + Ed Harcourt + Lily Hunter Green + Michael Salu + Robert Kaniepien + Felix Faire
De Montfort Suite @ Town Hall Hotel, Patriot Square, Bethnal Green London E2 9NF, England
Monday 28th March 2016, 7.00pm – more information here and here
“Float PR, the Drowned In Sound webzine and the Late Night Tales label team up for an evening of piano, art, film and honey.
Anna Rose Carter (the modern classical/ambient/minimalist pianist who’s one half of Moon Ate The Dark, in which her piano is fed through guitar signal processors and amplifiers by Christopher Brett Bailey) will perform a solo piano set made up of new compositions, existing pieces and works in progress. Chamber pop singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Ed Harcourt will premiere some piano version of new material from his forthcoming seventh album, set for release later this year. Artist and musician Lily Hunter Green (accompanied by violinist Tom Moore) will perform on the piano against a backdrop of bee recordings. She will also present to the audience how her project ‘Bee Composed’ (which saw her placing a beehive inside a piano) has helped increase awareness of the declining bee population.
Musician and creative coder Felix Faire (whose work explores embodied and synaesthetic experiences of music, space and image through the media of light, sound and code) will presents a real-time audio-visual performance using the ROLI Seaboard RISE, a radically new musical instrument that reimagines the piano keyboard as a soft, continuous surface and puts expression back at the player’s fingertips. (Felix’s previous work with ROLI technologies has included a Oskar Fischinger-inspired ROLI Seaboard GRAND ‘motion experiment’ designed to audio-visually illustrate the instrument’s delicate sensitivity and continuous expression: every nuanced sound created by contact with the Seaboard was translated into a swirling plume of ink, responding directly to the haptic expression of the performer).
In addition, Michael Salu (an award-winning creative director, writer and visual artist) will present the exclusive first play of ‘Nocturnes’ (a specially commissioned short film created for Piano Day) and artist Robert Kaniepien (a.k.a. R.K. Polak) will create a bespoke piece of art across the evening on a 160cm x 160cm canvas using oil pastels, acrylic, enamel and pencil (a continuation of his ‘Tendencies’ series).”
Erased Tapes Records presents:
Piano Day | London: Peter Broderick + Michael Price & Peter Gregson + Douglas Dare The Courtyard Theatre, 40 Pitfield Street, Hoxton, London, N1 6EU, England
Monday 28th March 2016, 7.00pm – more information
An intimate evening of piano performances from Erased Tapes artists and associates, with experimental folk musician and multiple collaborator Peter Broderick, film and television composer Michael Price (in duet with cellist Peter Gregson), and piano/glitch singer-songwriter Douglas Dare. All proceeds raised will go towards the donation of a piano for the World Heart Beat Music Academy, an organisation whose mission is to provide music training and mentorship to disadvantaged youth in London.
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Across the Channel, there are two concerts in France…
Église Saint-Merri will host a dance-and-piano performance by Alvise Sinivia and Sabine Rivière (“Le son n’a pas de jambes sur lesquelles se tenir’, or ‘The sound has no legs on which to stand’); a program of American minimalists performed by Melaine Dalibert (which may also include her own ‘Cortège à Véra Molnar’); piano improvisations by Frederic Blondy and Alvise Sinivia (one piano apparently “suspended in the air”, the other “on the ground”) and Marina Voznyuk of Murailles; plus ‘Capricorn’ a poetry-and-piano performance by J.G. Matthews.
T.Beach is the Lopez sisters (two voice, four hands) who play a piano music of water and love, inspired by the poetry of beaches and featuring recreational and melancholic French-language songs set to primitive rhythms.
A self-taught multi-instrumentalist, Rasim Biyikli creates free-spirited music in multiple formats for film, art installations, software and so on. He is the founder of the research studio and multi-media resource center Studio d’en Ô, and – as a pianist – has worked and collaborated on many albums. He is best known for his project Man, which sits at the crossroads of pop, jazz, contemporary and electronic music (in the tradition of composers such as Brian Eno, Yann Tiersen, Angelo Badalamenti and Ennio Morricone).
