Following yesterday’s post regarding imminent piano concerts in London, here’s news about one in Sheffield. Part of Sheffield University’s ongoing Festival of the Mind this month (and part of the university’s Sound Laboratory series), it’s a free show blending one of the twentieth century’s major piano works with new visual content and scientific context. Not an offer you get every day…
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“Birdsong is something that most of us hear every day, but how much notice do we really take? As part of the University of Sheffield’s Festival of the Mind, the language of birds will be translated for solo piano in a unique, immersive and multi-sensory two-hour performance providing a mesmerising meditation on music, nature and landscape.
“Our adventure through science, music, nature and imagination is led by Tim Birkhead (ornithologist and Professor of Behavioural Ecology at the University of Sheffield), with pianist Noah Kang performing Olivier Messiaen’s monumental masterpiece ‘Catalogue d’Oiseaux’, which reproduces the songs of seventy-seven different birds (from the brightly insistent call of the skylark to the menacing tones of the tawny owl). The performance will capture the magic of birdsong, whilst immersing the audience in bold new visuals (inspired by Tim’s research and realised by Sheffield-based design team Human) which follow the music’s original task of vividly capturing the birds’ interactions with a series of stunning French landscapes.
“The concert itself starts at 7.30pm, with Professor Peter Hill providing a pre-concert talk about Messiaen and birds at 6.10pm.”
Festival of the Mind presents:
Tim Birkhead/Noah Kang/Human: ‘Sound Laboratory: Sounds of the Birds’ Firth Hall @ University of Sheffield, Western Bank, Sheffield, S10 2TN, England
Wednesday 21st September 2016, 6.10 pm – free event (but requires pre-booking) – information
On the offchance that you weren’t already aware of this, Peter Hill is himself a celebrated interpreter of Messiaen’s piano works. Here’s part of his own version of the ‘Catalogue’.
Here’s a quick scoot around a pair of London classical gigs coming up this month from two very different Japanese pianists – one specialising in pure yet innovative interpretations of baroque masterpieces, the other using romantic keyboard works as a springboard towards her own neo-romantic classical-fusion compositions.
Once again, most of what I’ve got here is press-release turnover…
Kimiko Ishizaka: ‘J.S. Bach: ‘Die Kunst der Fuge, BWV 1080′. Completed.’ St John’s Smith Square, Smith Square, Westminster, London, SW1P 3HA, England
Friday 23rd September 2016, 6.30pm – information
“A mesmerizing completion of one of the most challenging
keyboard works of all times. Confronting the ultimate tragedy of music history, German-Japanese pianist Kimiko Ishizaka, (renowned for her highly-praised, best-selling recordings of Bach), presents her completion of Bach’s unfinished masterpiece, ‘Die Kunst der Fuge’, BWV 1080.
“Upholding the musical logic of Bach, yet offering an expressive response, Kimiko’s approach was based on a thorough study of all preceding fugues, coupled with a conviction that Bach would have concluded with something powerful, dramatic, expressive and architecturally true to the existing musical structures. Premiered in March 2016 in Cologne, Germany, ‘Die Kunst der Fuge, komplett’ comes to the UK for the first time this September.
“Kimiko’s sound production is strongly influenced by her success as a competitive athlete and her exploration of the physical mechanisms that are responsible for creating any given sound on the piano. Never listening to other pianists’ recordings, Kimiko takes inspiration purely from her own imagination. Her history also involves recording Bach’s ‘Goldberg Variations’ in 2012 as part of her Open Goldberg project – this was the first recording to be fan-funded, open source and completely free. Her 2015 release of ‘The Well-Tempered Clavier’, also fan-funded, was a number-one best-selling commercial success and is regarded by some critics as their favorite recording of the work.”
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If you’d prefer something lighter, then there’s always the option of seeing Ayako Fujiki in a couple of shows right at the end of the month. There’s a clip of her below, in concert, performing one of her more fusion-based projects – admittedly, the New Age minimalism might not be everyone’s cup of tea (and yes, I do mean you, occasional reader who drops in sometimes because I also cover noise-rockers playing in various throat-cellars). But I’ve got to admit that I like the way Ayako simultaneously handles a concert grand, a cherry-red workstation and a backslung white keytar, all whilst resisting the urge to throw a set of glammy Rick Wakeman shapes.
Ayako’s upcoming London concerts showcase a more acoustic, neoclassical side to her music. While it might be touched and partially shaped – like much crossover work – by its composer’s work in advertising and incidental soundtracking (the associated video has the air of a fashion-shoot, with Ayako making much of both her personal beauty and her sense of poise and presentation), the music retains its own airy substance. In some respects, it’s similar to the neo-romantic Chopin-esque compositions which made David Lanz a New Age star in the 1980s (even as he steered well clear of that genre’s more insipid failings). More details on Ayako’s work and inspirations follow:
“A virtuosic Japanese pianist born in Tokyo, and a concert performer from the age of seven, Ayako Fujiki was influenced by the riches of European culture and fell in love with the energy and diversity of Spanish classical music. She chose to move to the vibrant and eclectic city of Barcelona to study under renowned pianists such as Alicia de Larrocha (one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century, and also the first Spanish artist to win the UNESCO prize).
“Still based in Barcelona, Ayako continues to explore the duality between Japanese and Mediterranean heritage and culture. Combining her rigorous classical background with contemporary taste and technique, Ayako finds inspiration in romantic, world, minimal, electronic and even Japanese contemporary epic music.
“Having established herself as a leading classical concert performer on the Spanish music scene, and having released three albums interpreting work by other composers from Schubert to Debussy to Granados), Ayako’s current release ‘brightwater’ allows her to engage on a more personal creative level through the development of her own compositions. She has previously composed orchestrated pieces with piano and a variety of other instruments for films, advertising and documentaries, incorporating classical and electronic musical techniques.
“‘brightwater’ comprises pieces written for solo piano, two pianos and piano trio. It was recorded in Barcelona with contributions from Cristian Chivu (violinist and concertmaster of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Barcelona y Nacional de Cataluña) and Cristoforo Pestalozzi (lead cellist in the Symphony Orchestra of the Gran Teatre del Liceu). The album propels the listener through a unique combination of cultures.
“Contributing to the established chronicle of musicians and composers taking inspiration from nature, the album offers Ayako’s reflections on the transience of landscapes, forests, rippling water and broken stones: capturing the beauty of eroded nature, she translates the slow but persistent effect of the natural elements on rocks and trees.”
The two London dates are as follows:
1901 Arts Club, 7 Exton Street, Waterloo, London, SE1 8UE, England, Wednesday 28th September 2016, 5.00pm(album launch event) – information
St. Olave Hart Street, St Olave’s Hart Street, 8 Hart Street, City of London, London, EC3R 7NB, England, Thursday 29th September 2016, 1:05pm – information
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Incidentally, and returning to the subject of keytars – if anyone’s interested in the idea of an eighteenth-century version, there’s one being played here…
Here’s news on four upcoming shows in London during early September, two of which are brought to us by flute-centred ensemble rarescale…
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Crasmusicas presents:
Julian Elvira presents ‘Blowing’ The Barge House, 46a De Beauvoir Crescent, De Beauvoir Town, London, N1 5RY, England
Thursday 1st September 2016, 7.00pm – information
Spanish musician Julián Elvira is the principal flautist with Banda Sinfónica Municipal de Madrid. He’s also the developer of the Pronomos flute – a carefully considered redesign of the existing orchestral instrument, designed to improve its ability to cope with the microtonal and enhanced timbral demands being brought to bear on it by contemporary music. His solo show, ‘Blowing’, is “a unique performance of improvised music exploring the sonic qualities of different flutes and pipes. The sounds of the traditional instruments are manipulated and transformed, creating a music experience that moves from ancient to ultra modern sonorities.”
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rarescale: “Falling Out Of Cars” The Forge, 3-7 Delancey Street, Camden Town, London, NW1 7NL, England
Tuesday 6th September 2016, 7.30pm – information
Direct blurb from the press release:
“In the final concert of its 2016 season, rarescale presents new chamber works for flutes (including low flutes and baroque flute) with piano, guitar and electronics. New works by Steve Kilpatrick, Jonathan Pitkin and Yfat Soul Zisso receive their first performances, and pianist extraordinaire Xenia Pestova presents solo works by Ailis Ni Riain and Ed Bennett. This programme promises a broad range of repertoire, from the simple elegance of Laurence Crane’s ‘Erki Nool’ to the extended techniques of Scott Miller’s ‘The Frost Performs its Secret Ministry’.”
The new Pitkin composition is “a short but wide-ranging piece (which) pushes both instruments in unexpected directions in order to play with conventional expectations of foreground and background, melody and accompaniment, and monody and polyphony.” I couldn’t find any information on the new Daniela Fantechni piece, and rarescale haven’t specified which Ní Ríain item might be on the list, but I’ve made a few educated guesses below (as well as including an Yfat Soul Zisso flute piece which might point the way towards her new one).
IKLECTIK presents:
Scott Miller & Carla Rees with Julian Elvira & Katsuya Nonaka IKLECTIK, Old Paradise Yard, 20 Carlisle Lane, Waterloo, London, SE1 7LG, England
Saturday 10th September, 6.30pm – information
Scott Miller‘s ‘Anterior Exterior’ – see above – is one of the pieces which might be being performed at the Forge show. This particular performance is taken from ‘Devices and Desires‘, the album which he and rarescale partner Carla Rees released in 2012.
This side of their music will be reflected in the week’s second rarescale-related gig, down in Lambeth at IKCLECTIK. A combined sponsor’s sales pitch and evening of spontaneous creation (put together in association with Kingma System Flutes and Kyma Electronics), the show will provide “a demonstration of contemporary and traditional flutes, electronics improvisation systems and their potential for collaboration and innovation”. This will incorporate a “Devices and Desires” set in which Carla and Scott improvise with two special guests.
The first of these guests is Julián Elvira, still around following his solo show earlier in the week. The second guest, Katsuya Nonaka, is a particularly diverse creative character. A traditionally trained player of the shakuhachi flute, he’s also a member of The Seppuku Pistols, whose gimmick (playing alleged “Edo era” punk on traditional Japanese instruments while toying with Japanese ultra-nationalist imagery) might make them a broad-batingly provocative art project… or might not.
Outside of such stunts, Katsuya’s polymathic approach spills over into his other jobs and occupations – rice farming, translation, skateboarding, cartooning and illustrating, and film directing. He has happily combined three of these – the skating, the shakuhachi and the filmwork – in his short ‘Future Is Primitive‘ documentary investigating his view of the connections between and shared pressures brought to bear on both ‘board and bamboo flute (which will be receiving its London premiere the same week, on 9th September at House of Vans, in the tunnels beneath Waterloo station).
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IKLECTIK presents:
Katsuya Nonaka & Ute Kanngiesser IKLECTIK, Old Paradise Yard, 20 Carlisle Lane, Waterloo, London, SE1 7LG, England
Sunday 11th September, 8.30pm – information
In fact, it’s a particularly busy week for Katsuya Nonaka. As well as the previous two events of his that I’ve mentioned (plus the follow-up screening of ‘Future is Primitive’ at Dalston’s Doomed Gallery on 13th September) he will be playing another IKLECTIC show on the 11th, this time with London-based German improvising cellist and sometime AMM member Ute Kanngiesser, whose musical approach is devoted to “unscripted” music and who specialises in a “layered” approach.
As far as I know this is a first musical meeting for this particular pairing. I’m not sure that there are that many embeddable samples which I can treat you too as a preview; but here’s a clip of Ute’s eerie prolonged cello harmonics for the curious…
Three contemporary classical concerts coming up in London between now and the end of the month, including a number of premiere performances of new pieces.
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IKLECTIK presents :
rarescale (Carla Rees & Michael Oliva) IKLECTIK, Old Paradise Yard, 20 Carlisle Lane, Waterloo, London, SE1 7LG, England
Sunday 19th June 2016, 8.00pm – information
Programme:
Piers Tattersall – Analogue
Michael Oliva – Bereft Adrift
Pauline Oliveros- Bye Bye Butterfly
György Ligeti – Artikulation
Bruno Maderna – Music su due dimensioni
Dan Di Maggio – Same Old Monsters
Thea Musgrave – Narcissus
Performers:
Carla Rees (flute & bass flute)
Michael Oliva (electronics)
rarescale is a flexible-instrumentation contemporary chamber music ensemble which exists to promote the alto flute and its repertoire. Its artistic director, Carla Rees, is a UK-based low flutes specialist – player, arranger and the director of music publishing company Tetractys. She plays Kingma System flutes and works frequently in collaboration with composers to develop new repertoire and techniques: she’s also released five records with rarescale‘s in-house record company.
rarescale‘s composer-in-residence, Michael Oliva, also performs regularly with the ensemble in the UK, Europe and the United States. Originally trained as a biochemist, Michael is now a composer with a fondness for writing operas and music for electronics and woodwind. In addition he runs madestrange opera, a company dedicated to producing new forms of the genre for modern audiences, including Michael’s own multimedia operas ‘Black & Blue’, ‘Midsummer’ and ‘The Girl Who Liked To Be Thrown Around’. Michael also teaches composition with electronics at the Royal College of Music, where he is Area Leader for Electroacoustic Music, and runs the termly “From the Soundhouse” series of concerts of electronic music.
