Date: March 24, 2017
Categories: Experimental, New Work
Tags: alex vann, folk and minamalist crossover, mandolin, paul bradley, pete judge, three cane whale

24th March 20177, The Foundling Museum London at 7.00pm

Multi-instrumental trio Three Cane Whale perform an intimate acoustic gig for Folk at the Foundling. Hailing from Bristol, Three Cane Whale brings together mandolinist Alex Vann (Spiro), trumpeter Pete Judge (Get the Blessing) and acoustic guitarist Paul Bradley (Scottish Dance Theatre). Influenced by both folk and minimalist music, they perform intricate works with a cinematic sweep and intimate delicacy.

Their eponymous debut album was chosen by Cerys Matthews as one of her top five modern folk albums, followed by Holts And Hovers, awarded Roots Editor’s Choice Album of 2013. Their latest album Palimpsest was chosen by The Telegraph as one of the best folk music albums of 2016. Recent projects include a live recording from The Old Barn on Kelston Roundhill in Somerset, for new independent label Kelston Records, and the soundtrack to the independent feature Brown Willy (2016), filmed on location in Cornwall.

BUY TICKETS

Date: August 17, 2017
Categories: Concerts, Experimental, Festivals, New Work

Thursday 17th August, BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall, London, 10.15pm

Bang on a Can late night Prom

Bang on a Can represents all that is most gleefully non-conformist and boundary-breaking in new music. Celebrating its 30th birthday this year, this pioneering American artistic collective and its three composer-directors, Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe, bring their signature energy to this Late Night Prom, together with their six-piece amplified ensemble.

The All-Stars perform classic works by Wolfe, Lang and Louis Andriessen alongside an 80th-birthday tribute to Philip Glass and a world premiere by Michael Gordon, performed by the Proms Youth Ensemble. Expect propulsive rhythms and plenty of big grooves.

FIND OUT MORE

Date: October 12, 2017
Categories: Concerts, Experimental, New Work, Women musicians
Tags: ecco, european contemporary composers orchestra, vienna

12 October 2017 at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna, Austria

The European Contemporary Composers Orchestra (ECCO)

ECCO is a project of the ECF committee of ECSA. It aims to establish itself as a pan-European “body of sound” dedicated to the performance, circulation and promotion of contemporary art music. In practice, it is a network of active ensembles, orchestras and young professionals, supporting creative dialogue among composers and performers and offering young professionals the opportunity to develop their skills with ensembles experienced in contemporary performing practices on an international level. By its educational dimension, ECCO serves as a pro-active development and networking arena for professional composers and performers, especially young and emerging ones.

FIND OUT MORE

The next ECCO concert will take place in Vienna on 12 October 2017 at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. The concert will be performed by Wiener Concert-Verein and feature the following string orchestra pieces:

Fenster – Gerald Resch (Austria)

Lacrimae – Krešimir Seletković (Croatia)

Respectus – Rene Eespere (Estonia)

Brittle Fluid – Tyler Futrell (Norway)

Sinfonietta- The Night of Fireworks – Aleksandra Chmielewska (Poland)

Per Archi – Lojze Lebič (Slovenia)

Plainsongs for Strings – Jennifer Fowler (UK)

Previous editions of ECCO have featured the Chamber Orchestra of Soloists (KOS) of the Society of Slovene Composers (Vienna 2011), the Silesian Philharmony (Vienna 2013), the Sturm und Klang ensemble (Brussels 2015, 2016 and 2017), the BBC Singers (London 2015), the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra (Ljubljana 2016) and the Big Band of RTV Slovenia. Among the conductors who have contributed to the ECCO concerts are Thomas Van Haeperen, Jessica Cottis, Sigi Feigl, James Morgan, Jürgen Bruns and Chunghi Min.

Date: October 26, 2017
Categories: Concerts, Experimental, New Work, Women musicians
Tags: Anna Clyne, Molly Joyce, Penelope, psappha

Thursday 26 October 2017, 19:30
Hallé St Peter’s, 40 Blossom Street, Ancoats Manchester M4 6BF

Molly Joyce – Rave (UK première)

Anna Clyne – Steelworks

Sarah Kirkland Snider – Penelope*

Richard Balcombe – conductor*
Jessica Walker – vocalist*
Psappha Ensemble

Three striking works from brilliant US-based composers.

A woman’s husband appears at her door after an absence of twenty years. A veteran of an unnamed war, he doesn’t know who he is and she doesn’t know who he’s become. While they wait together for his return to himself, she reads him the Odyssey, and in the journey of that book she finds a way into his memory and the terror and trauma of war. Suspended somewhere between art song, indie rock, and chamber folk, the music of Penelope moves from moments of elegiac reflection to dusky post-rock textures in a meditation on memory, identity, and what it means to come home.

Rave gives the impression of impossible virtuosity, transforming the piano into a multi-dimensional piano/organ hybrid. Giving a fascinating glimpse into a disappearing world, the music of Steelworks interacts with film and with recorded interviews of employees at the last steelworks factory in Brooklyn.

