Engage
For October's podcast we welcome Tom Rose and Laurie Tompkins of Manchester-based experimental music label Slip Discs who will be appearing at the Macbeth on Wednesday 2nd alongside fellow Northerner Larry Goves for our House of Bedlam pre-album release event. Facebook page Here.
It includes some of their own music as well as some House of Bedlam, alongside everything from Alva Noto, Ligeti, Leonard Cohen, Parmegiani and Talking Heads.
We’re very excited to finally announce the first full-length release from The House of Bedlam, the truly inimitable chamber group / band formed and led by acclaimed composer Larry Goves, and with words written and read by Mathew Welton. House of Bedlam are a really exceptional group and have long had a special place in our hearts, ever since their first mesmerising performances at the Nonclassical club-nights back in 2008. The players’ long association with Goves’ music makes them uniquely able to navigate his wild and vivid landscapes, and we’re proud that this disc finally puts Bedlam’s performances on record. Included are four pieces recorded at The Warehouse in 2008 and broadcast on BBC Radio 3′s Hear and Now programme, three pieces recorded elsewhere, and four remixes by Mira Calix, Gabriel Prokofiev, Dale Jonathan Perkins, and Devil Dandy.
>>> Listen to samples / buy the album (CD / FLAC / MP3)
TRACKLISTING
1 Sinew 2 Writing 21 3 Riviniana & the vermillion border 4 Poppy 5-7 deaf John’s dark house 8 Talking microtonal blues 9 Skein(2) 10 Skein(2) (G.ProkofIev Non-Blues Remix) 11 Sinew (Devil Dandy Remix) 12 deaf John’s dark house (Dale Jonathan Perkins Remix) 13 Sinew (Mira Calix Remix)
We're welcoming old friends Aisha Orazbayeva - a "profoundly radical and inventive" violinist (Sound Projector ) - and Lucy Railton, the outstanding young cellist who is one of the busiest and most familiar faces on the scene at the moment through being director and founder of Kammer Klang, LCMF and more.
It's going to be a varied feast of music in a variety of flavours; encompassing Telemann to Cage, alongside some of their own original work with film and live electronics. We have a couple of UK Premieres to look forward to as well: I am watching me watching you watching me by Icelandic composer Gunnar Karel Masson for violin and cello, and a piece by Jan Flessel for violin.
With DJing from our residents, food, and a bar open from 6pm, it's the perfect way to spend what will be the last of our Limewharf evenings before British Summer Time ends. But let's not dwell on that now ...
Advance Tickets: £5 / £6 On The Door
We are delighted to announce our first ever open call for works, in connection with our upcoming Pioneers of Percussion festival. The festival celebrates the explosion of percussion music in the twentieth century, and we are inviting composers to submit an original work to be included in this series.
The chosen piece will be played on the 6th November as part of the event New York / London at The Macbeth, Hoxton, alongside music by David Lang, Steve Martland, Tansy Davies, Judd Greenstein and more. The winning piece will be performed by a London-based percussionist, to be confirmed by Nonclassical in the coming days.
We are particularly interested in works that focus on new approaches to rhythm and that address the 'New York-London' theme.
Eligibility
Open to composers of any age, nationality and country of residence.
Requirements
- The composition should be a new or unperformed work. - The submitted work should be scored for solo percussionist. Electronics may also be possible but applicants should contact us with details in advance. - Applicants have their choice of any number of the following instruments:
bongos, congas, snare drums, bass drums (orchestral or pedal), cymbals (incl. hi-hats), woodblocks, opera gongs, tom-toms
Composers wishing to use other percussion instruments should contact Nonclassical (email address below). The duration of the work should be between 2 and 5 minutes.
A score, and if possible a rough recording, should be submitted to info@nonclassical.co.uk
Deadline is 5pm on Wednesday 16th October
We look forward to receiving your submissions!
We're thrilled to be welcoming House of Bedlam for the preview party of their upcoming album on Nonclassical Recordings.
HOUSE OF BEDLAM
Led by Larry Goves, the band links elements of both electronic and instrumental music with spoken word, taking influence from rock, folk, electronica and contemporary classical music.
The all-star cast also includes Oliver Coates, Tom McKinney and Matthew Welton.
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SLIP DISCS
Sliip discs is an experimental music label. Releases focus on new acoustic and electronic music spanning contemporary composition, electronica and the murky ground somewhere in between.