In a special virtual concert (recorded live in Radio Canada/CBC Music’s Studio 211) Montreal-based pianist Jean-Michel Blais will perform compositions from his forthcoming debut album ’II’(out on Arts & Crafts Records on 8th April), a collection of piano pieces and textures influenced by Erik Satie, Lubomyr Melnyk and Philip Glass and incorporating subtle touches of electronics and field recordings.
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There’s also an event in Israel…
Piano Day & The Zone present:
Piano Day | Tel Aviv-Jaffa: Maya Dunietz + Deejay Shuzin + Tomer Bar + Dani Gottfried + Shlomo Gronich + Yonatan Daskal Haezor/The Zone, Harechev 13, 67771 Tel Aviv, Israel
Monday 28th March 2016, 6.00pm – more information (in Hebrew)
The Israel event for Piano Day features two jazz pianists separated by sixty years but linked by their musical enthusiasm (veteran and Red Sea Jazz Festival founder Dani Gottfried and the up-and-coming Tomer Bar), Yonatan Daskal (keyboard player for Castle In Time Orchestra, Quarter To Africa and many more) and a contribution by Deejay Shuzin.
In addition, there are performances by two of the broadest and most industrious of Israeli musical talents – Shlomo Gronich, a gifted pianist who, for four decades, has composed and delivered pop songs, soundtracks, television and dance music and orchestral/choral work (from a palette of jazz, classical, soul, prog rock and original Israeli songs, and working with a host of collaborators of all ages and backgrounds); and his latterday parallel Maya Dunietz (whose work covers and excels within a remarkably broad range of musical styles and approaches – free jazz, art rock, punk, polka, “circus-core” and classical; plus choral conducting, stints with the bands Eatliz, Habiluim, The Midnight Peacocks and the creation of sound installations).
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There are two very different concerts taking place in Australia…
Piano Day | Brisbane: Alistair Noble + Momo
Private house concert, Brisbane, Australia
Monday 28th March 2016, 6.00pm – more information – direct booking here
“Brisbane-based pianists and composers Alistair Noble and Momo Hamada will host an intimate living-room concert, playing their own pieces as well as some by Nils Frahm. Organic vegan finger food and selected teas will be provided.”
Bennetts Lane Jazz Club presents:
Piano Day | Melbourne: Luke Howard + Nat Bartsch + Timothy Coghill + Timothy Stevens Bennetts Lane Jazz Club, 25 Bennetts Lane, Melbourne, 30000 Australia
Monday 28th March 2016, 7.00pm – pay-what-you-like – more information
“A special evening of solo performances by Melbourne-born jazz pianist and composer Luke Howard and his friends: trio leaders and soloists Nat Bartsch and Tim Stevens, plus instrumental scenic-pop composer Timothy Coghill. They’ll be playing their own compositions, including several new works of Nat’s. You will also have an opportunity to hear a few of Luke’s favourite compositions by Nils Frahm, Max Richter and Nico Muhly. Entry is by donation with all proceeds to Entertainment Assist, supporting the mental health of Australian entertainment industry workers.”
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Lithuania and Slovenia are providing one concert each…
LOFTAS will host a performance by German pianist Volker Bertlemann, better known as Hauschka, an experimental/pop crossover musician who’s also one of the most recognizable twentiy-first century proponents of prepared piano.
Kino Šiška presents:
Piano Day | Ljubljana: Bowrain + Nace Slak Kino Šiška, Trg Prekomorskih Brigad 3, Ljubljana
Monday 28th March 2016, 8.00pm –more information
Kino Šiška is hosting an exclusive solo piano perfomance by Bowrain, a.k.a. Tine Grgurevič, whose music usually incorporates jazz piano, modern classical elements, electronic beats and textures, and cunning uses of cultural and philosophical sampling. The evening will be opened by Nace Slak, a 17-year-old student at the Conservatory for Music and Ballet Ljubljana, who will perform piano pieces by Nils Frahm.