BUY TICKETS

Date: November 12, 2017
Categories: Experimental, Masterclasses, New Work, Youth

Sunday 12th November 2017, 10.00am to 6.00pm, CBSO Centre

Creative Composing Lab is specially designed to allow young people the opportunity to compose music with and for professional musicians, guided by the expert knowledge of composer/workshop leader David Horne.

The Autumn workshop will focus on the nature and character of individual instruments. Focussing on a selection of instruments, we will explore how to compose idiomatically for the performers (i.e. in a way that works well for a particular instrument and exploits it’s unique character). As composers, we can chose whether or not to compose music that is easy or hard to play – but it is important that we know the difference, and we will discover this in the workshop!

If you love creating music or you need ideas for your GCSE, BTEC or A-level composition, Creative Composing Lab is for you.

Participants need some notation skills. Family and friends are welcome to the free performance of all music created at 5pm.

Places are free, but need to be booked in advance. A suggested donation of £12 per participant will ensure we can continue our workshop programme.

FIND OUT MORE

Date: November 14, 2017
Categories: Broadcasts, Concerts, Experimental, Festivals, New Work
Tags: New Music Northwest Festival

New Music Northwest Festival

Tuesday 14th November 2017 at 7.30pm, The Studios MediaCityUK

Programme

David Horne Resonating Instruments
Tom Coult Two Games and a Nocturne
–
Psappha Ensemble
–
Laura Bowler 3811 Nautical Miles
Larry Goves New Work (world première)
Mario Duarte Metztli
Grace-Evangeline Mason Kintsukouroi
–
BBC Philharmonic
Mark Heron conductor
Overview

Resonating Instruments is rhapsodic and volatile, entwining the ensemble around a solo cimbalom. “An absorbing work” – The Times.

Two Games and a Nocturne alternates skittish piano solos with bluesy jamboree in a work that, in Coult’s own words, “does what it says on the tin” with its two playful games followed by a gently swaying night-time reverie.

In this joint concert with the BBC Philharmonic we give well-deserved second performances of two of Psappha 25th anniversary commissions.

Psappha has now allocated all tickets for this event. If you would still like to come to the performance you can apply for tickets through BBC Audiences. Applications for tickets opens on 30 October and close on 5 November. For more information please click HERE.

GET TICKETS

Date: January 26, 2018
Categories: Concerts, Experimental, Family, Festivals, New Work, Youth
Tags: bristol ensemble, comedy festival bristol

Friday 26th January at 7.30pm, Colston Hall, Bristol

Bristol’s stand-out annual comedy celebration returns for a fourteenth edition at Colston Hall – a unique celebration of the best onscreen classic silent comedy, live music and guest appearances by living legends of British comedy.

The host for this year’s gala show is soon to be announced and the film programme is an incredible triple-bill of laugh-out-loud comedy classics all accompanied by world class live musical accompaniment.

Buster Keaton’s best loved and most innovative film Sherlock Jr (1924) joins Charlie Chaplin’s A Dog’s Life (1918) to headline the show with live music.

Sherlock Jr is accompanied by the world premiere of a new, semi-improvised score composed by Guenter A. Buchwald and performed by the renowned European Silent Screen Virtuosi and members of Bristol Ensemble. A Dog’s Life features Chaplin’s own composition for the film and will be performed by a 15-piece Bristol Ensemble conducted by maestro Guenter A. Buchwald.

Plus: Laurel & Hardy’s hilarious comedy short Angora Love (1929) and live performance from innovative, award-winning visual comedy performers The Kagools and with our exciting guest host this looks like being our finest and funniest Gala event to date!

£10.50 to £60.00 incl. booking fee

Gold Premium Ticket Package:
£60.00* (limited to 50)
Access to exclusive post-show VIP after show experience with complimentary drink
Gala merchandise souvenir
Commemorative VIP lanyard (for access to post-show drinks)
One premium ticket located in the stalls
Exclusive limited souvenir event poster (not for sale)
Souvenir mini-programme
*Including all booking fees

BUY TICKETS

Date: February 15, 2018
Categories: Concerts, Experimental, New Work, Women musicians
Tags: Anna Clyne, charlotte bray, lucy armstrong, psappha

Thursday 15th February 2018 at 7.30pm, St. Michael’s, Ancoats, Manchester

Programme

Charlotte Bray Caught in the Treetops*
Anna Clyne Paintbox
Robert Reid Allan The Palace of Light
Lucy Armstrong Space Adventure
Michael Cryne In Cloud Light
Will Frampton The Greening Variations
Bethan Morgan-Williams In Kenopsia
James Williamson Fault-Klang

Benedict Holland Violin*
Psappha Ensemble
Overview

The life-changing effects of the atomic bomb are explored in Anna Clyne’s immersive soundscape which combines recorded voice, breathing and other sound loops with a sonorous cello line.

Bound together by a sense of mystery and a relentless energy Charlotte Bray’s work for solo violin and ensemble responds to two contrasting lunar poems. The concert also showcases the next generation of talent with our pick of the best works from Psappha’s emerging composer schemes.