Here’s a video of an earlier rarescale performance.
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Douglas Finch – Inner Landscapes CD Launch The Forge, 3-7 Delancey Street, Camden Town, London, NW1 7NL, England
Monday 20th June 2016, 7:00 pm – information
From the Forge’s press release:
Douglas Finch (photo by David Yeo)
“Douglas Finch, described as “a true virtuoso” (‘The Independent’), is best known for his innovative and imaginative approach to performance, and for helping to revive the lost art of classical improvisation in concert. As a pianist (winner of the silver medal at the Queen Elisabeth International Competition in Brussels in 1978) and improviser, Finch has already recorded extensively – most recently with the saxophonist Martin Speake, but also with The Continuum Ensemble for NMC and Avie.
“This event celebrates the first ever CD recording of Douglas Finch’s piano and chamber music. ‘Inner Landscapes: Douglas Finch – Piano and Chamber Music 1984-2013’ was recently released on the Prima Facie label. The music was selected from Finch’s catalogue of over forty works, which range from piano, chamber ensemble, orchestra and theatre music to the soundtracks for five feature-length films. The evening will include a performance of selected works from the recording, played by Lisa Nelsen (flute), Aleksander Szram (piano) and Mieko Kanno (violin). Each ticket includes a complimentary glass of wine and a copy of the CD.”
Douglas himself will also be performing, playing “a short piece which is not on the CD, as well as an improvisation to mark the occasion, based on themes that you suggest on the night.”
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June 2016
Reform Club Lunchtime Concerts presents:
Douglas Finch and Bobby Chen: Two Pianos (Four Hands) Reform Club, 104 Pall Mall, Westminster, London, SW1Y 5EW, England
Wednesday 29th June 2016, 12pm – information
Later in the month, Douglas Finch will also be performing with fellow pianist and regular duet partner Bobby Chen at a lunchtime show at the Reform Club. In addition to a performance of Rachmaninov’s ‘Suite for Two Pianos, Op 5 no 1′, they’ll be premiering one of Douglas’ own compositions, provisionally titled ‘Hapsburg Burlesques – Fantasy Transcriptions on Der Rosenkavalier, Mahagony and Other Elegies’ and working around variations on Strauss, Beethoven and others.
This is almost certainly to be a formal club event with a dress code and restricted access to non-members, so be sure to email and enquire about tickets in advance using the link above. Meanwhile, here’s a sample of Douglas’ improvisations and “instant variations”.
Boosting the signal for some experimental/eclectic gigs in London this coming week…
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Machinefabriek ( photo by Pieter Jan Minnebo)
IKLECTIK presents:
Machinefabriek + Graham Dunning & Colin Webster IKLECTIK, Old Paradise Yard, 20 Carlisle Lane, Waterloo, London, SE1 7LG, England
Thursday 16th June 2016, 8.00pm – information
“Machinefabriek is the alias of Rutger Zuydervelt, whose music combines elements of ambient, noise, minimalism, drone, field recordings and electro-acoustic experiments. His pieces can be heard as sonic environments for the listener to dwell in. Finding tension in texture, tone and timing, the result can be very minimalistic at first glance, but reveals itself upon closer listening. The devil is in the details. Rutger has collaborated (on record and/or live) with numerous artists including Colin Webster, Jaap Blonk, Aaron Martin, Peter Broderick, Frans de Waard, Steve Roden, Michel Banabila, Dead Neanderthals and Gareth Davis, amongst many others.
“The duo of Graham Dunning & Colin Webster perform improvised music avoiding conventional playing of their respective instruments. Graham Dunning uses a single turntable with dubplates of field recordings, dentistry tools and other objects to create crackling textures, tones and disjointed noise. On saxophone, Colin Webster uses a range of techniques to bring a palette of percussive and textural sounds, drawn tones, and raw, searing blasts. The duo have recorded 3 albums, with their 4th out in May on Tombed Visions, and have also recorded a collaboration with tuba player Sam Underwood.”
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An evening of assorted collective noises:
D503 present:
‘Mechanical Dreams Along the River’: Echoes… Leytonstone + Norvoir + Precocious Mouse + Shabash + D503 + Noteherder & McCloud New River Studios, Ground Floor Unit E, 199 Eade Road, Manor House, London, N4 1DN, England
Friday 17th June 2016, 7:30 pm – information here and here
“Echoes… Leytonstone is a solo project from James Shearman, interested in hypnagogia and inspired by musicians like Nadja, The Angelic Process and Birchville Cat Motel – ambient and ethereal dronegazing, minimal bellowing cave music.
“Norvoir is an ambient/drone project by Sam Saljooghi, using his guitar to slowly build and create vast atmospheric soundscapes from which you can immerse yourself in through his use of delay, reverb and looping.
“Precocious Mouse will be performing a new live iteration of the ‘seance’ project. Using a combination of generative, microsonics and found sound, the experimental/electronic/glitch piece explores themes of communication and alienation.
“A secret rendezvous of witches and sorcerers, characterized by orgiastic rites, dances and feasting and using violin, piano and noise, Shabash brings spirits of the deep forests and multidimensional realms, allowing different worlds to meet and journey together.
“D503 are Nicola Serra (beats, synthesizer, percussion) and Francesco Garau (guitars and manipulations), a North London-based duo aiming to explore drone, techno and industrial by using primitive and minimal sounds.
“Noteherder & McCloud undertake investigations. A thick grey soup of electronic noise and field recordings enlivened by some remarkable soprano sax playing from Chris Parfitt. We watch from dark corners where synthesisers struggle against illegal parameters.”
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Finding out everything that’s happening at a event at central London eclecti-night Scaledown always tends to be a last-minute matter, but here’s what was scheduled a working week before the latest show…
The Orchestra Pit presents:
Scaledown #119: V A L V E + Haymanot Tesfa + Frank E. & JK-ee (Lonesome Cowboys From Hell) + Mark Braby + Ed Dowie The King & Queen, 1 Foley Street, Fitzrovia, London, W1W 6DL, England
Friday 17th June 2016, 7:30 pm – information here and here
“Coming up this month we have:
“V A L V E is a progressive/avant-garde sound project from Knifeworld’s Chloe Herington, featuring an ever-morphing line up of conspirators and collaborators and rather a lot of bassoons, saxophones and found sounds.
“The beloved singer and artist Haymanot Tesfa brings her lyre to enchant us with songs of Ethiopia, ancient and contemporary, fresh and traditional.
“Yee-haw…. last year we put out the call for some cowpunk, and this coming Friday we get the grits courtesy of Frank E. & Blind ‘Gentleman’ JK-ee, two of the low-down psycho-reprobates that are Lonesome Cowboys From Hell. They will be regaling Scaledown with tales of family strife and cross-country travellin’ life.
“Co-Scaledown host Mr Mark Braby will perform one short story, one or two wee rhymes, two songs and an improvisation which will last until Duane the intern informs him that he has to stop.
“Ed Dowie has been making music since the late 1990s, firstly as one third of Parlophone’s Brothers in Sound, then later a solo act under the name Redarthur. After a five-year hiatus which he spent living in University libraries & music technology labs making strange bleeps, he returned to the music industry to join The Paper Cinema, a puppetry/animation/theatre/music hybrid (that tours both internationally & in Hackney). Now performing and recording under his own name, he makes music which fuses experimental techniques with melodic aspirations.”
Here’s a preview of the debuts of some new current-classical British pieces, all surfacing in June.
In the middle of the month, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group will be presenting the most recent fruits of their crowdfunded Sound Investment scheme (aimed to encourage enthusiasts to “get closer to the creation of new music… and support some of the world’s leading living composers,” – if you’re interested in joining in, check out the investment page here). Previously – at the start of the month – outlier composer and onetime new-classical rebel Keith Burstein will present his new cello concerto in one of London’s excellent but out-of-the-way music churches (situated as it is up near the Hoover Building, on the city’s north-west escape route and one which, as it happens, points the way to Birmingham).
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Music at St Mary’s Perivale presents:
The Lipatti Piano Quartet + Corinne Morris/Keith Burstein/Viv McLean St Mary’s Perivale, Perivale Lane, Perivale, London, UB6 8SS, England
Wednesday 1st June 2016, 7.30 pm – free event (with retiring collection) – more information
Programme:
Keith Burstein : ‘Wiosna’ (sonata for cello & piano) (world premiere)
Franz Schubert : Sonata in A minor D821 ‘Arpeggione’ (for cello & piano)
Franz Schubert – Adagio and Rondo Concertante D487 (for piano, violin, viola & cello)
Antonín Dvořàk – Piano Quartet in E flat Op. 87 (for piano, violin, viola & cello)
Performers:
The Lipatti Piano Quartet
Corinne Morris (cello)
Keith Burstein (piano)
Viv McLean (piano)
During his 1990s emergence as a composer, Keith Burstein warred publically, bitterly and theatrically with a stern post-serial/post-Boulez British classical music establishment over his own fervent, frequently-politicized championing of “the rehabilitation of melody to the heart of music, and of tonal harmony, which enables the expressive power of dissonance.“ At the time, he was sidelined and ostracised. Now, with a multitude of British composers happily handling melodic expressiveness in parallel with modernist complexities, those battles seem to belong to a harsher, more rigid era: one concerned more with conflicts of manners, of theory and of hierarchy than with actual musicality. Perhaps in consequence, the image of Burstein-the-heretic may gradually be giving way to that of Burstein-the-unfortunate-herald, but in the meantime Keith has continued to work his own continuing tonalist seam (regardless of scorn or praise) through oratorios and political/metaphysical opera, choral and chamber pieces, and song cycles.
Corinne Morris, 2013 (photographer unknown)
In recent years Keith has applied his limpid, deceptively intricate compositional approach to works and situations relating to his own Eastern European and Baltic Jewish heritage (an Ashkenazy-approved symphony premiered by the Kaunas City Symphony; a string trio inspired by a Lithuanian odyssey). His latest work, the cello sonata ‘Wiosna’ , is named for the Polish word for “spring” – which he finds “much more beautiful than our stark monosyllable” – and its three movements are named after the three months of that season, Marzac (March), Kwiecien (April) and Maj (May). ‘Wiosna’ was written for Corinne Morris (the ex-Opera National de Paris cellist turned acclaimed soloist, who’s currently following up her 2013 debut album ‘Macedonian Sessions’ with a new one with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, due in 2017). She’ll be performing the piece with Keith himself as piano accompanist.
Filling out the bill will be three familiar Romantic staples. Schubert’s ‘Arpeggione’ Sonata (originally written for a pairing of piano and the bowed, long-since fallen-from-favour arpeggione guitar) will be performed in its more usual cello-and-piano arrangement, with Corrine Morris accompanied this time by award-winning young pianist and frequent St Mary’s performer Viv McLean. The Lipatti Piano Quartet – Gamal Khamis (piano), Amy Tress (violin), Felicity Matthews (viola) and Auriol Evans (cello) – will be completing the evening, performing two further key Romantic chamber works: Schubert’s ‘Adagio and Rondo Concertante’ and Dvořàk’s ‘Piano Quartet in E flat’.
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CBSO presents:
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group: ‘Remembering the Future’ CBSO Centre, Berkley Street, Birmingham, B1 2LF, England
Sunday 12th June 2016, 7.30pm – more information
Programme:
Judith Weir: Blue-Green Hill
Luke Bedford: In Black Bright Ink (world premiere)
Richard Baker: new work (world premiere)
Howard Skempton: Field Notes
John Woolrich: Swan Song (world premiere)
Zoë Martlew: Broad St. Burlesque (world premiere)
For this one, I’ll just quote BCMG’s press release, as follows:
“Birmingham Contemporary Music Group has increasingly explored the contemporary chamber repertoire in recent seasons, and we extend that journey with no less than four new works from composers with strong BCMG connections. It was our Artist-in-Association John Woolrich who originally encouraged BCMG to commission smaller-scale pieces, and as a composer of such deft chamber works as In the Mirrors of Asleep, which we have performed many times, asking John to write one of these was an obvious choice (BCMG’s, not his!).