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Finally, there’s a show in Japan…
Sonorium/ Kitchen Label presents:
Piano Day | Tokyo: Haruka Nakamura Duo/Trio Sonorium, 3-53-16, Suginami-ku, 168-0063 Tokyo, Japan
Monday 28th March 2016, 7.30pm – more information
The Piano Day celebration in Tokyo will host a show by pianist Haruka Nakamura playing in duo/trio setups with two other members of his regular ensemble (Akira Uchida on saxophone and Isao Saito on percussion).
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If all of this is making you feel a little left out – perhaps your country or city isn’t represented, or perhaps you’re feeling that you might have put something together yourself – then what’s stopping you? This the day when you don’t have to walk past that piano on the street, or in your workplace, or even gathering dust in your home. This is the day when you can strum a stray melody, pick out a single note, or indulge yourself with a full performance of anything at all, and know that you’ll be in touch with all kinds of players (from the remarkable to the casual) across the globe. And – if you missed the day altogether and are reading this too late, head back up and check out some of those links. Pianos everywhere. If I have a bit of time, I’ll flesh them out with a few more.
“Making its Southbank Centre debut in quartet form, players from Project Instrumental invite you to greet Friday evening sipping on the sonorities of some 21st-century string quartets. Described as “simply knockout” (Alex Julyan, Wellcome Trust Fellow) and selected as a Time Out London Critic’s Choice, Project Instrumental brings thrilling performances to unbounded audiences. Instrument-inspired, rather than genre-led, the group evolves around a core of strings and what can be done with them, across genres and instrumental combinations, to create truly enlivening performances, for anyone. Bold, imaginative and boundary defying, this virtuosic group strips back the peripherals with their straightforward contemporary approach to, to create not just concerts, but experiences.”
Programme:
Thomas Seltz: String Quartet No.1
Joby Talbot: String Quartet No.2
Nico Muhly: Diacritical Marks
Bryce Dessner: Tenebre
Though Project Instrumental haven’t made this explicit, all of the contemporary classical composers whose quartets are being played either originally stem from, or confidently dip into, a broad field of popular music. Nico Muhly has long been a byword for latterday classical/pop crossovers, balancing operas and contemporary music ensemble commissions with arrangements and co-writes for Grizzly Bear, Björk, Antony and the Johnsons and Philip Glass. Joby Talbot spent nine years playing on and expanding Neil Hannon’s chamber-pop songs for The Divine Comedy before moving on to a diverse compositional career of ballets, concerti, orchestral and choral works and madrigals (while still doing film scores and arrangement works relating to pop, such as his reworking of songs by The White Stripes for choreographer Wayne McGregor). Bryce Dessner is still best known as half of the guitar/compositional team for Brooklyn indie-rock darlings The National, but balances this against a powerfully prolific output of orchestral, percussion, film and installation-based instrumental works, as well as classical improvisation with the Clogs quintet and work curating Cleveland’s MusicNOW New Music festival for ten years.
Even the most obscure of the four, Thomas Seltz, spent his teenage years recording and touring as a rock guitarist and songwriter with French rock bands (most notably TORO) before making the shift to classical composition at the University of Edinburgh from 2006. Since then, he’s maintained his interest in the classical/popular faultline, writing an electric bass guitar concerto (for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and John Patitucci), ‘Awesome X’ (a comic opera about reality TV) and ‘Mandarin’ (a concerto written for Chinese erhu player Peng Yueqiang and Edinburgh crossover-chamber ensemble Mr McFall’s Chamber).