Psappha: Demystifying New Music
Pre-concert talk – 6.40pm – free to ticket holders
Learn more before you see it played. Come early, get a drink and settle into your seats for a special talk that will introduce you to the composers and the inspiration behind the music being performed tonight.

FIND OUT MORE

Date: February 18, 2018
Categories: Concerts, Experimental, Family, New Work
Tags: bach, kings place, orchestra of the age of enlightenment

Sunday 18th February at Kings Place, London, 11.30am

Steven Devine director
Ciara Hendrick alto
James Way tenor
James Newby baritone
Professor Kishan Dholakia guest scientist

Seeing Life in a New Light

Marvel at our extraordinary universe and the music of Bach with our new Sunday morning series for inquiring and curious minds, with divine music, lively conversation and stimulating science.

For this morning’s session we’re joined by Professor Kishan Dholakia from the University of St Andrew’s enticingly-named Optical Manipulation Group. A world-expert in the physics of light, he’s fascinated by how the science of photonics can use imaging to help unravel the mysteries of the brain.

Alongside Professor Dholakia’s talk, we’ll be performing one of Bach’s most varied cantatas, BWV 83. Mixing joyful arias with funereal sounds, it’s a rollercoaster journey celebrating the glories of life as well as the sadness of death.

Our very own Sunday service is a place to bond with music lovers and revel in the wonders of science. There is no better way to start a Sunday morning.

In this concert we’ll be playing Bach’s cantata Erfreute Zeit im neuen Bunde (Joyful time in the new covenant).

In partnership with the Institute of Physics.

BOOK TICKETS

Date: April 20, 2018
Categories: Concerts, Experimental, New Work
Tags: chethams school of music, psappha, stoller hall

Friday 20 April 2018, Stoller Hall, Chetham’s School of Music, Manchester, 7.30pm

Psappha in Performance

Programme
Anna Clyne A Wonderful Day
Fausto Romitelli Amok Koma
Mike Walker Autonomy (World première)*
Steven Mackey Deal
–
Stephen Barlow Conductor
Mike Walker Electric guitar
Iain Dixon Reeds
Mike Smith Drums
Psappha Ensemble
Overview

Psappha explores the connections between jazz, rock and classical. The centerpiece is a new work by the renowned jazz guitarist and composer Mike Walker. Psappha is joined by Mike and reeds player Iain Dixon in a piece that combines classical music with the improvisation and rhythmic drive of jazz. Mike also joins us as the soloist in Steven Mackey’s Deal, which intertwines rock and classical.

Romitelli’s palindromic work draws inspiration from German punk rock while Clyne’s A Wonderful Day features a recording of a Chicago street musician whose natrural, slow voice conveys a sense of both joy and struggle.

*Mike Walker’s new work is supported by Arts Council England’s Grants for the Arts programme.

BUY TICKETS

Date: April 28, 2018
Categories: Concerts, Experimental, New Work
Tags: barbican centre, bbc singers, john adams, ross harris

Saturday 28 April 2018, Barbican, London at 7.30pm

The BBC Singers perform Ravel, Adams, Vaughan Williams and Harris (UK premiere)

Programme

Maurice Ravel
Le tombeau de Couperin
John Adams
The Wound-Dresser
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Ross Harris
Face

Allison Bell – soprano
James Way – tenor
Marcus Farnsworth – baritone
BBC Singers
Gergely Madaras – conductor
BBC Symphony Orchestra

The role of those who care for the injured provides the theme: Ralph Vaughan Williams, like Maurice Ravel, was too old to serve in the First World War but he volunteered as a stretcher bearer while the Frenchman drove munitions lorries behind the lines, putting himself in extreme danger. His Le tombeau de Couperin remembers friends killed in the First World War.

John Adams’s The Wound Dresser, for baritone and orchestra, sets words by Walt Whitman who tended the wounded in battle, while Ross Harris’s celebrates the work of fellow New Zealander, the plastic surgeon Harold Gillies who pioneered facial reconstruction and contributed to the rehabilitation of thousands of servicemen.

Face, receiving its UK premiere is a work for soloists, chorus and orchestra with projections.

Book Tickets

Date: August 20, 2018
Categories: Concerts, Experimental, New Work, Women musicians
Tags: emma-ruth richards, perpetual becomings after gormley, stoller hall, zelkova quartet

Monday 20th August 2018 at 10.00pm, Stoller Hall, Manchester

Zelkova Quartet: Caroline Pether, Alex Mitchell, Ed Pether, Jonathan Pether
Dominic Degavino – piano
Alex Roberts – clarinet
Stella Tahtinen – soprano
Dominic Ciccotti – piano
Meera Maharaj – flute
Lucy Nolan – harp

 
 
Emma-Ruth RICHARDS
Ikon for solo clarinet (2013)
Piranesi’s Fantasies for solo piano (2010)
Perpetual Becomings, After Gormley for solo flute and ensemble (2016, world première)
In Aer, 6 Little Songs for soprano and piano (2010)

This is the second recital of music by composer in residence Emma-Ruth Richards. The performance includes a world première of Perpetual Becomings, After Gormley for solo flute and ensemble.