“Zoë Martlew is primarily known as a performer, playing cello with BCMG on a number of occasions. She is also a talented emerging composer, and this seems the ideal time for her first BCMG commission. Luke Bedford returned to the UK last year from a period in Berlin – an experience that has influenced his music in subtly interesting ways. Richard Baker’s output includes a string of miniature works, finely crafted and always a delight for the ear. His new commission will be a more extended chamber piece featuring oboist/fellow composer Melinda Maxwell.
“Completing the programme are Judith Weir’s ‘Blue-Green Hill’ (an elaboration of a folk-inspired miniature first written for BCMG’s tour of India in 2002), and a revival of Howard Skempton’s ‘Field Notes’ (a hit of our 2014/15 season).
“There will be a free pre-concert talk open to all ticket holders from 6.30-7pm with Stephen Newbould (Artistic Director of BCMG), Richard Baker, Zoë Martlew, Luke Bedford and John Woolrich.“
Two shows for the Saturday that’s coming up – both donation-based, both community-minded, both flexibly soft around the edges. And both well worth attending.
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Arctic Circle presents:
Daylight Music 225: Bouche + A. Dyjecinski + The Kindling + Gemma Champ Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, England
Saturday 28th May 2016, 12.00pm – free/pay-what-you-like event (suggested donation: £5.00) – more information
The summer return of London’s Daylight Music sessions continues with this triple-bill-plus-piano-guest afternoon.
“Bouche is the deeply emotive and beguilingly timeless music of double bass player and singer Rebekah Bouche, accompanied by trumpet /flugelhorn and electric guitar. The songs are a kind of ‘blue-jazz hymnal’; the honesty and rawness of the blues, with melodic salutes to early jazz and a sense of pathos and drama that nods in the direction of 18th/19th century hymns and British folk. The unusual instrumentation makes for a delicate, tantalisingly sparse sound that winds prettily around the lyrical themes which, though mostly melancholic, are often delivered with a wink and a smile. The debut Bouche album, ‘So Long Solemn’, was released this spring.
“A. Dyjecinski (if you’re wondering, it’s pronounced “EH-DEE-YEAH-CHIN-SKI”) is a Canuck from the Ontario woods who currently lives in London, making gritty, raw and vulnerable music (usually with his “scuzzy garage rock” band Dracula Legs). This year he released his debut solo album ‘The Valley Of Yessiree’ which saw him compared to Nick Cave, Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner (and dis-compared to Sinatra) by ‘Folk Radio‘, who also praised him for “epiglottal drunkenness” and for a “spectacularly assured debut album that, for all its minimal aesthetic, is brimming with ideas.”
“Cinematic songs, fireside percussion, ghostly harmonies, and T.V. static dreams: The Kindling make sad, strange and beautiful music, like the crack in the window that makes a rainbow, a dark, dusty corner or the last wave that takes her initials with yours from the sand. Presenting widescreen, blissed-out melancholy London alt.folk (and drawing influence from the guerrilla recording spirit of Sparklehorse, Mount Eerie, and Tom Waits), they were formed in 2011 to breathe life into the acoustic songs of Guy Weir. Their introductory EP ‘From Out Of The Wreckage’ was followed by a second EP, ‘Half Light’, in 2013. Their latest release is the 2015 full album ‘By Morning’.
“Weaving through the show on the piano and improvising a mix of funk, jazz and pop will be Daylight regular Gemma Champ.”
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On the evening of the same day, on the other side of the Atlantic…
Rokenri/Hannah Edmunds Gardens/Gowanus Canal Conservancy Group present:
Rokenri
Fort Briscoe Studios, 73 Sackett Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York, NY 11231, USA
Saturday 28th May 2016, 7.00pm – pay-what-you-like (suggested donation: $10.00) – more information
Rokenri – the free-floating, free-associating art-pop team-up of sound artist Ethan Woods (guitar, keyboards, noise, vocals), multi-faceted percussionist Matt Evans (drums, keyboards, vocals, noise) and protean Anawan singer-songwriter Trevor Wilson (bass, keyboards, penny whistle, percussion, vocals, noise) – are launching their ‘Donkey Donkey’ album at their DIY space in Red Hook, prior to Trevor’s imminent departure for North Carolina. Expect “a bit of a hang at first, but only one hour of performance… accompanied by dancers, video, and more.”
There’s a horticultural/preservational feel to the evening, with half of the door proceeds going to the Gowanus Canal Conservancy Group (working on and for the polluted and contested Brooklyn canal which neighbours the venue, with the aim of turning its shores into a public park).
‘Donkey Donkey’ (also featuring contributions from Rokenri’s Bennington College/Brooklyn pals Stephen Markow, J.J. Beck and Michael Chinworth) is available to download now, with the vinyl edition following in mid-June. Here’s the recent single – Sullied Tied – one of my own album favourites (Love Takes Time), and a clip of the band rehearsing another ‘Donkey Donkey’ track (Your Arms Are Real) at Briscoe.
I’m still recovering from the aftermath of moving house, but here are another couple of gig posts for shows later in the week. There’s one classical-piano fundraiser just outside London (following up the recent one by Olga Stezkho, and for the same cause) plus an evening of marginal-yet-melodic pop in Brighton (for those who thought the town was all about counterculture…)
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Alexander Ardakov
The Spinney Theatre, The Beacon School, 15 Amersham Road, Chesham Bois, Amersham, HP6 5PF, England
Thursday 28th April 2016, 7.00pm – more information here
and here
“A graduate of the Moscow Conservatoire and a prizewinner at the Viotti International competition in Italy, Alexander Ardakov has been living in England where, in addition to his performing career throughout the world, he is a Professor of Piano at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance. The move to Britain and to Trinity where he has taught since 1991 has enabled him to develop as an international recitalist of exceptional versatility and musical integrity. Among his notable radio recordings are those for BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM. Alexander feels at home not only with the Russian classics but also with the composers of the romantic period such as Chopin, Liszt and Schumann. Indeed, Alexander’s audiences are never left indifferent, they are swept up in the sensitivity, intensity and passion of his playing that takes them on a journey from the most tender and intimate perceptions to the dramatic peaks of life’s greatest moments. Each meeting with him is a virtuoso performance that leaves the hearer emotionally sated yet still thirsty for more. Alexander’s extensive discography includes Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Alexander Gibson. Further CD recordings are planned.”
Programme:
Johann Sebastian Bach – Ferruccio Busoni (1685-1760, 1866-1924)
Johann Sebastian Bach – Chorale Prelude “Ich ruf zu Dir”
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Nocturne op 19 no 4
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Romance op 5
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Meditation op 72 no 5
Sergei Rachmaninoff – Melodie op 3 no 3 in E major
Sergei Rachmaninoff – Elegie op 3 no 1 in E flat minor
Sergei Rachmaninoff – Musical Moment op 16 no 3 in B major
Christoph Willibald Gluck – Sgambati (1714-1787, 1841-1914)
Christoph Willibald Gluck – Dance of the blessed spirits
Robert Schumann – Warum (Why?)
Robert Schumann – Aufschwung (Upswing)
Ludwig van Beethoven – Seven Variations on the Theme ‘God Save the King’
Frédéric Chopin – Ballade op 23 no 1 in G minor
Frédéric Chopin – Ballade op 38 no 2 in A minor
Frédéric Chopin – Ballade op 47 no 3 in A flat major
Frédéric Chopin – Ballade op 52 no 4 in F minor
Chord Orchard presents
CO.2 featuring The Fiction Aisle + Crayola Lectern + Lutine (+ DJs & Innerstrings lightshow)
Wagner Hall @ St Paul’s Church, West Street, Brighton, BN1 2RQ, England
Saturday 30th April 2016, 7.30pm – more information
The project of Chord Orchard leader Thomas White, The Fiction Aisle is “big, cinematic music that’s hewn in the shadow of John Barry, John Grant, Lloyd Cole and the Last Shadow Puppets, yet is very much its own creature. Much of it is a delicious investigation of old-fashioned pre-rock songwriting, but done from the heart rather than for kitsch kicks…a gorgeous surprise.” (‘The Arts Desk’)
Crayola Lectern released his debut double album, “The Fall and Rise of…” to great critical acclaim in 2013. The work and muse continue apace with the second album nearing completion and the third underway. Piano-oriented songs and adventures which affect people greatly, forming a unique musical world, all of its own, in thrall to nobody, best described as “what psychedelic music would have sounded like had the Edwardians invented it.”
Lutine“occupy the shifting, elemental space of their songs – a space that is sometimes airy, sometimes watery – in a way that is both effortlessly minimal and somehow whole. The result is a beautiful lucid dream of a record.” (‘Folk Radio’)
Just quickly mentioning this solo fundraising event initiated by Olga Stezhko: a forty-five minute late-lunchtime piano performance on the north side of central London, this coming Thursday…
Olga Stezhko St Pancras Parish Church, Euston Road, St Pancras, London, NW1 2BA, England
Thursday 21st April 2016, 1.15pm – free entry (with fundraising donations encouraged)
Olga: “Please join me at my lunchtime recital in aid of the Friends of the Belarusian Children’s Hospice (UK). I have been a long-time supporter of this amazing charity that provides children’s hospice-at-home care in Belarus. Their comprehensive palliative care creates positive experiences for terminally-ill children and precious memories for their families.
I will be playing two Debussy suites – ‘Suite bergamasque’ and ‘Children’s Corner’ – and Prokofiev’s ‘Tales of an Old Grandmother’. The event is free and all proceeds from a retiring collection will go to the FBCH. Your support will be greatly appreciated!”
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.
Three more London shows for the upcoming weekend. If regular readers are finding it all too predictable to find Baba Yaga and Daylight Music shows listed in these posts, I’d have to agree with you that those guys aren’t the only game in town – it’s just that both of them run a persistently strong game.
Daylight Music information first…
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Daylight Music presents:
Daylight Music 221: Haiku Salut + Poppy Ackroyd + Gavin Greenaway + Angus MacRae + Oliver Cherer Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, England
Saturday 26th March 2016, 12.00pm – free/pay-what-you-like event (suggested donation: £5.00) – more information
“For the last event in their current season, Daylight Music is delighted to join in the celebrations for this year’s Piano Day – with piano highlights and delights including lots of artists playing on a baby grand on the Union Chapel stage – in a concert kindly supported by UK publishers Manners McDade.”
Born in Belgrade, Serbia, but resident in Paris for many years, Ivan Ilić is best known for his solo performances of French classical piano music (in particular an acclaimed and controversial 2008 recording of Debussy’s 24 Préludes and a recording of Leopold Godowsky’s left-hand Studies on Chopin’s Études) He also performs music by contemporary composers including Morton Feldman (the subject of his next recording), John Metcalf, Keeril Makan and Dmitri Tymoczko.
Haiku Salut – the Derbyshire-based dream pop/post-folk/neo-everything trio (influenced equally by the evocative film soundtracks of Yann Tiersen and Benoît Charest, the genre-melting electronica of early Múm, and the impressionistic writing of Haruki Murakami) will be setting aside their multi-instrumental skills to play a short piano trio set.
Fresh from her support slot to Jo Quail last week, Poppy Ackroyd will be performing several of her own post-classical piano originals; perhaps making use of field recordings, but certainly incorporating the specific sonic qualities of the Union Chapel space into the performance.
Gavin Greenaway (whose work as composer and conductor covers an extensive variety of film scores, Paul McCartney’s oratorio ‘Ecce Cor Meum’, the 2012 Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant and assorted theme park and sporting events) previews his “immediately engaging, unashamedly melodic and deeply personal” solo piano album ‘Il Falco Bianco’ on Tenuto Records, which takes in alternating flavours of post-minimalism, concert-hall majesty, jazz and prepared piano (with eighty-eight table tennis balls).
Angus MacRae (who has composed for and in conjuction with filmmakers, choreographers, theatre pieces, animations and photography exhibitions) performs pieces from his piano repertoire which “blend melancholic melodies with minimalist structures and rich, atmospheric electronics”.
In between the acts, Oliver Cherer – a.k.a. ambient isolationist-turned-pagan folkscaper Dollboy – will explore the inside of the piano.