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In between sets, as usual Nonclassical's resident DJs will be playing the best in contemporary classical, new music and electronica.
Wednesday 6th November, 8pm: New York / London: ‘What’s Happening Now’ The Macbeth, 70 Hoxton Street, N1 6LP We open the festival with a night in collaboration with esteemed New York label New Amsterdam, tracing the creative ties between these two great cities. Music including David Lang's classical The Anvil Chorus, and works by Steve Martland, Judd Greenstein and others, plus the premieres of our competition winners. More information / Tickets: £5 (Wegottickets)
Saturday 9th November, 7pm: Percussion and Orchestra Oval Space, 32 The Oval, E2 9DT Bartók’s masterpiece Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta broke new ground in the 1930s, placing the percussionist at the centre of the classical orchestra. Here it is heard in the contemporary surroundings of East London's Oval Space, alongside Gabriel Prokofiev’s recent Concerto for Bass Drum, a pivotal solo work by Iannis Xenakis - Psappha - and a large-ensemble piece by acclaimed young composer Kate Whitley entitled Split. Multi-Story Orchestra, conducted by Christopher Stark. Soloist: Joby Burgess. More information / Tickets: £8 / £10 (Wegottickets)
Sunday 10th November, 1pm: Reich in Ghana - Drumming Workshop St Margarets House, 21 Old Ford Road, E2 9PL In the early 1970s, Steve Reich travelled to Ghana to immerse himself in West African drumming traditions: in the process, he created a new, compelling musical language full of complex and shifting polyrhythms. For this workshop, participants will be joined by Ghanaian master drummer Abass Dodoo and classically-trained percussionist Serge Vuille to explore the profound influence of West African drumming on Reich's music of the 1970s. Tickets £8 / £5 (Wegottickets)
Wednesday 13th November, 7:30pm: The Evolution of the Drum Kit Hackney Picturehouse, 270 Mare Street, E8 1HE A night celebrating the evolution of the drum kit over the last century and its huge influence on music across many genres. Featuring a screening of the award-winning Beware of Mr Baker (2012), which tells the story of how Ginger Baker became a pioneer of modern drumming, through his foundations in jazz and rock to his discovery of Afrobeat and African percussion. The screening is followed by a sequence of solo performances and talks from internationally acclaimed drummers Ralph Salmins (Van Morrison, McCartney, Madonna ... ), Jean-Claude Webs (D.R. Congo: Kanda Bongoman, Sam Magwana) and Steve Noble (N.E.W., DECOY, Rip Rig & Panic ... ) + DJs Gabriel Prokofiev and Sam Mackay More information / Tickets: £7 (Hackney Picturehouse)
Saturday 16th November, 8pm - 3am: Pioneers of Percussion Scala, 275 Pentonville Rd, N1 9NL At the centre of the festival, Nonclassical takes over Scala to present iconic repertoire including: Edgard Varese’s Ionisation, (the earliest large-scale percussion ensemble work) and John Cage’s Constructions, virtuoso musicians Joji Hirota, Shahbaz Hussain and Abass Dodoo, and a complete performance of Steve Reich's seminal Drumming. With three rooms of live music and DJs surveying a whole spectrum of percussion-led music throughout the night, this is the unmissable centrepiece of the series. More information / Tickets: £6 (limited) / £10 / £12 (Wegottickets)
Sunday 17th November, 7pm: Filmphonics Hackney Picturehouse, 270 Mare Street, E8 1HE A film evening inspired by the theme of percussion. African Drum, Beyond the Beat (2012) looks at the various social functions of the drum in West African society, and is followed by a live discussion with director Tariq Richards. Meanwhile Ballet Mécanique (1923) is a rarely-screened Dadaist masterpiece, famous for its extraordinary percussive score by Georges Antheil. Tickets Available HERE (wegottickets)
Friday 22nd November, 6pm: Theatre of Percussion Limewharf, Vyner Street, E2 9DJ The closing night of the festival puts the spotlight on music in which performance art and extended technique stretch the boundaries of what percussion can be. With pieces by Thierry De May, Rzewski, Globokar and others, and performers including George Barton, Catherine Ring, and Calie Hough. Tickets: £5 advance (Wegottickets)
Nonclassical presents HEAT THE BEAT, a showcase of new music by some of the most promising young composers – MMus and Phd students from London’s premier music institutions: the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal College of Music, King’s College London and Goldsmiths. These emerging composers will present gripping compositions combining acoustic and electronic music, including the UK premiere of 'the Facts they deserve to know' by Brian Mark marking the 50th year anniversary of John F. Kenedy’s assassination. The event will have Nonclassical’s resident DJ’s Nwando from 6.30pm and live music from 7.30pm, with food provided by LimeWharf’s chefs and selected drinks from local producers. £6 on the door /
READ MORE ABOUT THE COMPOSERS in the mini website: http://heatthebeat.co.uk/
Piano & live electronics: John Kameel Farah (Toronto)
Various recorders, including Paetzold contrabass recorder:
Julia Andres, Yeuntae Jeong and Gineke Pranger
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DJs: Gabriel Prokofiev (London / Nonclassical) Nwando (London / Nonclassical) Gagarino (a.k.a. Jürgen Grözinger) Joey Hansom (Expatriarch) Balzer & Hossbach (Certain People)
We're back in Berlin on Wednesday the 11th of September at Chalet, the 150-year-old mansion that's been transformed into a nightclub with an outdoor garden area.