BUY TICKETS

Date: September 15, 2018
Categories: Experimental, Family, New Work, Opera
Tags: Bold Tendencies, Chroma, Polly Graham

Saturday, September 15, 2018 – Sunday, September 16, 2018 at 7:30pm, Peckham (London) Multi-Storey Car Park

Bold Tendencies with Polly Graham, and her recently formed company, Loud Crowd,

are bringing a new opera programme to Peckham, beginning in 2018 with Viktor Ullmann’s The Emperor of Atlantis, an opera about the need for humans to respect death. The megalomaniac Emperor has declared a war that will only end when there are no survivors left. Death, an old tramp, is outraged that a mortal should try to steal his job and goes on strike. The war begins but panic sets in as no one can die. The Living Dead walk the earth. The Emperor’s power weakens. He submits to the greater power of Death, and dies. Originally written in the concentration camp at Terezin in 1943 as a satire of the Nazi regime, this project proposes to re-read the piece as a prophecy for our time, presenting it within the context of current political debates about nuclear warfare, the migration crisis, climate change and the value of life in relation to power, always with a flavour of satire and clowning. The sound world of the opera is cartoonish and accessible, its collage style mixes jazz with chamber music and cabaret.

GET TICKETS

Date: September 23, 2018
Categories: Experimental, New Work, Women musicians, Youth
Tags: andy keenan, bristol ensemble, graham fitkin, hannah kendall, sadie harrison

23rd September 2018, 6:30 pm, St George’s Bristol, Off Park Street, Bristol BS1 5RR

Bristol Ensemble
John Pickard Conductor

Hannah Kendall Processional [pictured]
Sadie Harrison Coretta
Andy Keenan For Boola
Graham Fitkin Ardent

New pieces by composers from the Young Composers’ Academy and shortlisted pieces from the NMSW Young Composers’ Prize 2018

The Young Composers’ Academy (YCA) and New Music in the South West help to invigorate the region’s new music scene whilst creating inspiring opportunities for its most talented young composers. Hear Bristol Ensemble performing great new music by the region’s best young composers, alongside recent repertoire classics and music specially commissioned to celebrate the life and work of Martin Luther King on the 50th anniversary of his assassination.

Tickets £12, £8 concessions

BUY TICKETS

NMSW Season Finale & the St George’s Young Composers’ Academy Showcase

Date: October 9, 2018
Categories: Concerts, Experimental, New Work, Women musicians
Tags: Burgh House, Jennifer Fowler, London New Wind Festival

Tuesday 9th October 2018 at 7.00pm, Burgh House, Hampstead, London

The 21st London New Wind Festival features music by Jennifer Fowler, Hugh Shrapnel and Paul Patterson.

Simon Desorgher – flutes
Catherine Plugyers – oboe
Phil Edwards – clarinet
Henryk Sienkiewicz – horn
Glynn Williams – bassoon
Alan Tomlinson – trombone
Robert Coleridge – piano
David Sutton-Anderson – conductor

Find out more

Date: November 12, 2018
Categories: Concerts, Experimental, New Work, Song, Women musicians
Tags: Gemini, severnside composers alliance, St Paul's Church

Monday 12 November 2018 at 7.30pm, St Paul’s Church, Clifton, Bristol

Space Time Sounds
performed by Gemini:
Sarah Leonard – soprano
Ian Mitchell – clarinet and bass clarinet
Joby Burgess – percussion

Music by the Severnside Composers Alliance
Caradon, D’Angelo, Greenhorne, Harvey, Hasse, Laycock, Metzger, Nickol, Palmer, Poole

Tickets £10 (£8) students & under-16s free.

Date: February 16, 2019
Categories: Choral, Experimental, Festivals, New Work, Song, Women musicians
Tags: Chroma, Clara Sanabras, Vox Holloway Chamber Choir

Saturday 16 February, 7.30pm at Town Hall, Berkhamsted

Presenting international chanteuse Clara Sanabras singing her evocative and deeply moving Songs of Exile, and her version of Shakespeare’s Tempest with CHROMA and Vox Holloway Chamber Choir directed by Harvey Brough. Performed at the Barbican to great acclaim, this promises to be an evening of sublime magic.

TICKETS: £20/£18 Concs
CHROMA Going Steady/ Confetti Friends £19/£17 under 18s FREE subject to availability

Buy Tickets

Date: February 24, 2019
Categories: Concerts, Experimental, Festivals, New Work
Tags: London Festival of American Music, lontano, odaline de la martinez, the warehouse

24th February to 2nd March all at 7.30pm, The Warehouse, Theed Street, London SE1

Lontano’s Biennial Festival – created in 2006 – explores and celebrates the work of major American composers and reflects the variety of style that is so characteristic of contemporary American music today. The festival programme was put together by Lontano’s Music Director Odaline de la Martinez, one of Britain’s most dynamic and gifted musicians and the first woman to conduct a complete BBC Prom at the Royal Albert Hall. This year’s festival celebrates American Diversity featuring not only American Women Composers, but also American Composers of Colour. The Festival also celebrates Odaline de la Martinez’s 70th birthday with the World Premiere her opera Imoinda – A Story of Love and Slavery.