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Details on the Baba Yaga’s Huts shows in a moment…
Daylight Music presents:
Daylight Music 220: Benni Hemm Hemm + The Second Hand Marching Band + Jilk Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, England
Saturday 19th March 2016, 12.00pm – free/pay-what-you-like event (recommended donation – £5.00) – more information
“This is the first of many epic celebrations for Arctic Circle’s 10th Anniversary; Benni Hemm Hemm are even coming all the way from Iceland to join the party!
Benni Hemm Hemm is the band of Benedikt H. Hermannsson, who writes the band´s songs and produces their recordings. The band is an organism that is hard to explain. Its members are in total around three hundred: at shows, the size of the band is usually somewhere from three to forty, deploying guitar, choral vocals, glockenspiel and a broad potential range of chamber instrumentation depending on who’s available. Their songs are variously described by ‘Pitchfork’ as “wispy, ruminative strums with brass, strings, and fiercely emotive rhythms… lullabies that age well – and go out with a predictable, usually affecting bang.”
“Sprawling anywhere between fifteen and twenty-two people, and led by accordionist/tenor horn player Pete Liddle, Glaswegian untraditional folk band The Second Hand Marching Band aim to create something that can’t be created by just four or five people – a mixture of cacophony and beauty, dancing and stillness. They play their music on a variety of brass, woodwind, accordion, guitar and drums; draw on dance, indie pop, post-rock, chanson, Balkan and Scottish music, and love home recording and ensemble madness. They don’t often play south of the border, so this is a good chance for Londoners to catch them in action.
“Expect an afternoon of collaboration and joy, as Benni Hemm Hemm and The Second Hand Marching Band join forces to perform pieces from their recent joint album ‘Faults’. The seeds of the record came from when Benni and Pete first met in 2007, at one of the first SHMB performances. Pete, Ross, Rich and Fraser from SHMB subsequently started playing in Benni Hemm Hemm, and at the same time Pete and Benni recorded some songs together as a collaboration between the two projects. Eventually, nine songs were produced in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Fife, Cumbernauld and Reykjavik – a long project stretching over seven years, eight hundred miles, sixteen instruments and eight singers. The album is a totally self-funded, DIY, self-recorded, self-produced, self-assembled production. This is no mean feat for a normal band, but try it with seventeen people in two countries!
“In support, Bristolian folktronicists Jilk fuse a bewildering collage of home-found sounds with the ambient soundscapes of washy synths, insect-like clicks & cuts, and huge gorgeous waves of all encompassing experimental noise. Deploying violins, guitars, trombone, strings, flutes, multiple drums and vibraphone in addition to the samplers and electronics, they also describe themselves as “glitch-and-paste electronic ambience with balls” and “the sound of jelly babies in tin wellington boots at an Arctic rave”.”
“Composer and cellist Jo Quail writes and performs instrumental music. Her sound is courageous and demands the intense emotional investment of the listener, while remaining wholly accessible to fans of all backgrounds. The inspiration for Jo’s music is drawn from a wide spectrum of influences. Music itself is an obvious touchstone, the compositional aspects of Bach, Debussy, Arvo Pärt, Zoltán Kodály, John Tavener and Bartók sit beside her love of Whitesnake, Jane’s Addiction and Nine Inch Nails to name but a few. At this concert, she’ll be launching her new album ‘Five Incantations’, which she’ll perform in full along with a selection of her previous work.
Composer and performer Poppy Ackroyd , originally from London, is currently based in Brighton. Classically trained on violin and piano, she works by manipulating and multi-tracking sounds from just these two instruments so creating deeply affecting instrumental music. Her widely acclaimed debut album ‘Escapement’ was released in December 2012; a DVD called ‘Escapement Visualised’, featuring stunning bespoke visuals by Lumen for each track on the album, was released in September 2014. ‘Feathers’, her second album, was released in November 2014, and builds on the concept behind her debut – this time, the tracks also feature other keyboard and string instruments. Through the nature of the older instruments Poppy uses there is an intimacy to her work, while field recordings add to the cinematic and atmospheric quality of the music. Yet in a live context the sonic qualities of the performance space itself become another instrument to be manipulated and woven into the performance.”
The first of the three gigs I’m posting about here features music that’s mostly new enough not to have any videos or soundclips available… If I’m wrong about this, I’ll post a few up later, but since I’m putting the original post up on the day of the gig, if you’re going you’ll just have to go on faith…
Academy Composers at The Forge: a concert of new works by composers from the Royal Academy of Music The Forge, 3-7 Delancey Street, Camden Town, London, NW1 7NL, England
Wednesday 9th March 2016, 7.30pm – more information here and here
“Join us for an exciting evening of new music and film! The concert will showcase a selection of new works by young composers, performed by the Royal Academy of Music‘s talented student ensembles and soloists. The evening will also feature a screening of new animation shorts, created during the annual collaborative project between the Royal Academy of Music and the Bristol School of Animation.”
Daylight Music’s offering for this coming Saturday shows their knack for promoting and harbouring music which walks a line between the intriguingly arty and the lunchtime cosy. This week, they’re putting on a young singer-songwriter who melds the sex-kitten rasp of Eartha Kitt with the sinous, sensuous spiritual dissolve of a latterday Kate Bush piano ballads; plus one of those energetic pop choirs which specializes in indie hits; and finally, a band which merges indie-rock and jazz (falling somewhere between Duke Ellington, South African township jazz, the easygoing Anglo-romanticism of Perfect Houseplants and string-shredding Mogwai-ish post rock).
Daylight Music presents:
Daylight Music 219 – King Capisce + Jam Tarts Choir + Grace Lightman Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, England
Saturday 12th March 2016, 12.00pm – free/pay-what-you-want event (suggested donation: £5.00) – more information
Over to the Daylight word-of-mouth machine…
King Capisce is a five-piece from Sheffield have been moving from strength to strength in recent years, gathering praise from ‘The Guardian’ and ‘Drowned in Sound’. Tom Robinson at BBC 6Music, claims they’re “an exciting cross-genre talent, fusing jazz with other influences to create a sound that is unmistakably their own”.
The current set for 60-piece Brighton indie choir Jam Tarts Choir includes barnstorming interpretations of songs by artists as diverse as The Cure, Goldfrapp, Arcade Fire and Lambchop.
There’s something timeless about Grace Lightman. Maybe it’s that honeyed voice that ever so gently tugs at your heartstrings. Perhaps it’s those careful and considered nods to the iconic moments, faces and places of musical history….”
The third gig rounds up jazz, prog, noise, grandeur and chaos and flings them all at the wall…
Nøught + Golden Oriole + Dead Days Beyond Help (with Alan Wilkinson) Cafe Oto, 18-22 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London, E8 3DL, England
Sunday 13th March 2016, 7.00pm – more information
“A killer, high-voltage line-up…
“Nøught is a synthesis of the experimental, avant-punk, jazz-prog and noise-rock credos, distilled into the paradoxical confines of a musically volatile, instrumental power-quartet. Originally formed in Oxford in the late 90’s by eminent guitarist James Sedwards (also of Thurston Moore Group, Guapo ,The Devil), the current line-up has been based in London since 2002. Their music is profoundly exhilarating when encountered and often provokes an hypnotic sensation from an audience as their incendiary live performances can easily entice and captivate a listener, due to the highly artful, polished and demanding compositions. Pieces span the extremes of short, catchy, three minute eruptions to long, dense and evolving half-hour incantations. Nøught’s music provides an uncommonly refreshing, non-derivative sensibility and approach, and they continually astound as they develop, invoke and deliver their singularly potent blend of sonic diabolism.
“Featuring members of Norwegian noise-rock bands Staer and of Tralten Eller Utpult, skull-twisting face-melters Golden Oriole produce abstract and minimal music – musique pommes frites meets funky concrète.
“Dead Days Beyond Help (Alex Ward and Jem Doulton) take the physical assault of rock and the free-wheeling exploration of post-idiomatic improvisation to new levels of power and density, while Alan Wilkinson comes blazing out of a saxophone tradition that includes the likes of Albert Ayler, Roscoe Mitchell, Mike Osborne, Evan Parker and Casper Brötzmann with a highly vocalized and personal style. DDBH’s most recent album (2014’s “Severance Pay” on Believers Roast Records), was described by ‘The Wire’ as “a reminder that there are still thrills aplenty to be gained from the pursuit of complexity”; and Stewart Lee has called Alan Wilkinson’s trio with John Edwards and Steve Noble “as powerful as The Stooges and as fluid as John Coltrane”. Given their collective pedigree of collaborations with such luminaries of free music and avant-rock as Derek Bailey, Thurston Moore, Tatsuya Yoshida, Talibam!, Weasel Walter and Chris Corsano, it is no surprise that when the three musicians join forces the results are brutally intense, deliriously virtuosic, and utterly untrammelled by stylistic constraints.”
Here’s some news on a brief three-date set of Italian shows by William D. Drake. Approximate blurb translation follows:
“Cristiano Roversi (in collaboration with Arci Tom, Pietro Rubini & Guido Bellachioma ) is happy and proud to announce the William D. Drake Italian 2016 Minitour. One of the most exciting acts on the contemporary London underground music scene, the amazing virtuoso songwriter, keyboardist and piano artist (reknowned for having been both keyboard player and co-composer in Cardiacs) presents songs from his latest studio album ‘Revere Reach’ plus a selection of old numbers. William will share the stage with Mr.James Larcombe (keyboards, backing vocals & hurdy-gurdy, from Stars In Battledress) and Mrs. Nicola Baigent (clarinet, from North Sea Radio Orchestra).”
Dates:
Arci Tom, Piazza Tom Benetollo, 1, 46010 Mantova MN, Italy, Friday 19th February 2016 – more information here
Metricubi, Campiello delle Erbe 2003 San Polo 30125 Venezia, Saturday 20th February 2016 – more information here
Italian musician and songwriter Sterbus (whose ‘Smash The Sun Alight‘ mini-album features in one of ‘Misfit City’s most-read reviews) will be playing a support slot at the Rome date. Promising a mixture of originals plus “some familiar surprises”, he’s fielding a semi-unplugged trio of himself on voice and guitar, regular sidekick Dominique D’Avanzo on vocals, clarinet and harmonica and Noel Storey (of St Albans lo-fi indie pop band The Pocket Gods) on piano and synth.
Three video clips (two Drakes, plus a Sterbus) are below. The first is a full-band Drake recording – live in the studio – of To My Piano, capturing the folk, Early English and chapel-songbook aspects of his baroque pop songwriting to full effect (as well as some of the warmth of his live shows). The second is a recording of him playing his solo piano study The Moth Surrenders To The Flame, a deeper immersion in his classical side.
The third is Sterbus’ recent cover of the Cardiacs song Gina Lollabridgida, which eases away the original’s frenetic New Wave rush in favour of a summery acoustic coo while keeping all of its intricacies intact. Sterbus unveiled this version of the song at a London fundraiser for Tim Smith last autumn, while the video itself is a mash-up of some of the finest visual moments from Gina herself on film… so that’s three or four layers of tribute right there. Enjoy.
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The perpetual vigour and drive of theatrical, multi-disciplinary songwriter Louis Barabbas has seen him dubbed “the hairy Bez of blues harp”, put him to work with Dr. Dog and John Otway, and made him busy with mentoring developing artists, running a record label, and fronting radio shows plus at least three simultaneous bands. He’s currently engaged in a long and winding British tour over the next few months, spattering through spring and into a few bigger summer dates.
For now, here are the dates for Louis’ February shows, all of which take place in Scotland and the north of England and all of which are solo (although some subsequent dates will see Louis playing with his Bedlam Six and Ceaseless Horror Band projects).
Dates:
The Doghouse Cellar Jazz Bar, Kay Brow Yard, Kay Brow, Ramsbottom, BL0 9AY, England, Friday 19th February 2016 – free event
Stacoustic @ The Star Inn, 2 Back Hope Street, Salford, M7 2FR, England, Saturday 20th February 2016 – more information
The Ferret, 55 Fylde Road, Preston, PR1 2XQ, England, Tuesday 23rd February 2016
Siempre Bicycle Café, 162 Dumbarton Road, Glasgow, G11 6XE, Scotland, Thursday 25th February 2016
St Andrews Sessions @ St Andrews Church, Church Street, Innerleithen, EH44 6JA, Scotland, Friday 26th February, 2016, 8.00pm – more information
Heaton Perk, 103-105 Heaton Park Road, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE6 5NR, England, Monday 29th February 2016
Since most of these are café gigs, check at the venues for more information on times, prices etc or check via Louis’ homepage. The tour will continue into March and April, with further summer gigs to come. I’ll post information about those shows closer to the time. Meanwhile, here’s the man himself, in action…
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There’s a wealth of shows on Saturday 20th February, but for now I’ll just mention the acoustic one which comes with 1930s arrangements and voice-dancing…
Daylight Music presents:
Daylight Music 216: Alex Mendham & His Orchestra, Ben See + Rory McVicar + Gemma Champ Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, England
Saturday 20th February 2016, 12.00pm – free/pay-what-you-like event (suggested donation £5.00) – more information
“Alex Mendham & His Orchestra are a truly authentic Golden Age 1920s and 1930s British dance band formed in 2010. These young musicians have been stunning audiences all across Europe, as they perform with boundless passion and energy, with impeccable attention to period detail not only in their music and vocals, but in everything from their original instruments to their hair and attire. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufAYwgz_Iyg
Ben See is a singer and composer from London. He specialises in vocal music, and more specifically contemporary a cappella. Ben’s musical influences range from the scores of Benjamin Britten to the ever-eccentric Björk, with a small detour via the beautiful song-writing of Brian Wilson and the vocal wizard Bobby McFerrin.