All four composers refuse to be pigeonholed either by their established classical reputations or by their current or past roots/impingements upon pop and rock, seeing it all as a set of disciplines between which they can step as they choose. Seltz’s quartet (completed only last year) documents and honours his musical history, in particular his transition from rock musician to contemporary composer, via rock-inspired “strong dynamic, rhythmic and melodic elements”. Talbot’s possesses a wheeling dovelike softness in its graceful minimal approach, while Dessner’s takes tips from Reich, Adams and Glass but explodes them with a hoedown vigour. Sidestepping his confessed anxieties regarding the emotional exposure of the form, Muhly’s is bookended by an emphasis on lively ticking mechanisms and accents, counterbalanced by a more rhapsodic (and possibly concealing) middle section.
It seems as if this Project Instrumental set (or most of it) will be repeated at a National Portrait Gallery Late Shift appearance on April 1st (PI have been performing versions of it since at least last November). I’ll repost details closer to the time. Also in April, look out for a Britten Sinfonia mini-tour featuring a Bryce Dessner premiere.
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Eddie Parker’s Mister Vertigo The Vortex Jazz Club, 11 Gillett Square, Dalston, London, N16 8AZ, England
Friday 26th February 2016, 8.00pm – more information
Ever since I was a teenager I’ve been crossing paths with Eddie Parker on record, in concert and (on a few occasions) in person. Back in the ‘80s he was a key member of the raucous, expansive yet deceptively deep-thinking jazz band Loose Tubes, holding his own as both player and composer alongside Django Bates, Steve Berry, Chris Batchelor and many others who went on to shape both pre-millennial British jazz and what came afterwards. While Loose Tubes may always be Eddie’s best-known gig (he also went on to play and write in the sequel band Delightful Precipice), like most jazz musicians he has form elsewhere; having worked as part of John Stevens’ Freebop and as an outstanding soloist and collaborator in the band of South African pianist Bheki Mseleku, as well as leading various groups including the “quartet of twenty instruments” Twittering Machine. In all of these projects, he’s known predominantly for the assured brilliance of his flute playing. Elegant and assertive, full-toned and flexible without ever being forced, it’s an expression of a supple mind-muscle which can shape-shift from tripping lightness to pooling shade in a single graceful motion.
Eddie should, however, be at least as well regarded for his skill as an all-in composer. Drawn from his early training in avant-garde classical, fleshed out by his immersion in jazz, and characterized by both an egalitarian ethos and a sophisticated-magpie taste for eclectic listening, his compositions draw on a vast array of ideas, influences and traditions. Around jazz touchstones such as Gil Evans, Mahavishnu, Eric Dolphy and Weather Report swim disparate seasonings and elements – South Africa, Stravinsky and Debussy; Elizabethan chamber music; salsa and progressive rock; mantras and mediaevalism; Bartok, Berg, Berio and Brazilian – but never in a mere showy and dyspeptic jam of ideas.
Many composers (jazz or otherwise) turn out music which seems to be disassociated from their day-to-day personality, or which is at least canted towards a slightly different space or a stand-alone ideal. This is not the case with Eddie. His tunes and arrangements are a clear reflection of the man himself – by turns committed, kind, cheeky, bucolic and fiery; all with a glittering riverine current of lively intelligence and an eye on the small details of the world. He’s also pretty lucid as regards talking about them – his own blog comments on early and recent material that he’s written for Loose Tubes are well worth reading.
These skills haven’t gone unrecognised, and commissions for Eddie from the Apollo Saxophone Quartet and Ensemble Bash are just part of it: but there’s also been immensely valuable community composing, promotion and guidance work from Eddie, such as his efforts with with Impro Integrated and his ongoing children’s educational project Groove On. His 2001 endeavour ‘People Symphony’ picked up on the human and cultural complexity of London, sprawling via public performance and collective practise across four London boroughs and thirty pro musicians plus students of all ages, abilities and disabilities, joining in a rich stew of Indian, Brazilian, African and Turkish-inspired music mingled with jazz, rock and pop. All of this is memorable – still, in the process of digging up information for this news post, it struck me how little information on it survives. Perhaps much of Eddie’s work is like most jazz performances – a collision of opportunity and uniqueness tied to a particular time and place, a particular coming-together of people which (especially on a good night) results in a grand flare of cooperation and shared memory, echoing on in the minds and the rolled-out histories of those who were there, but forever unknown to everyone who was outside that room on that night. Maybe there’s something precious in that, but I can’t help but feel that there should be more memory, more awareness… a fuller appreciation of what’s gone down and soared up.