Read more

Date: April 23, 2019
Categories: Concerts, Experimental, New Work, Period instruments, Women musicians
Tags: Chroma, liam byrne, st john maddermarket

Tuesday 23 April, 7.30pm St John, Maddermarket, Norwich

A feast of Renaissance and contemporary music performed by Stuart King (clarinet), Clare O’Connell (cello) and superstar viola da gamba player Liam Byrne, with visuals from Claire Shovelton.

More than just a concert, Awakening seamlessly weaves together music from experimental composers both ancient and modern; the gamba, cello and clarinet creating a uniquely rich sonic experience, linked by electronic episodes and enhanced by Claire Shovelton’s imagery, to immerse you in a transcendental, transformative world.

Music will include works from Nico Muhly, Pierre de la Rue, Christopher Tye and Alexander Agricola with three new CHROMA commissions from outstanding composers Freya Waley Cohen, Rubens Askenar and David Bruce.

The concert lasts approx one hour with no interval.

TICKETS: GO TO CHROMA BOX OFFICE

£15/£12 concessions (CHROMA Friends £13/£10)
under 18s free, subject to availability.

Date: May 22, 2019
Categories: Choral, Concerts, Experimental, New Work
Tags: city universty, exaudi, summer sounds

Wednesday 22 May at 7.00pm, College Building, UCL, London

City University ensemble-in-residence, EXAUDI, return for their annual concert of premieres by City Postgraduate and Undergraduate composers.

The students respond to EXAUDI’s Madrigal Project, in which the group brings together classics from the Italian Renaissance through to the present. The results exploit the full range of EXAUDI’s virtuoso vocality to ask the question: what does it mean to write a Madrigal today?
FREE ADMISSION – BOOKING FORM

Date: July 14, 2019
Categories: Concerts, Experimental, New Work
Tags: david fennessy, Hull City Hall, psappha ensemble

Sunday July 14th 2019, 4:00pm, Mortimer Suite, Hull City Hall

Programme

David Fennessy – Panopticon

Event information
The 17-minute piece is performed twice, with a short Q&A session with the composer between the performances.

Overview
The cimbalom governs the string ensemble in a new work by David Fennessy, performed by Psappha. Every attack on the string of the instrument has a consequence on the rest of the players. Each beat triggers a ripple, much like a stone dropped into a still lake, which eventually reaches the strings: they reflect and magnify its effects. The cimbalom also governs pulse and dynamic and, through its careful exploration of the natural harmonics available on its lowest string, plots the entire course of the piece. The word ‘panopticon’ is usually associated with an 18th-century design concept for a circular prison. Cells were arranged around a central well, from which prisoners could be observed at all times.

BUY TICKETS

Date: August 17, 2019
Categories: Experimental, Festivals, New Work
Tags: edinburgh fringe, hebrides ensemble, pianodrome

Saturday 17th August at 3.00pm and 7.00pm, Pianodrome, Pitt Street Market, Edinburgh

Hebrides Ensemble are delighted to be performing two concerts at this amazing venue during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The Pianodrome is the world’s first 100-seater amphitheatre constructed entirely from up-cycled pianos!

The performances take place at 3pm and at 7pm.
 
 

Zoë Beyers Violin
William Conway Cello
Huw Watkins Piano

Janáček Dumka
Osborne The Piano Tuner
Dvořák Dumky Trio (Piano Trio No. 4 in E Minor)

GET TICKETS

Date: August 26, 2019
Categories: Experimental, Festivals, New Work, Song, Women musicians
Tags: edinburgh book festival, hebrides ensemble, james macmillan

Monday 26th August at 8.30pm, New York Times Main Theatre, Book Festival Village, Edinburgh

We may remember the first line of a novel, but what about the last? In this celebration of great endings to close the 2019 Edinburgh International Book Festival, Hebrides Ensemble have challenged composers Linda Buckley, Matthew Grouse, James MacMillan, Pàdruig Morrison and Gareth Williams to respond musically to favourite last lines from novels, submitted by members of the public. Hear an exclusive live performance from the Ensemble as you learn which nine lines have been chosen.

Catherine Backhouse Mezzo-soprano
Yann Ghiro Clarinet
Zoë Beyers Violin
William Conway Cello

BUY TICKETS NOW

Date: October 26, 2019
Categories: Concerts, Experimental, Festivals, Masterclasses, New Work, Youth
Tags: Aberdeen Cathedral, Red Note Ensemble

Saturday 26 October 2019, 12.00pm at St Andrew’s Cathedral, Aberdeen, 28 King Street, AB24 5AX

Sergio Vega Dominguez (oboe) and Martin Storey (cello) from Red Note premiere five new works for oboe and cello developed by Scotland based composers Andrew Blair, Kevin Leomo, Gillian Walker, Ewan Mackay and Harry Gorski-Brown during a residential composers’ development weekend in Aberdeenshire.
 