Rory McVicar is a musician and songwriter who has been releasing music under his own name since 2005. His first demo found its way into Radio One’s Festive Fifty after heavy rotation on the Huw Stephens and Rob da Bank shows. Since then, he’s released two long players and a clutch of singles, splits and EPs on various indie labels.
This week Gemma Champ will return to provide the matinee music in-between on the piano.”
Some more classical music performances in England this month.
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The Britten Sinfonia return for the second of this year’s (and the third overall) ‘At Lunch’ concert series of mid-day performances across the east of England, this time managing to stretch as far as the south coast.
Britten Sinfonia presents ‘At Lunch Three’
St Andrew’s Hall @ The Halls, St Andrews Plan, Norwich, Norfolk, NR3 1AU, England, Friday 19th February 2016, 1.00pm – more information
Claude Debussy – Syrinx
Franco Donatoni – Small II
Daníel Bjarnason – new work (world premiere tour)
Franco Donatoni – Marches
Claude Debussy – Sonata for flute, viola and harp (L137)
amended setlist for Southampton adds:
André Jolivet – Petite Suite
Toru Takemitsu – And Then I Knew ‘Twas Wind
“The combination of flute, viola and harp may not be the most familiar trio ensemble, but it is one that certainly lends itself to the rich exploration of colour and harmonies that is typical of Debussy’s output. A deeply expressive curiosity in soundscapes and association with visual art also features in the compositions of Icelandic composer Daníel Bjarnason, whose new work features alongside that of Debussy in this programme.”
The London and Cambridge gigs include an “in conversation” event (a pre-concert discussion on Daníel Bjarnason’s new work) before the concert at 12.15pm in London, or after the concert at 2.15pm in Cambridge. Tickets are free but must be booked in advance in London, and are only available to concert ticket holders in Cambridge.
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Back in Norwich, there’s a promising trio concert…
“Named after the legendary violinist Adolf Busch and inspired by trio member Mathieu van Bellen’s possession of Busch’s 1783 J.B. Guadagnini violin, the London-based Busch Trio – previously The Busch Ensemble – are emerging as one of the leading young piano trios among the new generation, receiving enthusiastic responses from audiences and critics across the UK and Europe. Recognised for their achievements and the “incredible verve” of their playing, they were winners of the 2012 Royal Overseas League Competition and went on to win several prizes including 2nd prize and the recording prize at the 2012 Salieri-Zinetti International Chamber Music Competition and the 3rd prize at the 2013 Pinerolo International Chamber Music Competition in Italy as well as the 2nd prize at the International Schumann Chamber Music Award in Frankfurt.
Since its formation in 2012 highlights of the Trio’s performances in the UK have included the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Sage Gateshead and a critically acclaimed appearance at Wigmore Hall. They have also given concerts in the Netherlands, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Denmark. The trio enjoys the support of the Tunnell Trust, the Kirckman Concert Society, the Park Lane Group and the Cavatina Chamber Music Trust, as well as being awarded the MMSF Philharmonia Orchestra Ensemble Award. Most recently they have completed the prestigious ChamberStudio Mentorship Programme, which has offered them teaching from some of the world’s leading musicians. They are currently receiving guidance from members of the Artemis Quartet at the Queen Elizabeth Music Chapel in Brussels.”
This concert includes a pre-concert discussion with the trio members at 6.30pm. In addition to two familiar Romantic-era classics, the programme includes a performance of ‘Ackermusik’ by jazz/Eastern-cultures-inspired Dutch composer Theo Loevendie (which Loevendie notes is “written in a mosaic form of five repetitive elements” and which possibly, though not explicitly, pays tribute to the low, breathy vibrato clarinet stylings of late British trad-jazzer Acker Bilk).
Programme:
Theo Loevendie – Ackermusik
Johannes Brahms – Piano Trio No. 2 in C major Op. 87
Franz Schubert – Piano Trio No 2 in E flat D929
Performers:
Omri Epstein – piano
Mathieu van Bellen – violin
Ori Epstein – cello
Here’s a recent recording of the Busch Trio performing the third (Poc adagio) movement of Dvorak’s Piano Trio in F minor, op.65, as well as a previous performance of ‘Ackermusic’ by the Van Baerle Trio.
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More gig news shortly, including William D. Drake in Italy and Louis Barrabas on the rampage across Scotland and northern England.
News on upcoming classical-and-related gigs in London and Bonn…
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The Hermes Experiment presents: Sonic Visions The Forge, 3-7 Delancey Street, Camden Town, London, NW1 7NL, England
Tuesday 16th February 2016, 8:00 pm – more information
“Described as “barmy but brilliant” by ‘Classical Music Magazine’ (and winners of both Park Lane Group Young Artists 2015/16 and of Nonclassical’s Battle of the Bands 2014), The Hermes Experiment is an ensemble of four young professional musicians who are passionate about contemporary and experimental music, and thus inspired to create something innovative and unique. Capitalising on their deliberately idiosyncratic combination of instruments, the ensemble regularly commissions new works, as well as creating their own innovative arrangements and venturing into live free improvisation.
The ensemble has established itself on the London contemporary classical scene with regular performances across the city for organisations including Nonclassical, Kammerklang, Listenpony and Bastard Assignments. Other highlights have included being selected to perform at the 2014 UK Young Artists Festival in Leicester, and giving a concert at Aubazine Abbey in France as part of the L’Aura des Arts festival. The Hermes Experiment is also dedicated to the value of contemporary music in education and community contexts, having taken part in the Wigmore Hall Learning’s ‘Chamber Tots’ and ‘For Crying Out Loud’ 2014/15 schemes.
So far, The Hermes Experiment has commissioned new work from thirty-one composers at various stages of their careers (including Giles Swayne, Stevie Wishart and Misha Mullov-Abbado). The ensemble also strives to create a platform for cross-disciplinary collaboration and has recently created a ‘musical exhibition’ with photographer Thurstan Redding.
The Sonic Visions show will explore ways in which aural experiences have been influenced by visual stimuli. The programme is led by new commissions that respond to a visual element, as interpreted by composers Kate Whitley and Soosan Lolavar; plus a new piece devised in collaboration with Giles Swayne based on a graphic score, and the premiere of an animation by Izabela Barszcz based on Ed Scolding‘s ‘Black Sea’. The Hermes Experiment will also be interpreting three other new graphic scores, devised by Deborah Pritchard, Andy Ingamells and Eloise Gynn as part of a competition linked to the event. The programme will be completed by arrangements that explore three very varied composers/songwriters that have been inspired by the world of visual art: Claude Debussy, Richard Rodney Bennett and Don McLean. This concert is supported by the Britten-Pears Foundation and the Hinrichsen Foundation.
Programme:
Kate Whitley – My Hands (setting of a poem by Nadine Tunasi – world premiere)
Soosan Lolavar – Mah Didam (world premiere)
Ed Scolding – Black Sea (with new animation by Izabela Barszcz)
Claude Debussy – Mandoline and Fantoche
Richard Rodney Bennett – Slow Foxtrot (from ‘A History of Thé Dansant’)
Don McLean – Vincent (new arrangement by The Hermes Experiment)
New semi-improvised piece by Giles Swayne & The Hermes Experiment
New graphic scores by Deborah Pritchard, Andy Ingamells and Eloise Gynn
Performers:
Oliver Pashley – clarinet
Anne Denholm – harp
Marianne Schofield – double bass
Héloïse Werner – soprano/co-director
Supported by
Hanna Grzekiewicz – co-director/marketing/development
Kate Whitley and Soosan Lolavar have both provided blog entries discussing the genesis of their Sonic Visions pieces (based on a poem setting and on an exploration of the links between Iranian music and Renaissance Counterpoint, respectively). The graphic score for Deborah Pritchard’s piece (which is apparently called ‘Kandinsky Studies’) showed up on Twitter recently, so I’ve reproduced it below:
Deborah Pritchard: score for ‘Kandinsky Studies’, 2016
Also below are a couple of videos – one of the Hermes Experiment in the flow of free improvisation, the other of them performing William Cole’s ‘me faytz trobar’.
“In the year 2020, the world will celebrate the 250th birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven, who was born in Bonn. In partnership with German radio station WDR Köln, pianist and Bonn native Susanne Kessel has begun an international composition project, inviting composers from all over the world to write a short piano piece “for Beethoven” with a duration of four minutes or under.
Since the start of the project, Susanne has been performing all the pieces at a series of concerts in Bonn (with some pieces also being presented at Speicher am Kaufhauskanal in Hamburg). All pieces will subsequently be published in a “precious paper” sheet-music edition by Editions Musica Ferrum of London.”
As of February 5th of this year, Susanne has received fifty-seven of the planned two hundred and fifty pieces. The next of the concerts in the performance series takes place on February 25th, in the Bonn instrument store Klavierhaus Klavins, and will feature premieres of work by the following composers:
Ivo van Emmerik – Dutch composer and onetime student of, among others, John Cage, Brian Ferneyhough and Morton Feldman (regarding whom he’s sometimes been suggested as a successor) with a strong interest in multi-media musical staging, electronic music and computer applications.
Mike Garson – cross-disciplinary American jazz, rock and experimental pianist and arranger (best known for his mid-‘70s work with David Bowie).
Robert HP Platz – German composer and founder/conductor of Ensemble Köln, generally better known for large-scale projects which can include operatic works, children’s music, literature, poetry, audio tapes and visual arts.
Claudio Puntin – Swiss composer, clarinettist and loop musician best known for wild, beautiful and moody electronica and post-jazz as a member of ensembles including ambiq and Sepiasonic as well as work for film, television and theatre.
Markus Reuter – German cross-disciplinary composer, touch guitarist, teacher and instrument designer, known for his work with centrozoon, Stick Men and others (as well as for his recent full-scale orchestral piece ‘Todmorden 513’).
Klaus Runze – German “intermedia” artist, composer, educator and theorist (pursuing, amongst other things, structured improvisation, composition, sonic sculpture, and painting-while-performing)
Mateo Soto – award-winning Spanish composer and recent winner of YouTube CODE 2016 Series Call for Scores.
Knut Vaage – Norwegian composer and member of the ensembles JKL and Fat Battery, whose work explores the boundaries between composition and improvisations.
Five of the composers (van Emmerik, Platz, Puntin, Reuter and Vaage) will be attending and possibly speaking, as will German percussionist/composer/music professor Dennis Kuhn and Swiss composer-pianist Lars Werdenberg (founder of New Music platform Chaotic Moebius), both of whom have previously contributed pieces to the project.
There are a series of concerts coming up featuring East Anglian musician Laura Cannell. Playing a variety of instruments (predominantly straight or overbowed fiddle and double recorders, but also percussion and “other rarified wind instruments”, Laura fuses early and mediaeval music with a mixed ancient-and-modern approach to improvisation and to transcendent musical ceremony, taking fragments or inspirations from earlier sounds and melodies as the basis for exploration, illustration and linkages.
Laura will be playing up and down the country over the next few months at a variety of different events and locations, Each one has different musicians on the bill – Brooklyn-based Dutch lutenist and composer Josef van Wissem, who’s bringing the baroque lute out towards the worlds of experimental rock, folk and film; Liverpudlian tape-loop composer In Atoms whose “blissful and evocative” soundscapes and tones mix heath music and throbbing clubby sub-bass with the industrial and reveal him straddling Anglo-pastoralism and the European electronic grandeur of the Schultzes and Jarres; and two Yorkshire singers, Stephanie Hladowski (whose work stretches from reggae to traditional folk) and Magpahi (a.k.a. Todmorden based multi-instrumentalist Alison Cooper, who assembles a collage of folk song, fairy tale, Elizabethan poetry and dreamworld sonics from a variety of instruments and is inspired by “sepia stories, stray animals and recurring dreams of migration”).