Rather than go on in this vein, instead I’ll be a little more positive and draw the attention to Eddie’s longest-running concern: his Mister Vertigo sextet, who play in London this weekend. Eddie’s longterm cohorts Steve Watts (double bass, another Loose Tuber), Julian Nicholas (saxophone) and Mike Pickering (drums) have been in the band since its mid-‘90s inception, while the newest recruits are up-and-coming guitarist Rob Luft (replacing John Parricelli) and pianist Matt Robinson, who follows in the footsteps of Troyka’s Kit Downes and the band’s long-standing original piano maverick Pete Saberton (who died in 2012). As a unit, Mister Vertigo is a light-footed, easily accessible ensemble whose apparent breeziness subtly disguises the opportunity to experience Eddie’s compositional work up close and intimate. Expect fine playing, a warm chamber of illuminated discourse and wide-ranging thought.
Embeddable examples of Eddie’s work are thin on the ground, but here’s a brief video of Mister Vertigo in action (albeit with Eddie leading from keyboard rather than flute) plus a Debussy-inspired piano piece from Groove Music…
Incidentally, Eddie’s occasional keyboard work has developed into a fuller occupation in recent years, due not least to his work as one of a battalion of keyboard players in the vintage analogue synth group The Will Gregory Moog Ensemble, for which he also composes. He’s just released an album of synth compositions called ‘The Exoplanets Suite’, which will be launched at the Mister Vertigo gig (copies should be available there for about £12.00, but can also be ordered via Eddie’s Facebook page).
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The following evening, there’s a Daylight Music afternoon with no particular theme… or, to put it another, an afternoon of their own free eclectica.
Daylight Music presents:
Daylight 217: Stick In The Wheel + No Cars + Alabaster dePlume Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, England
Saturday 27th February 2016, 12.00pm – free/pay-what-you-like event (£5.00 donation suggested) – more information
Stick In The Wheel are a folk band from East London. Championed by John Kennedy (Radio X/Mercury judge) and fresh from winning fRoots Magazine’s 2015 Album of the Year, they’re “ripping apart the preconceptions surrounding folk music to retrieve the tender, beating heart at the centre of traditional English culture” (CLASH Music) – as the band themselves put it, “this is our culture, our tradition.”
No Cars is a Japanese pop band formed and based in Hackney, London UK – a mixture of rock, garage, gipsy, swing, jazz, calypso, punk, Punjabi etc. with a Japanese pop twist.
Alabaster dePlume (Gus Fairbairn), is a performer, writer and musician. Since 2011 he has produced three albums on Manchester label Debt Records, toured Europe as a solo performer, produced short films, and written/performed a play with circus-aerial in Dublin. He has also presented a series of combined-arts events, and his recordings are played on national radio, most recently described as “cheerfully uneasy” on Radio 3.
Joel Clayton – from Indo-Anglo folk-fusioneers (and unlikely steampunk-scene heroes) Sunday Driver, and sometimes known as trappedanimal – joins us on sitar in our fourth/in-between slot this week.
Since when did November become so generous? There’s plenty to see and hear this coming week, including the continuing Jenny Hval/Briana Marela tour (with Bristol and London dates), Laura Moody following up recent shows in Cardiff and Sheffield with a house concert in Edinburgh on the 12th (email her directly in case tickets are still available) and, in London, the opening dates of the London Jazz Festival and the End Festival. Plus the following:
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With Briana Marela, Jenny Hval and Holly Herndon all touring or playing in Britain this month – and with Joanna Newsom having already sold out her lone British date at the Eventim Apollo on Monday – it’s a good month for seeing art-pop with a distinctly female hue or ethos (although to be honest there’s always a wealth of such things around, if you look hard enough and dip under the radar).