Onstage, Toronto's John Kameel Farah will perform solo piano and live electronics, combining contemporary classical, free improvisation, jazz, electro–acoustics, middle-eastern modes and ambient minimalism and distilling them into cohesive, imaginative surrealistic structures.
Recorder performers Julia Andres, Yeuntae Jeong and Gineke Präger will play pieces including Luciano Berio's “Gesti” from 1966, and “Binary Opposition”, a new work by Stella Veloce that defies the strict dichotomy of sound versus noise.
Completing the lineup will be some of Berlin's most progressive DJs: Jürgen Grözinger—an experimental musician who plays percussion in some of Germany's top orchestras—will create an audio atmosphere as Gararino, the alias he's already introduced into different contexts such as Yellow Lounge at Berghain and Watergate. Joey Hansom will layer early electronic and computer music with an all-vinyl set, and renaissance duo Balzer & Hossbach—known for their DJ residency at Berghain's Certain People concert series—will present their own forward-thinking selections.
And of course, London resident DJs Gabriel Prokofiev and Nwando will be there, digitally weaving together tracks and remixes from the Nonclassical record label catalogue, alongside the best in contemporary classical, left-field electronic music and anything in between.
UPDATE: THIS EVENT HAS MOVED AND WILL BE TAKING PLACE IN THE SHACKLEWELL ARMS, 71 SHACKLEWELL LANE, DALSTON E8 2EB
We're delighted that our first monthly event after the summer will be in a NEW VENUE for us, The Shacklewell Arms. Headliner Workers Union Ensemble are an exciting new music ensemble dedicated to performing new works. For example, they've currently joined forces with LSO Soundhub for a special PRS scheme ‘Constructing a Repertoire’, which helps emerging composers gain exposure and have new work performed.
We're very lucky to be having them perform very recent works, including a pre-premiere from Joe Cutler as well as performances of recent work by Larry Polansky, Matthew Shlomowitz, Laurence Crane and Ryan Latimer.
Performing will be:
Oboe – Anna Durance
Saxophone - Ellie Steemson
Double bass – Mercedes Carroll
Percussion - Joley Cragg and Caz Wolfson
With special guest on Piano Yshani Perinpanayagam.
Conductor: Ben Oliver
Kate Symonds-Joy is an emerging young mezzo-soprano, who first came to our attention when she won the annual Nonclassical Battle of the Bands last year with a performance of Berio's Sequenza III. She'll be performing that again, alongside Berberian's incredible Stripsody and more. She'll be accompanied by Yshani Perinpanayagam from the Workers Union Ensemble on piano.
As always the performers will be joined by Nonclassical resident DJs Gabriel Prokofiev + Nwando, spinning the best in contemporary classical, electronica and anything in-between.
71 Shacklewell Lane, Dalston, London, E8 2EB (directions)
8pm-Late
http://www.workersunionensemble.co.uk/
http://www.katesymonds-joy.com/
We're pleased to be ending the Summer round of gigs with two of the most active and prolific ensembles on London's contemporary classical scene.
The LIGETI QUARTET were formed in 2010 to perform the music of Gyorgy Ligeti and within only 3 years have become one of the most important contemporary quartets in the country. Among many achievements they've performed over 20 world premières, trained with the Kronos Quartet and been selected as Park Lane Group Young Artists 2012-13. They're currently working on an album of new commissions for string quartet and trumpet.