FIND OUT MORE

Date: November 20, 2019
Categories: Experimental, New Work, Pre-concert event
Tags: noisy nights, Red Note Ensemble, The Drake - Glasgow

Wednesday 20 November, 8.00pm at The Drake, 1 Lynedoch St., Glasgow – G3 6EF, United Kingdom

Noisy Nights returns to Glasgow!

They’re a place to meet music-lovers, curious minds, musicians, composers and artists in an informal space and hear some of the best examples of brand new music while having a beer. They’re fun, free and your chance to listen to the musicians of Red Note.

Free admission – Register Here

Date: November 28, 2019
Categories: Concerts, Experimental, New Work, Pre-concert event, Song, Women musicians
Tags: firsova, lutyens, psappha ensemble, songs of the world, webern, women conmposers

Thursday 28 November, 7.30pm at Halle St Peter’s, Manchester

Programme

Webern String Quartet, Op.28
Cheryl Frances-Hoad The Whole Earth Dances
Athanasia Kontou After Psappha
Alissa Firsova Songs of the World world premiere
Lutyens The Valley of Hatsu-Se
Schoenberg, arr. Webern Chamber Symphony No.1

Overview

The first concert at the newly renovated Hallé St Peter’s features a Psappha commission inspired by the Vienna of a century ago. Alissa Firsova’s Songs of the World sets three poems by Hugo van Hofmannsthal – a contemporary of Anton Webern, whose abstract but gripping String Quartet and masterful arrangement of Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony both feature tonight. Poetry also provides the inspiration for Elizabeth Lutyens’ rarely-heard The Valley of Hatsu-Se, which draws on Japanese texts, and Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s more recent The Whole Earth Dances, inspired in part by Ted Hughes.

Stephen Barlow Conductor
Daisy Brown Soprano

Into the Music at 6.40pm (Free to ticket-holders)
Alissa Firsova and Athanasia Kontou join Tim Williams and the RNCM’s Douglas Jarman to introduce tonight’s concert.

BUY TICKETS

Date: February 14, 2020
Categories: Concerts, Experimental, New Work
Tags: Aaron Holloway-Nahum, kings place, riot ensemble

Friday 14 February 2020 at 8.00pm, Kings Place, London, N1 9AG

Aaron Holloway-Nahum

The inaugural concert of Riot Ensemble’s ReNEW series at Kings Place, bringing the cream of international contemporary music on to the Hall One stage.

‘Every aesthetic trace, every footprint of an object, sparkles with absence. Sensual things are elegies to the disappearance of objects.’ Realist Magic, Timothy Morton

Liza Lim’s Extinction Events and Dawn Chorus aspire to ‘make a music out of relics of the past’, which here range from Janacek to the last-ever heard mating call of the now-extinct Kauai O’o bird. Aaron Holloway-Nahum’s Like a Memory of Birds (ii) is also about degradation and loss, filtering a familiar melodic line through an alien soundscape until it disintegrates and disappears. Meanwhile, Ctrl by Laurence Osborn, which features Sarah Dacey’s soprano filtered through an auto-tune pedal, examines themes of masculinity and violence.

Aaron Holloway-Nahum Like a memory of birds (ii)
Liza Lim Extinction events and dawn chorus
Laurence Osborn CTRL

Tickets £18.50-£14.50 (Under 30s tickets available)

BOOK HERE

Date: February 25, 2020
Categories: Concerts, Experimental, Family, Period instruments
Tags: baroque, period instruments, red priest, wavendon

Tuesday 25 February, 8.00pm at The Stables, Wavendon

After their recent foray into the world of gypsy music with their classical-chart-topping Baroque Bohemians project, Red Priest return to theirorigins with a stunning concert of baroque classics, arranged and performed with their trademark energy, virtuosity and (in the best baroque sense) madness!

The programme includes works by Bach, Vivaldi and Albinoni.

GET TICKETS

Date: March 25, 2020
Categories: Concerts, Experimental, Family, Youth
Tags: Oceans Tour, Red Note Ensemble

Wednesday 25 March, 7.30pm at The Ceilidh House, Arnisdale, IV40 8JH
Thursday 26 March, 7.30pm at Poolewe Village Hall, Poolewe, IV22 2LD
Friday 27 March, 7.30pm at SEALL, Ostaig House, Sleat, Isle of Skye, IV44 8RQ

Music and Verse from the Atlantic and beyond

Celebrating Scotland’s Year of Coasts and Waters, Red Note string players Jackie Shave (violin) and Robert Irvine (cello) blend their styles with Eliza Marshall on flutes and whistles and iconic Indian tabla player/composer Kuljit Bhamra to explore the theme of ‘Oceans and Journeys’.
The musicians are joined by actor Crawford Logan in a concert integrating poetry and music of great power and beauty, performing specially written works by members of the ensemble and others.
The ensemble will tour the Highlands and Islands in Scotland, interleaving poetry from local and international poets celebrating and exploring the passions of the Oceans.