To the above, add Julia Holter, who’s working a short British tour over the course of the week. It’s an opportunity to see how rapidly Julia’s exploratory, highly literary work has evolved and altered over a decade of recording time: from the Debussy-an glistenings of 2006’s ‘Eating the Stars’ to the oblique sonic and textual puzzles of 2011’s ‘Tragedy’ (mixing transfigured Greek drama, disorientating found sound and transparent barely-there parings of songcraft) and the impressionistic jazz-novel assemblage of ‘Loud City Song’ in 2013 (which drew on Collette, MGM musicals and belle-epoque).
Julia’s newest album, this year’s ‘Have You in My Wilderness’, is something of a step into the known. Her once-baffling minimal musical stylings – which, on ‘Tragedy’ in particular, hung precariously on the edge of what might be described as “song” – have by now transformed themselves into what sounds like dreamy, distracted takes on late-‘60s/early-‘70s Brill Building songwriter pop. That said, the album’s meditations on solitude and companionship (real, imagined, rejected or deconstructed) retain Julia’s distinctive tone of lateral thinking and musing, and if the songs seem more conservative on the outside they soon reveal themselves as different, more fluid creations, if Carole King had been enticed into French surrealism (note the nods to Dali, Bunuel, Germaine Dulac and Gérard de Nerval in the video for ‘The Sea Calls Me Home’, above). It’s also clear that if ‘Have You In My Wilderness’ does invite a broader audience by way of its more comfortable textures, it’s not a sell-out: keeping firmly in touch with her earlier impulses and schemas, Julia has included a re-recording of Betsy On The Roof (a pre-‘Tragedy’ song best known from her rare 2010 live tapes).
Julia Holter:
Komedia, 44-47 Gardner St, Brighton, East Sussex BN1 1UN Monday 9th November 2015) – information – tickets
There are two chamber music concerts coming up at The Forge in London:
Ensemble Perpetuo presents: Heavenly Sights (The Forge, 3-7 Delancey Street, Camden Town, London, NW1 7NL, UK, Monday 9th November 2015, 7.30pm) – £10.00 to £12.00 – information & tickets – more information
Founded in 2013 by English oboist James Turnbull, Ensemble Perpetuois a dynamic and versatile collective of musicians who perform a wide variety of traditional and contemporary chamber music in new settings; bringing it to new audiences through exciting collaborations and innovative repertoire choices; and seeking new pathways in which to experiment and augment the concert experience through multi-art form collaborations. Perpetuo has embarked on a number of exciting mini-residences throughout the UK and is taking music to new venues including concerts in theatres, museums, cafes, found spaces and other unexpected locations.
Join Perpetuo for the final event in their groundbreaking series of chamber music concerts for 2015 – an evening of incredible music that takes you on a journey to the furthest reaches of the galaxy. ‘Heavenly Sights’ is an evening of music inspired by space, flight and motion. Featuring music from Beethoven and Piazzolla to Weir and Muhly, experience over two hundred years of chamber music in one evening.
Programme:
Robert Schumann – Mondnacht (arr. Colin Matthews)
George Benjamin – Flight
Nico Muhly – Motion
Judith Weir – Airs From Another Planet
Anthony Powers – In Sunlight
Charlotte Bray – Trail Of Light
Astor Piazzolla – Milonga del Angel
Ludwig van Beethoven – Moonlight Sonata
Cheryl Frances-Hoad – My Fleeting Angel
CHROMA: Gorton, Scheuregger and British Music (The Forge, 3-7 Delancey Street, Camden Town, London, NW1 7NL, UK,Wednesday 11th November 2015, 7.30pm) – £10.00-£12.00 – information & tickets – more information
Founded in 1997, the critically acclaimed CHROMAis an acclaimed, London-based, flexible chamber ensemble dedicated both to new music and to revisiting classic repertoire in fresh and exciting contexts; mentoring the next generation of composers, and involving audiences in compelling, inspirational experiences.