Their programme for the 3rd is:
Christian Mason - Sai Ma John Adams - Fellow Traveller Anna Meredith - Songs for the M8 Arvo Pärt - Fratres Béla Bartók - Quartet No. 4 (finale)
www.ligetiquartet.com
RARESCALE is a flexible-instrumentation contemporary chamber music ensemble, which since its formation by Carla Rees in 2003 has gained an international reputation for its work promoting and creating new repertoire for alto and bass flute. Carla is the UK's leading contemporary exponent of cutting-edge flute music; she'll make you throw away your preconceptions of what a flute can do, blending electronics and more to redefine the flute, with composer Michael Oliva handling electronics.
Lorenz Dangel – Soundtracking Michael Oliva - Apparition and Release Elizabeth Brown – Antarctica Dan Di Maggio – Same Old Monsters (world premiere) Michael Oliva – Bereft Adrift Bret Battey – Paternoster’s Tricyclic Companion Scott Miller – Anterior/Interior Michael Oliva – A Memory of Spring
www.rarescale.org.uk
Advance Tickets at £5 Here
We will return to the Macbeth on the 4th of September with the Workers' Union Ensemble giving a special evening of premieres.: Tickets.
Nonclassical album artists Consortium5 perform at a festival to celebrate the suffragette Emily Wilding Davison. Premiering 3 new commissions by Roxanna Panufnik, Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian and Litha and Effy Efthymiou supported by the PRSF Women Make Music scheme and the RVW Trust.
Exploring both the life and death of this passionate suffragette, C5 will contrast new works from female composers of the present day with that of female composers in the Renaissance period including works by Raphaela Aleotta, a nun from the San Vito convent in Italy, Maddalena Casulana, an Italian lutenist and one of the the first female composer to have music printed and last but not least the infamous Anne Boleyn.
Tickets: £10 Here
http://www.thewildingfestival.co.uk
On the 6th May 2013, Steve Martland died unexpectedly of a heart attack, aged just 53. By way of tribute we warmly invite you to come and celebrate the music and life of this true and irreplaceable maverick.
/// Wednesday 5th June 2013 @ The Macbeth,70 Hoxton St. N1 6LP
8pm - late ///
£5 in advance / £6 on the door >>>Find This Event on Facebook
ft: Contributions and performances from: members of the Steve Martland Band, Piano Circus, Gabriella Swallow, John Metcalfe, Smith Quartet members, Richard Lannoy and more to be announced from the scene who have known, crossed paths with and influenced by him. Host and onetime student of Steve Martland Richard Lannoy writes his thoughts on Martland Here With Special Thanks and Kind Acknowledgement to Schott Music.
"..a Blake aphorism “Energy is Eternal Delight” – a notion which idealises my attitude to the band and confirms my instincts about music and even life itself” Steve Martland "Strangely enough, music is always judged by its beauty. Strangely enough, because good composers only rarely strive for something which people call beautiful. Composers strive for clearness, functionality, explicitness, emotional expressiveness sometimes; they want to move listeners, to shock them, or to clarify things. They want to pose problems, not to solve them. They want to show that the world, and also the world of thinking, is more complex than we want to think. Steve Martland's music shows this on different levels. It sounds sometimes simple, but it is complex. Sometimes it sounds very complicated, but in reality it is very clear. This is what I would call a 'dialectical' approach to composing, and in the long-term the best attitude toward creating something that could be understood as beautiful." Louis Andriessen
Martland first came to prominence on the British music scene with his break-through orchestral work Baba Yar, recording with the legendaryFactory Records and later forming the Steve Martland Band with the express intention to perform his compositions.
Martland's whole profound moral outlook expressed in music of celebratory optimism that dances and has joy, in-keeping with his almost apocalyptic idealism, a tendency towards the social morals of a latter-day William Blake in opposition to the Thatcherist material world of the early 1980's, encapsulated everything about the man and his music, music that has an immediate and compelling appeal.
When confronted with an orchestra, he'd expand its horizons with non-classical instrumentations found in rock, pop and jazz; confront him with a rock or jazz line-up and he'd expand its horizons with techniques from Mediaeval or Baroque. The man and the music contained the energy of rock, pop and dance music as well as the rigorous compositional technique and clarity of vision served by organised and strictly disciplined musical thought. At the same time, he conformed neither to the perceived social attitudes of the latter nor the commercialised musical limitations of the former. Simply fearlessly demanding and virtuosic music without apology.