Here’s the gig list, and something from each of Laura’s gigmates (including something quite rare from Magpani via the Was Is Das clubnight and promotions):
Laura has further gigs coming up later in the year, which I’ll also be posting about in due course.
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Born in Nagoya, (but now based in Bristol with his wife and collaborator, alt.folk singer Rachael Dadd) Ichi is paying London another visit with his truckload of invented instruments and mind-snagging riffs, digging a dayglo-lined tunnel between the avant-garde and a children’s playroom.
Ichi (The Harrison, 28 Harrison Street, London, WC1H 8JF, UK, Saturday 23rd January 2016, 8.00pm) – £11.00 – information – tickets
From the Harrison’s blurb:
Ichi takes the notion of a one-man band to new limits, combining his quirky handmade instrument inventions (stilt-bass, kalilaphone, balloon-pipes, hatbox-pedal-drum, tapumpet, percussion-shoes & hat-trick-hat) with steel-drum, ping-pong balls, toys & everyday objects all in the space of one short set. Somehow there’s an ancient, ritualistic feel to his performances – he’s like the misplaced leader of a tribe. To see Ichi live is to witness something so playful and unusual you know that you’re experiencing something entirely new. It`s fun, it`s danceable, it`s exciting…. Also a practicing and exhibiting artist and film-maker, Ichi is usually seen with a cine camera in his hand, or his hands rooting through Bristol skips for materials for his musical and sculptural inventions, or his hands in the earth making human sized interactive earth xylophones as he did at Bristol`s Forage Festival.
And where words fail, there’s always the video to Ichi’s recent single Go Gagambo, “a song about mistaken identity (gagambo is an insect unfortunate enough to be mistaken as a big mosquito, resulting in probable death by angry clapping hands)”.
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I’d been hoping to bring you news of London acoustic steampunk-prog hero Tom Slatter playing Britain’s first actual steampunk bar (the recently opened Yellow Book, which is squirreled away in the Lanes of Brighton and claims to have been founded by time-travelling Victorians). Sadly not. Message just in – “This gig has been postponed. Don’t go there expecting to see me on the 23rd! Do go there if you want to see the venue, which is lovely. I will be playing at the Yellow Book in the near future. Watch this space.”
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More gig news next time, including shows by Of Arrowe Hill and Earl Zinger with the Emanative & Collocutor Duo; plus an appearance by Sealionwoman.
Born in Oldham, currently Saddleworth-based, but occupying a wayward and exciting multi-instrumental/multi-genre orbit (which takes in, among many others, Todd Rundgren, spangled electronica, Dirty Projectors, Van Morrison and Nancy Chodorow) teenage wunderkind turned twenty-year-old psych-pop pioneer Kiran Leonard embarks on a quick British tour this coming week. For a sampling of what’s on offer, have a listen to Kiran’s most recent single, which examines the panicked, unwilling misogyny of pubescent boys and uses it as a launchpad for sixteen minutes of charging, spontaneous-sounding twist-and-turn musical quest. Spattered with snippets of radio, cut’n’paste ADHD changes and lo-fi turnarounds, it sounds like Lou Reed and Jim O’Rourke grappling over the steering wheel of a gawky teenage Yes.
For the tour, Kiran’s four-piece band features three other flexible Manchester music luminaries. Guitarist Dan Bridgewood Hill also plays as dbh and with NASDAQ, Irma Vep Band and Seatoller), bass player Dave Rowe is from Plank and Andrew Cheetham drums with acts including Desmadrados Soldados De Ventura, Easter, Butcher The Bar, the Birchall/Cheetham Duo and experimental rock duo Yerba Mansa. Support across the dates comes, variously, from Yerba Mansa, introverted Manchester singer-songwriter Tom Settle, Marc Rooney (taking a solo break from his usual band, Glaswegian “past post-modern bug-eyed beatniks”Pronto Mama), Edinburgh rock juveniles Redolent and inventive Sussex girl duo Let’s Eat Grandma.
The Victoria, 451 Queensbridge Road, Hackney, London, E8 3AS, England, Monday 11th January 2016, 7.30pm – £8.50 – information – tickets
The Prince Albert, 48 Trafalgar Street, Brighton, BN1 4ED, England, Tuesday 12th January 2016, 7.30pm (with Let’s Eat Grandma)- £8.80 – information – tickets
The Eagle Inn, 18 Collier Street, Salford, M3 7DW, England, Wednesday 13th January 2016, (with Tom Settle & Friends + Yerba Mansa) – information – tickets
This gig info was added to the top of this post at the last minute, and these gigs are selling out fast, so move quickly.
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The past week’s death of Pierre Boulez cast an overwhelming shadow over the classical and avant-garde worlds. Under that pall, it’s easy to forget that breed of composers that the post-war work of Boulez and his acolytes sometimes eclipsed – working at a humbler altitude, often inclined to traditional tonalism and craftsmanship and generally writing for the vast and undersung body of working musicians and small regional music groups, their work’s left out of the big conversations. It may break fewer boundaries, or no boundaries at all, but (to my mind, at least) it doesn’t necessarily have a lesser value. Not only does it often demonstrate an empathy for the musician over the concept, it demonstrates music’s quality of constant giving, showing that the older schemes which a younger and more intemperate Boulez once dismissed as being played out are anything but: revealing an ever-renewing, ever-fertile grain to be worked with and against even in well-mined territories.
To my ears, the work of Julian Dawes fits into this category. Five decades of his composing has produced chamber and keyboard music, theatre compositions, youth pieces, assorted works on Jewish themes (including Kaddish songs, Exodus cantatas and Holocaust pieces) plus an acclaimed mandolin concerto. All of it displays a lambent, empathetic feel for subject, performer and musician; and this coming Wednesday sees some of it compiled for a dedicated concert in London.
A Concert of Commemorative Music by Julian Dawes (The Forge, 3-7 Delancey Street, Camden Town, London, NW1 7NL, England, Wednesday 13th January 2016, 7.30pm) – £9.00 to £12.00 – information & tickets
This is an evening of music which Julian has written to celebrate people and events. The night is also in memory of Emma Daly, and the proceeds of the concert will go to the Rosewood Chemo Ward at the Darenth Valley Hospital.
Programme:
Love Life and Lyric (for soprano and piano)
Reflection on Psalm 43 (for piano) – first concert performance
Homage (for string quartet)
Wedding Song (Louisa) (for soprano, violin & piano) – world premiere
Piano Sonata – world premiere
Bagatelle for a Wedding (for string quartet)
Songs from ‘The Song of Solomon’ (for mezzo soprano, tenor & piano)
String Quartet (slow movement)
Sonata for Violin and Piano
Soundclips of Julian Dawes’ music on the web are few and far between, but I’ve managed to dredge up these two videos – one of Cantor Jason Green performing one of Julian’s vocal pieces, and a low-key one of Julian talking about his work (on behalf of the publishing service Tutti). You can also listen to soundclips of some of his work at the page for Omnibus Classics’ release of his ‘Chamber Music’ CD.
Julian’s most recently completed project is ‘Pesach Cantata’ with a libretto by Roderick Young telling the story of Passover. This will be premiered at the New London Synagogue in April 2016: I’ll post about that closer to the time.
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Lastly, there are a couple of New York gigs (this week and towards the end of the month) by a ‘Misfit City’ favourite of recent years, Brooklyn-based groove-pop band Legs, who mix irresistible New Wave dance grooves with twitchy emotional neurosis and a verbose, occasional waspish Steely Dan-esque approach to songcraft under the double-keyboard licks.
Legs + SKP (Hypnocraft @ The Manhattan Inn, 632 Manhattan Ave, Brooklyn, New York 11222, USA, Monday 11th January 2016, 8.30pm) – free event (suggested $5.00-$10.00- information
This pay-what-you-like gig is a Legs headliner, at which they’re supported by SKP – a.k.a. Sarah Kyle, frontwoman of Brooklyn psychedelic pop band Lip Talk. Sarah is also a member of recent Interpol tourmates Cosmicide, which features most of Lip Talk plus ex-Secret Machines leader Brandon Curtis.
Blank Paper + Tropic Of Pisces + Legs (Rough Trade NYC, 64 N 9th Street, Brooklyn, New York, NY 11249, USA, Friday 22nd January 2016, 8.00pm) – information here and here – tickets
This latter one’s a bottom-of-the-bill show for Legs. Swings and roundabouts, but they can play on both. At least they get to perform at Rough Trade (should be a natural audience booster) and they also get to act as warm-up and gig primer for two other stylish and eminently compatible Brooklyn acts. Keytar-wielding Blank Paper mix up classic hip hop rhythms, distant glimmering-city synthpop tones and vocals with just the right degree of hauteur for detached explorations of love and obsession sheathed in immaculate tunes. Tropic of Pisces is the new project from Mon Khmer/Oberhofer sideman Mathew Scheiner – his geeky white-boy solo funk seems to be inspired equally by glam, hip hop and South African township jive, though he himself describes it as “a warm, magical place that you must be special enough to have found.” Judge for yourselves below via the videos, with their ninja noir and tinfoil chic.
The end of the month, and the year, is nigh – so what are we looking forward to this week?
Mark Mulholland, Craig Ward, Yacouba Sissoko & Hannes D’Hoine (Ford Village Hall, Ford, Argyll, Scotland, Tuesday 8th December 2015, 7.30pm) – £5.00 minimum – information – tickets on the door
Back in 2012, two wandering Scottish singer-songwriter-guitarists – Mark Mulholland (ex-Two Dollar Bash) and onetime dEUS member Craig Ward – quietly released one of the finest records of the year. A compelling murmur of acoustic guitar folk, ‘Waiting for the Storm’ was soaked in the Scottish and British folk-baroque of Davey Graham, Pentangle and John Martyn but, in its settings of moist heat, tin roofs, typhoons and dark forces, it was also informed by the Haitian setting of Port-au-Prince, Mark’s home for the previous two years. Some of you may remember that I liked it.
With Mark now relocated to Mali and Craig settled in the little Argyll village of Ford, the duo are collaborating on a follow-up (provisionally called ‘The Darkness Between the Leaves’) on which they’ll be joined by Flemish double bass player Hannes D’Hoine – who played the Danny Thompson anchor-cable role on ‘Waiting for the Storm’ – and by Mark’s newest collaborator, the Malian djely and multi-instrumentalist Yacouba Sissoko, a master kora and ngoni player. The quartet have been preparing and recording in a number of different countries, and the end of the Scottish sessions will be marked by a Ford performance both taking place in and raising funds for Ford Village Hall, with prices set on a pay-what-you-like basis starting from five pounds.
In its quiet way this should be one of the gigs of the year, so if you’re in western Scotland and have a free Tuesday evening, consider heading over to Ford (at the south-western end of Loch Awe, north-west of Glasgow, with the nearest substantial town being Kilmartin.) If you miss this one, they’re playing again in Glasgow at 7.00pm on Wednesday 9th; a low-key gig at the Hidden Lane Gallery in Finnieston.
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After that – for me – the week doesn’t pick up until a very busy Friday and weekend. Too subjective, probably. Here we go, anyway.
Serafina Steer & Bas Jan (Hall Two @ (Kings Place, 90 York Way, Kings Cross, London, N1 9AG, England, Friday 11th December 2015, 8.00pm) – £9.50-£12.50 – information & tickets
The hitherto independent worlds of contemporary harp music and experimental kraut-pop will collide – or at least bump each other – in this concert of two halves by harpist/songwriter Serafina Steer and her new band Bas Jan.
After a few years of mainly only using the harp for her own writings, Serafina went on a roadtrip around Eastern Europe busking, discovering and rediscovering pieces along the way. The result of this experience will form the first half of the programme, which will feature compositions by Richard Barratt (‘tendril’), Benjamin Britten (‘Suite for Harp’), Stephen Dodgson (‘Fantasy’), Rhodri Davies (‘Aqcua Alta’) and Serafina’s own father Michael Maxwell Steer (‘Grovelly Wood’)
The second half of the show will be a performance by Bas Jan, Serafina’s latest collaborative project in which she plays bass guitar and keyboards and writes minimally arranged songs about the Essex coast, the Anglo-Saxons, sex, part-time work and love; with sound artist Sarah Anderson playing violin and OP1 mini-synthesizer and performance visual artist Jenny Moore playing drums (all three women also sing). Bas Jan’s first gig was to six thousand people at Brixton Academy and since then they have gone on – via support slots for Xylouris White and The Decemberists – to entertain smaller and smaller audiences.