Closely associated with the performance of contemporary music the ensemble has forged close links with many prominent British composers through many commissioned premières and collaborations (including work with Luke Bedford, Michael Nyman, David Bruce, Tarik O’Regan, Michael Zev Gordon, Raymond Yiu, Claudia Molitor, Julian Grant, Arlene Sierra, and Marcus Barcham-Stevens) .
CHROMA has a lively strand of intimate chamber concerts combining music and storytelling, which has resulted both in its first own-label album ‘Folk Tales’ and in various opera stagings in association with the opera festival Tête à Tête, the Linbury Studio Theatre and others. The ensemble’s mentoring programme includes ongoing work with student composers at the Royal Academy of Music, Royal Holloway University of London and Oxford University.
This concert (featuring Roderick Chadwick on piano) is the culmination of composer Martin Scheuregger’s residency at the British Music Collection. Martin’s new work, ‘Harlequin’, and ‘Burgh Castle’ by David Gorton form the centre of the programme. Harlequin engages with and reflects on the themes and ideas Martin has been exploring through the music of The Collection, whilst ‘Burgh Castle’ – a CHROMA aural-visual commission for piano and ensemble – is inspired by the landscape of the East Anglian Fens. Pieces from the BMC – from both lesser-known and established composers – place these new works in the context of Martin’s residency and the music with which he has surrounded himself for the last 18 months.
Programme:
Philip Cashian – Horn Trio
Helen Grime – Snow and Snow
Martin Scheuregger – Harlequin (world premiere)
David Gorton – Burgh Castle (world premiere)
Anthony Powers – In Sunlight
Sadie Harrison – The Bride’s Journey in Three Songs and a Memory
Daylight Music 195: Lucy Claire & Imogen Bland + HART + Thomas Stone, with Laish (Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN – Saturday 27th June, 12pm to 2pm)
A Daylight Music exclusive, with the premier performance of musician Lucy Claire and dancer/choreographer Imogen Bland’s ‘Moon/Yew‘. The pair present a stark and beautiful music-and-movement exploration of Sylvia Plath’s ‘The Moon and the Yew Tree’. The music is a mix of classical ambience, field recordings and glitchy electronics. An ethereal atmospheric sound, warm and comforting yet strange and haunting with choreography telling a tale of isolation, ritualistic acts and unclear paths ahead. It’s the first time that Daylight has welcomed a dancer to the stage, making this an even more special occasion.*
HART is the ethereal shoe-gazing dream-pop/folk project of singer/songwriter Daniel Pattison. His debut EP is out in May 2015 and features string arrangements from the acclaimed American composer Nico Muhly.
Thomas Stone creates his immersive music using contrabassoon, samplers and activated percussion, exploring themes of ritual and presence while blurring the boundaries of electronic and acoustic sound production. An enforced simplicity runs throughout the compositions – long tones underpinning slowly evolving motifs punctuated by cyclic rhythms, and gentle dissonances breaking to moments of fragile beauty.
In between the main performances this week will be shorter ones from Daniel Green, a.k.a. Laish. A member of Brighton-based acoustic revivalists The Willkommen Collective, he’s made a name for himself as a writer and deliverer of captivating stories in song: on this occasion, however, he’ll be treating us to improvised guitar sets.
* Actually, it’s not the first time – they had a flamenco dancer onstage last year with Ida y Vuelta. It says a lot about just how much happens at Daylight Music that they can actually forget things like that while writing their own blurb.
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In spite of fairly frequent visits to Daylight Music, so far I’ve not made it down the road to visit the affiliated Hangover Lounge (part distant cousin, part slightly-more-rumpled neighbour). If they’re going to put on more free bills like the one on this Sunday, I’ll have to make more of an effort.
