PROGRAMME
7.30pm Doors8.30pm Klavikon
10pm Abstruckt percussion quartet
'Baby Lexicon' – Ben Nobuto
'Perspective' – Jlin
11pm DJ
All timings and programme are subject to change.
Our 20th anniversary celebrations have just got bigger! EDM, footwork, drums, piano, and electronics collide in our celebration of beat-driven music for percussion and piano.
Nonclassical artist Klavikon (aka Leon Michener) kicks off the night with his innovative brand of electronic music: think EDM without the use of conventional processes - no loops, no laptops, no sequencers. Instead, Klavikon employs a unique system of amplified prepared piano, augmenting the 88 keys with his own inventions and found objects - a custom made pick up, a robot dog - he delivers cascading batteries of percussion, sub-basses and abstract soundscapes.
Abstruckt percussion quartet make their triumphant return to Nonclassical following their sell-out performances at the Barbican Conservatory. They present two brand-new works: a new commission, Baby Lexicon, by award-winning, 'sonically dazzling’ (RPS Awards) composer Ben Nobuto is paired with Jlin's Pulitzer-Prize nominated percussion suite Perspective, initially commissioned and premiered by Third Coast Percussion.
tickets
£10 / £15 / £20
We are offering tiered Pay What You Can tickets for this concert. Any sales of the £15 or £20 tickets will help us to subsidise the £10 tickets.
nonclassical gratefully acknowledges the support of the Cockayne Foundation, the Vaughan Williams Foundation, and the Francis Routh Foundation for their support of the event and Ben Nobuto's commission.
access information
Wheelchair Access: Unit58 is ground floor and does have step free access to most of the venue accept the upper mezzanine and our outdoor terrace. Dance floor, both bars areas, cloakroom and toilets are step free - we do not have a disabled toilet though.
about the artists
Klavikon
Klavikon reimagines ‘electronic’ music without the use of conventional processes - no loops, no laptops, no sequencers. Instead, pianist Leon Michener employs a unique system of amplified prepared piano. Augmenting the 88 keys with his own inventions and found objects - a custom made pick up, a robot dog- he delivers cascading batteries of percussion, sub-basses and abstract soundscapes. This amalgam of virtuosic technique and real-time analogue processing is at once connected with Classical traditions of Stockhausen and Cage and the experimental dancefloor idiom of Amon Tobin and Bochum Welt. The result is a fertile sonic territory, sincere in it’s eccentricity, restlessly inventive, that resists easy categorisation.
Image © State51
Abstruckt
Formed in 2014, Abstruckt are one of the most exciting percussion ensembles to come out of the UK in recent times. With a focus on theatrical performance, the ensemble reworks its repertoire to uniquely fit their performance space, creating an immersive experience for the audience.
As well as performing core works for percussion ensemble, such as Reich’s ‘Mallet Quartet”, Cage’s ‘Living Room Music’ and Xenakis’ “Okho”, Abstruckt are passionate about pioneering new repertoire for percussion, and have given a huge number of UK and World premieres of pieces by composers based all around the globe.
Equally at home performing in concert halls, basements, crypts and car parks, highlights of the ensemble’s work include multiple projects for Multi-Story/Bold Tendencies and Nonclassical, as well as recitals at venues including the Barbican, St David’s Hall, Cardiff and Nottingham Royal Concert Hall.
Image © Dimitri Djuric
Ben Nobuto
Ben Nobuto is a British/Japanese composer, pianist and producer from Kent, UK. With a style described as ‘postmodern’ (Nonclassical), ‘utterly contemporary’ (Manchester Collective) and ‘sonically dazzling’ (RPS Awards), his music explores themes of attention and fragmentation, drawing from internet culture and popular idioms in a playful, ironic and surreal manner. Often combining acoustic with electronic sounds, his interest lies in how processes from one can be applied to the other, and the relationship between the ‘human’ and ‘non-human’ in the context of a performance.
Previous commissions include works for Manchester Collective, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Ligeti Quartet, Southbank Sinfonia and BBC Singers. His music has featured on BBC Radio 3 and 6, Times Radio and Resonance FM and has released on NMC Recordings and Nonclassical. He was recently awarded an Ivors Classical Award for his choral work Sol and a Royal Philharmonic Society Award for SERENITY 2.0. As a pianist, he often performs his own work, combining a genre-fluid style of piano-playing with electronics, as in his performance at UK New Artists’ Leicester Takeover Festival in early 2022.
Image © Manchester Collective / Phil Sharp