On the same night, one of ‘Misfit City’s favourite classical musicians is spreading her own particular musical gospel up in Staffordshire:
Olga Stezhko (Abbotsholme Arts Society @ Abbotsholme School Chapel, Rocester, Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, ST14 5BS, England, Friday 11th December 2015, 8.00pm) – information – limited number of tickets available, phone 01543 263 304 for details
Following up her recent debut performances at both the Wigmore and Bridgewater Halls (at which she performed full or partial versions of her ‘Lucid Dreams‘ assemblage, a programme of music exploring people’s changing perception of reality from childhood through to adulthood), classical pianist and multi-disciplinary thinker Olga Stezhko is bringing her sophisticated, metaphysical perspective and repertoire to the audience at Abbotsholme.
On this occasion, her choice of music is a little more conventional (leaning on well-established favourites by Mozart, Bach and Prokofiev rather then stretching to the Sophia Gubaidulina pieces she was playing last month). However, there’s still room in the programme for work by one of her compositional touchstones, Alexandr Scriabin; and you can be assured that whichever pieces Olga plays will have been carefully thought out and put into context as part of a programme intended to inspire thought and broader conceptual connections as well as straightforward musical enjoyment.
Programme:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Sonata in B flat major, K.570
Johannes Brahms – Six Pieces, Op.118
Alexandr Scriabin – Two Dances Op.73; Five Preludes Op.74; Vers la flamme Op.72,
John Adams – China Gates
Sergei Prokofiev – Sonata no.4 in C minor, Op.29
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Back in London, meanwhile, there’s cabaret afoot, plus breathless press releases.
The Bohemianauts + Bad Fractals (Bohemiocracy @ The Others, 6-8 Manor Road, Stoke Newington, London, N16 5SA, England, Friday 11th December 2015, 8.00pm) – £8.00-£10.00 – information & tickets here and here
An epic face-off between two amazing, unique and bizarre bands.
Bad Fractals are shaman gangsters shooting bullets of love, tearing their way through acid punk, malevolent music hall and trailer-trash blues in a world gone mad. Join us at the crossroads, in a theatre of the absurd: hear story and song shift with the wild wonder of fractals! Watch psychedelic punks get drunk with clown kings! Glare at artificial angels dancing with deadbeat demons! Gasp as astral travellers gather in galactic taverns!
The Bohemianauts are decadent divas of demi-monde carnivalism, playing weird waltzes, pithy polkas and rollicking rhumbas: they will take you on a theatrical musical journey through strange landscapes with absurd humour, exquisite noise and songs of unrequited dread. Tonight they will unleash their female alter-egos, as they parade in their geezer-bird finery, performing for your pleasure as the rarely-seen Bohemianauts – Drag-ed on Stage. (Trigger warning: Bearded Drag.)
PLUS – Visuals and projections from Jaime Rory Lucy‘s Rucksack Cinema and half-time performance interventions from Oleg the Mystic.
Yesterday it was upcoming classical concerts; today it’s close relations of various kinds…
I’ve previously covered, in passing, the Labyrinths series of international live music events (presented by Thirtythree Thirtythree – the team behind St John Sessions – and Nawa Recordings) which are taking place throughout 2015 across Beirut, Cairo and London. Here’s another one, featuring music spanning Palestine, France, the Ukraine and Sussex and mingling Western and Eastern classical, jazz, folk baroque and Arabic forms.
Lubomyr Melnyk + Kamilya Jubran & Sarah Murcia + James Blackshaw (St John Sessions @ St John at Hackney Church, Lower Clapton Road, Clapton, London, E5 0PD, UK, Tuesday 3rd November 2015, 6.30pm) – £16.50
Lubomyr Melnyk is a Ukrainian composer and pianist who has pioneered ‘Continuous Piano Music’. Classically trained and greatly affected by the minimalist movement in the early 1970s, he has developed his own unique language for the piano, named after the principle of maintaining a continuous, unbroken stream of sound. The rapid sequences, coupled with Melnyk’s awe-inspiring ability of playing up to 19 notes per second with each hand simultaneously create a tapestry of sound that transcends sonic waves into a very tangible, physical experience. Having spent much of his artistic life in obscurity, Lubomyr Melnyk’s work was recently rediscovered by a whole new generation of music lovers, offering the piano virtuoso a well-deserved renaissance with world-wide tours.
Kamilya Jubran (Palestinian singer and oud player) and Sarah Murcia (French jazz double bassist and composer) will present the UK debut of their ‘Nhaoul’ project as a quintet also featuring Régis Huby (violin), Guillaume Roy (viola) and Atsushi Sakai (cello). Kamilya and Sarah’s first meeting dates back to 1998, when Sarah joined Sabreen – an innovative Palestinian group whose lead singer was Kamilya – for an album and concert tour of Europe and the Middle East. ‘Nhaoul’ (Arabic for “loom”) was first created together as a duo as a result of a profound exchange around their respective musical interests.
The basis of their duet rests on an amazing musical and aesthetic convergence which has solidified through delving deeper into several compositions by Kamilya based on prose poems, so as to give to the oud a total rhythmic and melodic freedom. Sarah has approached them in a vertical way in adding her harmonies. Her string arrangements, cast against Arabic music, deal with the economy, colours, matter. Kamilya Jurban, on the other hand, comes from a highly melodic and modal culture and thinks her music horizontally.
Over several years of reflection and mutual learning, the two musicians worked to create a common language: Sarah made a point of learning to play the quarter-tones of oriental scales and memorize long labyrinthine sentences – of the oral tradition – which are the rule in Arab music. Kamilya Jubran, in turn, began to internalise the methods of limited transposition and complex rhythmic structures (asymmetry, polyrhythm), following Sarah’s suggestions. The texts selected for setting are chosen from the work of contemporary poets; or are, for ‘Suite Nomade’, excerpts from Bedouin poems from the deserts of the Sinai and Negev published by Clinton Bailey in his collection ‘Bedouin Poetry’ (Saqi Books, reissued in 2002). Kamilya Jubran sings them in dialect remembering the Bedouin women she came across in her childhood.
Hastings-based guitarist and pianist James Blackshaw primarily plays an acoustic 12-string guitar in fingerstyle fashion (for which he has grown long pick-like fingernails on his right hand). A musician blending ideas from assorted folk cultures around the world and from the classical concert hall, James has been compared to cross-genre guitar explorers such as Bert Jansch, Robbie Basho, John Fahey, Jack Rose and Leo Kottke. He has released albums on the labels Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, Static, Digitalis Industries, Important Records, Tompkins Square, and Young God Records.
James has previously collaborated with Lubomyr Melnyk on ‘The Watchers’, a 2013 collection of improvised duets recorded at the Vortex Jazz Club. It’s possible that they might repeat the engagement at this gig.
Several things have drawn me toward central and south American music recently. One of these things is Alex Ross’ fascinating history (in ‘Listen To This’) of the journey of the chaconne from Africa to south America, and from there to Spain, moving on through Europe and feeding into Monteverdi, the emerging baroque music atmosphere at Versailles, and Bach (there’s a version the whole story at Alex’ blog, here).
The other is the Harp Consort’s wonderful 2002 album, ‘Missa Mexicana‘, which carefully constructs an impression of a Spanish colonial church service in Baroque-era Puebla City, threading secular dances through a Juan Gutiiérez de Padilla mass, with African, traditional Spanish and fresh Mexican musical ideas intertwined.
With both of these in my mind, it was intriguing to see this advertised…
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Jaime Martín/Arturo Chacón-Cruz perform Mexican Magic (Royal Festival Hall @ Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, Waterloo, London, SE1 8XX, UK, Friday 6th November 2015, 7.30pm) – £9.00 to £65.00
Experience a dazzling programme of Mexican classical music as we celebrate The Year of Mexico in the UK. Mexican classical music is about more than folklore and colour. Eclectic and sophisticated, it spans a broad spectrum of musical possibilities and embodies the spirit of Mexico in all its richness and diversity. Join London Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Jaime Martín for the slithering sounds of Revueltas’ ‘Sensemayá’, Ibarra’s ear-teasing ‘Sinfonía No. 2 ‘and Márquez’ toe-tapping ‘Danzón No.2’ alongside a selection of popular songs from Mexico (sung by tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz).
Programme:
Ricardo Castro – Intermezzo from ‘Atzimba’
Charles Gounod – L’amour… Ah! lève-toi, soleil (from ‘Roméo et Juliette’)
Federico Ibarra – Sinfonía No.2 (Las Antesalas des sueño)
Various – Mexican Songs
Leonard Bernstein – Symphonic Dances from ‘West Side Story’
Silvestre Revueltas – Sensemayá
Arturo Márquez – Danzón No.2
A few posts ago, I covered Nonclassical and their various post-classical mashups. I’ve just cottoned on to the fact that they’re back with another one.
Inspired by Martinů (Czech Centre London + Nonclassical @ The Forge , 3-7 Delancey Street, Camden Town, London, NW1 7NL, UK, Wednesday 21st October 2015, 7.30pm) – £10.00/£12.00
‘Inspired by Martinů’ juxtaposes selected parts of the oeuvre of 20th century Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů (whose 125th birth anniversary we’ll celebrate in December this year), with London’s contemporary classical scene as represented by artists around the acclaimed Nonclassical label.
For this concert, Nonclassical founder, composer and DJ Gabriel Prokofiev (on laptop) will be joined onstage by piano virtuoso Lada Valešová, violin wunderkind Tereza Anna Přívratská (of Jubilee Quartet) and vibrant mezzo-soprano Lucie Špičková. They will be carrying out a unique attempt to reimagine Martinů’s most influential chamber pieces by creating real-time improvised soundtracks, avant-garde audiovisual installations and once-in-a-lifetime musical reworks.
Full details on and tickets for the event are here, with the Facebook page here. Nonclassical have been kind enough to point us towards a Martinů cheat sheet. I’ve probably plugged this a little too late for anybody else to enter the Martinů remix competition, but here’s the information on that if you’re interested. Here too is a video clip in which Nonclassical’s Eleanor Ward explaining some of the ideas behind both Nonclassical itself and the remix project.
As a fuller taste of Martinů, here are clips of part of one of his violin sonatas and a live performance of his Fantasie for theremin, oboe, string quartet and piano.
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Meanwhile, Daylight Music are setting aside the acoustic rock’n’folk songwriters for a week in order to take one of their occasional forays into contemporary classical fusion. Read on…
The Iskra String Quartet (their name meaning “a spark” – to ignite) is a London-based collaborative group of string players who enjoy making music together regardless of genre. The quartet has had a particularly strong relationship with Icelandic composer Johann Johannsson, whose music they’ve toured extensively across Europe: a particular highlight being a set of performances of Johannsson’s ‘The Miners’ Hymns’ in collaboration with American artist film maker Bill Morrison.
As sometime pop performers, Iskra has worked closely with pianist/composer Olafur Arnalds, with The xx (on the ‘Coexist’ album and on Jamie xx ‘s score for the ‘Tree Of Codes’ ballet) and with Radiohead (creating a string quartet remix of The Reckoner from ‘In Rainbows’) as well as with Vampire Weekend, Sufjan Stevens, Benjamin Francis Leftwich, Katie Melua, Duke Special and My Brightest Diamond. Recently they performed as a trio alongside The Lone Bellow on ‘Later…with Jools Holland’. Within the world of film and theatre soundtracks, Iskra have collaborated with composers Dustin O’Halloran, David Julyan (with whom they performed for the 177th Daylight Music concert in November 2014) and Alex Baranowski (on the twice-BAFTA- nominated film ‘McCullin’ and for Sir Nicholas Hytner’s National Theatre production of ‘Hamlet’ starring Rory Kinnear).
Iskra’s first release was the three-track ‘Discoveries & Inventions’ EP in 2010. Their forthcoming album, ‘Iskra’ (1613 Recordings, October 2015) celebrates their tenth anniversary and features contributions from composers previously linked with the group (Johann Johannsson, Olafur Arnalds, Alex Baranowski, David Julyan) as well as new composer collaborators (Peter Gregson, Luke Anthony, Paul Frith and Isobel Waller-Bridge).
Working as Minotaur Shock, Bristol-based David Edwards first made a name for himself nearly fifteen years ago via albums and EPs of wide-screen pastoral folk-tinged electronica incorporating field recordings and other instances of nature-love (he once released an EP with a title that might have been lifted from a birdwatching manual.) Of his five albums since 2001, the most recent is 2012’s ‘Orchard’ for which he returned to his original record label Melodic following a two-album stint with 4AD. ‘Orchard’ also saw him returning to the use of acoustic instrumentation (strings, flutes, clarinets) in addition to his own electronics, drums and “weedy acoustic guitar”. He has a previous connection with Iskra – his 2008 composition ‘Accelerated Footage At Night’ (originally released on the ‘Amateur Dramatics’ album) was rearranged and performed by the quartet on ‘Discoveries & Inventions’.