David Callahan + The Left Outsides (The Hangover Lounge @ The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Road, London, N1 9JB, Sunday 28th June 2015, 3.00pm – free)
David Callahan is best known as the frontman – or co-frontman – of two bands. The first of these, The Wolfhounds, was a mid-’80s post-punk band associated (for good or ill) with NME’s infamous C86 cassette to which they contributed alongside The Wedding Present, a young Primal Scream, The Pastels and others. While C86 set up and juxtaposed what were to become British indie archetypes (on the one side a parochial pop of jangling guitars and under-achievement, on the other an abrasive noisiness and surreal tendencies), The Wolfhounds were always a cut above, aided by a jagged garage-noisy way with a melody and their broader conceptual focus, plus David’ smart pointed way with a lyric and his arresting vocal (a precise, razoring punk sneer a few shades away from bitter blues – imagine a less theatrical Matt Johnson, if that helps). ‘If You Know What I Mean’ has described them as “the Stooges tempered by Big Star poetics” – read some more about that here.
Much of this carried over into David’s next project, Moonshake: one of a number of diverse but loosely-affiliated East London post-rock and indietronica bands (also including Stereolab, Disco Inferno, Bark Psychosis and A.R. Kane) who, for a few years, vigorously stripped out and rebooted pop and rock forms with experimental techniques. For the first few Moonshake albums (an exciting mangle of dub bass, guitar-noise and sample barrages owing equal amounts to hip hop and musique concrete), David worked in an exciting, two-headed arrangement with an equally distinctive singer-songwriter, Margaret Fiedler. When this ended in acrimony (and after Margaret wheeled away with half of the band to form Laika), David led Moonshake on his own for two further albums, adopting an increasingly cinematic and introspective approach (I’ve got a review of the last one here).
Since reuniting with a reinvigorated Wolfhounds in 2005 (a belated reunion album, ‘Middle Aged Freaks’, arrived nine years later), David has reverted to a more guitar-based sound but continued to write and record, with his broad and trenchant perspective intact. This Sunday’s solo appearance looks as if it’s going to be a rare acoustic set from him – featuring “all-new songs, sometimes in funny tunings” – but as he recently dug out his old Moonshake sampler for work with Manyfingers, he might surprise us with something a little more torrential and noisy.
I know less about the opening act, The Left Outsides, so the following is stolen straight from their Facebook page:
The Left Outsides are Mark Nicholas and Alison Cotton, a duo from Walthamstow, London who have been playing together since the winter of 2003. Both are former members of The Eighteenth Day of May and Mark is a former member of acid expressionists Of Arrowe Hill. Alison’s considerable viola skills have been put to good use in numerous bands including Saloon and Mathew Sawyer & The Ghosts. Their debut EP ‘Leaving The Frozen Butterflies Behind’ was released on the I Wish I Was Unpopular label in January 2006 and their album (titled ‘And Colours In Between’) was released in May 2007 on Transistor Records. A live album titled ‘Live At The Drop Out’ was self-released in January 2008. A 7″ single ‘The Third Light’ was released on the Hi-Beat Records label in July 2008. The Left Outsides are currently awaiting the release of their most recent album.
Up-to-date information on the Hangover Lounge gig is here.
Swoon. /swo͞on/ A verb. To be emotionally affected by someone or something that one admires; become ecstatic. Here are some people and things that make me swoon. #swoon #swoonage
As regards classical music, this month appears to be opening with London’s second annual Baroque At The Edge festival across the 4th, 5th and 6th January. Dividing its time between the Clerkenwell classical-church venues of LSO St Lukes and St James Clerkenwell, it starts from a baroque basis but roughly postulates (as it did last year) along the genre-blurring lines of “imagine if Bach was a jazzman, Purcell a folk-fiddler, and Monteverdi a minimalist…”
Misfit City 