The programme will include:

Jackie Shave ‘Sea Fever’
Kuljit Bhamra ‘Indigo Sunrise’
Eliza Marshall ‘Fear A’Bhàta
Robert Irvine ‘The Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks’ (Neruda)
Jackie Shave ‘Machair to Myrrh’
Irvine/Bhamra ‘Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner’
Marshall ‘Lord Franklin’s Lament’
Bhamra/Marshall ‘Billy Bhangra’s voyage’ (drowning and reincarnation)
Poems and text from Mackay-Brown, Elliot, Neruda and Scottish writers

TICKETS available locally.

Date: February 21, 2021
Categories: Experimental, Festivals, Live stream, New Work
Tags: bang on a can

Sunday 21 February, 1 – 5pm EST (6 – 10 GMT)

New Year! New Hope! New Commissions! On February 21, Bang on a Can presents an entire marathon of PREMIERES! 16 brand new works by 16 pioneering composers. Tune in to hear 4 hours of nonconformist, noncommercial, mind-blowing music. Alvin Lucier! Jennifer Walshe! Matthew Shipp! Ingrid Laubrock! Gabriel Kahane! and many many more.

This concert is FREE! But please do consider purchasing a ticket. That helps us pay more players, commission more composers, and make more music. The pandemic is still here. An entire ecosystem of composers and performers needs our attention, our love, and our financial support. All Marathon performers and composers are participating live and being paid by Bang on a Can. Please help us do that!

– Michael Gordon, David Lang, Julia Wolfe: co-founders and co-artistic directors

FIND OUT MORE

Date: June 18, 2021
Categories: Concerts, Experimental, Family, Festivals, New Work
Tags: orkney, st magnus festival

18-23 June, Kirkwall, KW15 1HP

The 2021 Festival

An inspiring mix of live and prerecorded performance and film: sit back and take in the sights, sounds and poetry of the Festival and Orkney from the comfort of your own home and tune in to invididual films or buy a Rover ticket to experience all of our online films. You’ll also find a range of free films on this website, many of them celebrating the 100th birthday of George Mackay Brown. If you’re in Orkney, then you can join us in person at our ‘live’ events. Drive-in movies, live music, newly composed music and inspiring, outdoor venues will make these rather special.

FIND OUT MORE

Date: November 19, 2021
Categories: British Composers, Experimental, Festivals, New Work
Tags: Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, James Dillon, Red Note Ensemble

Friday 19 November, 13.00 at Huddersfield Town Hall, Corporation Street, Huddersfield

Red Note returns to hcmf// in November 2021 for the world premiere of James Dillon’s Emblemata:Carnival alongside works by Luke Styles and Aileen Sweeney.

Red Note has been a prominent purveyor of James Dillon’s work for the last decade, bringing premieres of his large-scale works to the festival in 2013, and then again in 2017. Their continuous relationship with the composer is palpable: performing his seemingly insurmountable music with poise, carrying it carefully while also conveying its fragile breaking point. In this concert, they deliver the world premiere of his immense new work Emblemata: Carnival.

BOOK NOW

Red Note delivers Dillon’s new composition alongside music from Luke Styles, who describes his new piece Five Phase Sphere as ‘abstract, with no programme whatsoever’. Written more for the instrumentation it uses than for any narrative reason, it comes from a place of unbridled intuition, focusing on resonances and combinations. Its title is a candid explanation of the material: five phases, musically connected, orbiting in a sphere. Red Note completes the programme with a new work from emerging Scottish composer Aileen Sweeney, an accordionist who uses her folk roots as a vessel for protesting the growing social inequalities in our environment.

James Dillon EMBLEMATA: Carnival (World Premiere)
Luke Styles Five Phase Sphere (UK Premiere)*
Aileen Sweeney The Land Under the Wave (World Premiere)

Red Note Ensemble
Ruth Morley, flute
Will White, clarinet
Tom Hunter, percussion
Simon Smith, piano
David Alberman, violin
Tom Hankey, viola
Robert Irvine, cello
Iain Crawford, double bass

Geoffrey Paterson Conductor

BOOK NOW

Date: March 11, 2022
Categories: British Composers, Concerts, Experimental, Women musicians

Friday, 11 March, 7.30pm at Square Chapel, Halifax

Kate Whitley Three Pieces for Violin & Piano
Berg Piano Sonata op. 1
Mark-Anthony Turnage Slide Stride
Shostakovitch Piano Quintet

With Psappha
Benjamin Powell, Benedict Holland, Sophie Rosa, Heather Wallington and Jennifer Langridge

The Piano Quintet by Dmitri Shostakovich is one of his most loved chamber works. Music that looks back to the famous chamber-music masterpieces of the romantic age and often glances towards Bach, while at the same time speaking a language of its own, of unusual purity and plainness. Berg’s compelling piano sonata was completed in the year he finished his formal studies with Arnold Schoenberg, and first performed in Vienna in 1911. Psappha’s Patron Mark-Anthony Turnage pays electrifying tribute to American stride piano pioneer James P Johnson and to begin, a piece by one of Britain’s most exciting young composers: a trio of short duets by Kate Whitley, founder of London’s fabulous Multi-Story Orchestra.