As a composer,Isobel Waller-Bridgehas worked primarily in television and theatre and film (she won the Best Composer award at 2014’s Underwire Film Festival for her score for Claire Oakley’s film ‘James’, and has scored multiple plays performed in venues across the UK). Her work spans a wide range from large scale orchestral music to experimental to folk, and has been performed in concert halls across Europe, USA and the UK (sometimes by a mixed ensemble of her own combining acoustic strings with piano, minimal sounds and electronics).
Her ‘Music For Strings‘ album, featuring six symphonic works for large string orchestra (including Untouched By A Storm, during which the orchestra divides into twenty separate string parts), was released in April this year. Isobel has recently been commissioned to write a ten-minute “cosmological” work to score projection-mapping of the story of the universe onto Durham Cathedral as part of the Lumiere Festival in November.
A special additional guest, Angus Macrae, will be playing piano at points during the afternoon. These will be in a similar vein to the pieces found on ‘Awake’, the debut EP released by Angus this year, which featured intimate piano improvisations with a backdrop of spiralling tape delays, distant voices and deep analog synthesisers.
Like Isobel, Angus is a composer-musician best known for his soundtrack and theatre work, having composed for a wide range of productions at venues in London and Edinburgh; for short films including this year’s ‘Interlude’ (winner of the 2015 Sci-Fi London 48 hour film challenge), ‘The Listener’, ‘Way Out’ and the documentary ‘On Guardian Mountain’; and for dance works including Wayne Parsons’ ‘Meeting’ and Tamsin Fitzgerald’s ‘Lucid Grounds’ (the latter in collaboration with Alex Baranowski.) A follow up to ‘Awake’ is currently in development with a planned release in late 2015.
Up-to-date info on this particular Daylight Music afternoon is here.
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I first saw Pierre Bensusan many years ago at the Union Chapel. Although he was supporting fellow guitarist Antonio Forcione (who’s a master not only in terms of staggering technique but also in terms of showmanship), he more than held his own against the headliner’s prowess. Bensunan didn’t and doesn’t play with that hand-spinning percussive flash that’s in vogue with many acoustic fingerstyle guitarists, then and now (including Forcione and Jon Gomm, above). He didn’t need to. Instead he offered a deep, communicatory and involved playing style with a depth and complexity all of its own, drawing from his own French-Algerian-Sephardic background and broad listening, interweaving a host of simultaneous techniques from traditional to jazz to neo-acoustic, and spinning out polyphonic melodies as sun-warmed and vivid as a Mediterranean afternoon. He was a pleasure to hear.. and he’s back in London for three dates this coming week.
Pierre Bensusan (The Half Moon, 93 Lower Richmond Rd, Putney, London SW15 1EU, London, UK, Sunday 25th to Tuesday 27th October 2015, 8.00pm) – £10.00/£12.00
Here’s the tour blurb…
The “Mozart of Guitar” is back in the UK. Over the past forty years, fingerstyle acoustic guitar virtuoso Pierre Bensusan has taken his unique blend of world, Celtic, jazz and folk inspired music to all corners of the globe. Winner of the 2014 Independent Music Award in the Live Performance Album category for his triple live album ‘Ecore’ Pierre is recognized as one of the great guitar players of the 21st century. Described as a “genius” by the likes of Jon Gomm and ‘Melody Maker’, immortalised by the tune ‘Bensusan’ written in tribute by the late Michael Hedges, and referenced as an important inspiration to many other great musicians, Pierre Bensusan is a one-of-a-kind artist whose music transcends genre and time.
“How the guitar would want to sound if it could play itself” … in Pierre’s music there is an uninhibited sense of musical freedom and expression, a sense of something both playful and serious, otherworldly yet right here right now. His “manner” of playing defies classification – crossing world, classical, jazz, traditional, folk and more. None can be isolated as simply “world music”, “Celtic”, “Arabic” or “French”; rather, they represent our world in its current state, a world sharing itself, fusing cultures together in ways we have never experienced. Not to be missed!
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The final October gig previews are coming up shortly, plus the first November ones…
More upcoming London gigs this week. Firstly, various kinds of jazz on Thursday…
Nick Costley-White & Bleep Test (LUME @ Long White Cloud, 151 Hackney Road, Hoxton, London, E2 8JL, UK, Thursday 16th July, 8.00pm
This week at LUME… original and improvised music. We’ve got a tasty double bill for you this Thursday with solo guitar explorations and an exciting new electronic jazz ensemble mixing beats and tunes. Should be a great evening of cutting edge new sounds. Entry is one Bank of England note of your choice. (£5, £10, £20… £50???!)
Bleep Test (Fraser Smith – tenor sax/effects; Joe Webb – synths; Lloyd Haines – drums; Matthew Read – bass) combine house, breaks, drum & bass and jazz. Analog synths, electric drums and a screaming saxophone tie this band to the growing scene of exciting, genre defying music groups emerging from London’s creative underground. Fiery grooves and memorable melodies push these musicians out of the traditional jazz improvisation realm and into another soundscape that hits hard.
Nick Costley-White is fast becoming one of the most in demand young guitarists in the London jazz scene. With a developed sound and individual voice on his instrument, Nick has had the opportunity to perform professionally with some of the country’s finest musicians including Stan Sulzmann, Jeff Williams, Gareth Lockrane, Tom Challenger, Martin Speake, Ivo Neame, Tommy Andrews, Jon Scott, Dave Hamblet and Josh Arcoleo.
Nick studied jazz and classical guitar at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Phil Robson, Colin Oxley and John Parricelli, graduating with first class honours and awarded the 2011 Yamaha Jazz Scholarship for Outstanding Musicians.
See you there!
On Saturday, there’s the last Daylight Music concert of the season, with definite sacred and classical tinges to it…
Daylight Music 197: The UCC Handbell Ringers + Ryan Teague + Ellie Lovegrove (Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN – Saturday 18th July, 12pm to 2pm)
A Bells and Bronze afternoon will ring out this season of Daylight in style.
The UCC Handbell Ringers are a select group of nineteen young people, ages fourteen to eighteen, from the University Christian Church in Fort Worth, Texas. This Church is situated across the street from the Texas Christian University School of Music and since its founding in 1873, the music ministry has been an integral part in the life of the church. The UCC Ringers ring one of the church’s two five-octave sets of English handbells cast by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in London. The bell choirs have a long tradition of musical excellence and have been an integral part of the life of the church for many years. They have toured regularly. In addition to being the first bell choir to perform at Westminster Abbey, they have played in worship services and in concert at the Royal Festival Hall, York Minster, St. Mary Redcliffe Church in Bristol and the Collegiate Church of St. Mary in Warwick; and at Exeter, Bristol, Gloucester, Canterbury, Winchester, Salisbury, Christ Church Oxford and Coventry Cathedrals.
Ryan Teague is a composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist based in Bristol. His music combines acoustic instrumentation and arrangements with electronic and processed material, the results of which incorporate minimalist, ambient and electro-acoustic music. Ryan has released numerous albums and EPs on labels including Village Green, Sonic Pieces and Type Records. He also produces music and sound design for various film & TV productions and has spent an extended period of time in Indonesia studying Javanese gamelan music. This afternoon’s music will also feature a new and exclusive composition premiere ‘Storm Or Tempest May Stop Play’ by Ryan Teague with Gamelan Ensemble.
From a musical family in Ware, Hertfordshire, Ellie Lovegrove began learning the trumpet at school aged seven. She later played principal trumpet with the Hertfordshire County Youth Orchestra, joined the National Youth Orchestra at the Proms, and went on to study at the Royal College of Music, London. Here she received tuition from Paul Beniston, Neil Brough and Michael Laird, winning the Brass Ensemble Prize and the Brass Concerto Competition. Ellie continued her studies with Kristian Steenstrup and Mark David. Professionally, Ellie enjoys a varied freelance career. Her work as an orchestral player includes concerts and broadcasts with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Royal Ballet Sinfonia and the Britten Sinfonia. She has also deputised for the the Royal Shakespeare Company as the onstage trumpeter in their production of ‘The Roaring Girl’ and in their recent production of ‘Henry IV’ at the Barbican. As a chamber musician, Ellie has performed at The London Handel Festival on period instruments, and has enjoyed working with Chaconne Brass, including a commercial recording of a new work by Bob Chilcott with Wells Cathedral Choir. Her trumpet and organ duo Illumina have performed recitals at St Paul’s Cathedral, Fairfield Halls and Alexandra Palace, and have recently commissioned a new work from composer Paul Burke.
If that wasn’t enough magic then Angèle David-Guillou will plays some chiming melodies on the piano. Angèle is best known for a brace of critically acclaimed electro-acoustic dream-pop albums under the alias Klima, for her signature contributions to cult Anglo-French ensemble Piano Magic and for cameos on albums by the likes of The Go! Team, Peter Astor and Ginger Ale. In contrast to much of her oeuvre to date, Angèle’s debut album under her given name is a largely, if not exclusively, instrumental work, predominantly consisting of melodically opulent, emotionally compelling compositions for the grand piano (and, on three songs, a Wurlitzer electric piano), many of them emblazoned with vivid arrangements for strings, woodwind, musical saw and percussion.
Free entry, but donations are (as ever) encouraged.
For anyone who’s interested in contemporary classical song, here are details on two London afternoon concerts taking place this week and next week…
Voiceworks Song Recitals:
Concert 1 – St Olave Hart Street, 8 Hart Street, London, EC3R 7NB, UK, Thursday 25th June, 1.05pm
Concert 2 – St Stephen Walbrook, 39 Walbrook, London, EC4N 8BN, UK, Tuesday 30th June, 1.05pm
Senior Guildhall School of Music musicians are giving free lunchtime concerts in churches across the City as part of the City of London Festival 2015. In the Voiceworks concerts, postgraduate singers and pianists perform in two programmes of twentieth & twenty-first century repertoire curated by soprano Jane Manning (in conjunction with ‘New Vocal Repertory For The 21st Century’, her forthcoming book for Oxford University Press).
Baltic Music Society – Inaugural Concert (All Saints Church,, Clydesdale Road, Notting Hill, London W11 1JE, UK, Saturday 20th June, 7.00pm)
The newly-formed Baltic Music Society in London hosts its debut concert of classical chamber music this coming Saturday, in Notting Hill.
This first concert features music by Erkii Sven-Tuur, Jāzeps Vītols and a host of living composers including Arvo Part. It includes the world premiere of a specially commissioned new work – ‘Memories of Lithuania’ by Keith Burstein, a British composer of Lithuanian descent – and music by a wide range of Baltic state composers including Zita Bružaitė, Bronius Kutavičius, Anatolijus Šenderovas, and Ariel Anenburg.
The Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia lie on one of the critical geopolitical faultlines of the world and yet still little is known of their culture in the West. However the burgeoning creativity of the region now promises a new wave of cultural riches. The Baltic Music Society exists to explore, present and introduce music from or inspired by the Baltic region. The world refracted through the amber stone of the Baltic – a new light from a new music. Join us at the beginning of this pathway of discovery.
Programme:
Zita Bružaite – Novelette
Bronius Kutavičius – Three Metamorphoses
Jāzeps Vītols – Romance
Erkki-Sven Tüür – Piano Sonata
Keith Burstein – Trio for Viola, Clarinet and Piano, “Memories of Lithuania” (world premiere)
Anatolijus Šenderovas – Cantus in memoriam Jascha Heifetz
Expect a broad range of musical voices, from folk-inspired pieces to torrid, fractured flights of neo-romantic piano through to Pärt’s familiar “holy minimalism”. More information is here, and tickets are available here – price £10.00.
For a few tastes of what’s on offer, I’ve tracked down a few YouTube performances of some of the pieces on the programme – see below:
If you’re free and easy in London tonight – and fancy an evening of intriguing piano music – try this. In spite of some of the more ominous language used in the Subba-Cultcha review, Bill’s music is as full of light, flight and green-leafed freshness as it is of strange chords and left-field turns. Fans of post-modernist dissonance, polystylism and mongrel English romanticism will all be well satisfied. As a bonus, you get extra listening pleasure via James Larcombe (of Stars In Battledress and Arch Garrison) fingering one of his collection of tuneful antiques.
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
Misfit City 