TICKETS AVAILABLE SOON

Date: March 31, 2022
Categories: British Composers, Concerts, Experimental, New Work
Tags: Maxwell Davies, psappha

Thursday 31 March 2022, 7:00pm at Hallé St Peter’s

Ben Gaunt All the Castles I Have Ever Loved World premiere, Psappha commission
Derri Joseph Lewis …BREATHE… World premiere
Anna Thorvaldsdottir Sola
Lisa Robertson New work World premiere, Psappha commission
Nina Danon New work World premiere, Psappha commission
Electra Perivolaris New work World premiere, Psappha commission
Athanasia Kontou New work World premiere, Psappha commission
Peter Maxwell Davies The Last Island

Mark Heron Conductor
Tom McKinney Guitar
With Psappha
Benedict Holland, Zoë Beyers, Alex Mitchell, Alistair Vennart, Jennifer Langridge and Petr Prause

Tim Williams’ final Manchester concert as Psappha’s Artistic Director pays emotional homage to the late Peter Maxwell Davies, the British composer whose music was the group’s original inspiration, and to the wild, untamed land that Max came to call his home.

The Last Island paints a haunting picture of Orkney in all its mysterious isolation. It’s performed tonight alongside four new works inspired by it, written especially for tonight’s concert by four brilliant young composers and accompanied by new films shot by Tim Williams across Orkney in summer 2021.

The concert begins with world premieres from Ben Gaunt, written for Psappha, and Derri Joseph Lewis, composed for guitarist and BBC Radio 3 presenter Tom McKinney – and continues with Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Sola, a mesmerising and atmospheric new concerto-of-sorts for viola and electronics.

Tonight’s concert will last around 75 minutes with no interval, ending around 8.15pm.

BUY TICKETS

Date: May 1, 2022
Categories: Educational, Experimental, Family, Masterclasses
Tags: bournemouth symphony orchestra, rusty and not so rusty, wiltshire music centre

Sunday 1 May from 10.00am, Wiltshire Music Centre, Ashley Road, Bradford-on-Avon, BA15 1DZ

Bournemouth Symphony Orcherstra’s ever-popular Rusty and Not So Rusty Musicians returns to Wiltshire for a Symphony in a Day project.

“Rusties” benefit from specialist coaching from musicians from BSO, professional instruction from one of our conductors, and the chance to meet and play alongside like-minded people in a fun, relaxed atmosphere.

Musicians will work through in sectionals in the morning, before an afternoon rehearsal and informal sharing to friends and family at the end of the day.

FIND OUT MORE

Date: July 12, 2022
Categories: British Composers, Experimental, Free, Live stream, New Work, Women musicians
Tags: psappha ensemble

Tuesday 12 July, 8.30pm – YouTube premiere.

Stephen Balfour My Head is Spinning
Xia-Leon Sloane carved by birds and blizzards…
Litha Efthymiou Synchrony
Robert Crehan TOGETHER, NOT TOGETHER
Isa Gibbs HORA AUREA
Niahm O’Donnell Hear Me, See Me

Six brand new works for cello and percussion performed by Jennifer Langridge and Tim Williams and created through Psappha’s 2021-22 Composing for Cello and Percussion scheme.

WATCH HERE

Date: July 16, 2022
Categories: British Composers, Concerts, Experimental, Festivals, New Work, Women musicians
Tags: cheltenham festival, psappha ensemble

Saturday 16 July, 5.00pm at Pitville Pump Room, East Approach Drive, Cheltenham, GL52 3JE.

Jeffrey Mumford undiluted days UK Premiere
Claire Victoria Roberts Like ships adrift World Premiere
Conor Mitchell Look Both Ways World Premiere
Odetta arr. by Bobbie-Jane Gardner Hit or Miss World Premiere
–
Tenor Ed Lyon
Baritone Richard Burkhard
With Psappha Benedict Holland, Jennifer Langridge, and Benjamin Powell

Four genre-defying composers dive into the intricacies of love and identity. Characterising a life resonant with wonderful possibilities, Jeffrey Mumford’s piano trio receives its UK premiere. Belfast’s busiest composer Conor Mitchell has turned Britten and Pears’s love letters into astonishing songs that swing from tender to silly, in which high art collides with the pizazz of Broadway. Composer-performer Claire Victoria Roberts’s miniatures are inspired by the intimate letters between Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya; and “one of the most exciting figures on the dynamic Birmingham new music scene,” Bobbie-Jane Gardner delivers a stomping arrangement of Odetta’s iconic 1970s song: Hit or Miss.

BUY TICKETS