Steve Martland was born in Liverpool, originally planned a career in the Royal Navy. After studying music at Liverpool university he decided to study composition, not in the UK, but in progressive Holland with Louis Andriessen, as well as with Gunther Schuller at Tanglewood in the US.
Martland's refusal to conform to the received stereotype of a composer and his outspoken criticism of what he regarded as the snobbery and elitism of the classical music establishment, particularly during the 1980's and 1990's, may have made him a controversial figure in some quarters. But among a whole future generation of performers and composers that followed, it set a bold, refreshing example for contemporary art music's energised existence beyond the marginal confines of institutionalised academia. Martland engaged the public with a concept of the value of music that potentially confronts its consumerist tendencies, a legacy and spirit that permeates todays contemporary music scene.
The strength of Martland's conviction that a composer has a moral responsibility to the social reality of their times was further reflected in his work in music education. His frequent workshops directing composition projects in schools and academies at home and abroad, saw him initiate and run 'Strike Out', a summer school which helped produce a new generation of young composers from less-privileged backgrounds. He was the artistic director of SPNM (the Society for the Promotion of New Music) from 2002-04, an organisation that had supported his own Babi Yar.
Steve Martland, great composer, boundary-breaker, a guiding light a true maverick and a very warm, funny and enormously likeable guy, his Blake-like spirit both the music and the man lives on.
(Richard Lannoy)
Further info: www.nonclassical.co.uk
Earlier this year Gabriel Prokofiev's music was used in a new ballet production by New York-based Armitage Gone! Dance. Choreographed by Karole Armitage (Madonna's "Vogue", Bolshoi, and Cirque du Soleil among others), it's titled 'Mechanics of the Dance Machine". Now a fifteen minute documentary is in production about the making of this unique production, and Armitage Gone! Dance have set up a Kickstarter to help fund the final edit. You can view a trailer of the film here:
We're attending this year's Classical Next festival, held in Vienna from 29th May to 1st June. And we're happy to announce that for the closing event at the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts we'll have DJ sets from Gabriel Prokofiev and Nwando Ebizie, plus a performance by Tom Bayman of Gabriel Prokofiev's 'Cello Multitracks'. Excited for our first label appearance in Austria! >>> Classical Next festival
>>> Gabriel Prokofiev 'Jerk Driver' video
With kind support from the PRS Foundation: http://www.prsfoundation.co.uk
To mark our first foray into the North East on 18th May, as part of Northern Chords festival, here's a special podcast mainly consisting of pieces featured on the night - including cello-orientated music from Reich, Crumb, Gabriel Prokofiev and Thomas Demenga, with the Arvo Part 'Fratres'. We've thrown in a couple of Nonclassical remixes from Mira Calix and Heavy Deviance, of Tansy Davies and Mercury Quartet respectively, as well as an excerpt from Simon Steen-Anderson's String Quartet.
We're looking forward to making our North East debut next month, as we host a late night event at the Sage Gateshead as part of the Northern Chords festival. The live programme spans a broad range of contemporary music, while our DJ sets will as usual be threading electronics beats and textures into these avant garde sound worlds. And to top it all off, entry is free!
Full programme:
Steve Reich: Cello Counterpoint Magnus Lindberg: Piano Trio (3rd movement) George Crumb: Movement from Solo Cello Sonata Gabriel Prokofiev: Cello Multitracks Arvo Part: Fratres for String Quartet Bela Bartok: Fuga from Sonata for Solo Violin
10:30 PM | Sage Gateshead Concourse
thesagegateshead.org northernchords.com thelateshows.org.uk
Here's a special Podcast featuring music from the night and Beyond.
Pleased to announce that our monthly residency at The Macbeth is again in collaboration with the brilliant Lore Lixenberg, who's bringing along a selection of special guests to mark 200 years of everyone's favourite megalomaniac composer / professional lunatic, Richard Wagner. We'll be revisiting some of Richard's best known masterpieces such as Tristan and Isolde and the epic Ring cycle, as well as lesser known gems and modern mashups.
*** NEW ADDITIONS ***
- Acclaimed soprano Alison Pearce will be singing 'Dich teure Halle' from Wagner's opera Tannhauser.
- Gijs Kramers and soloists from the Philharmonia orchestra present new arrangements of Wagner material. The performers are:
Vicky Wright, clarinet Jan Regulski, Mark Derudder, Adrián Varela, violin Sam Burstin, Gijs Kramers, viola Eric Villeminey, Maria Zachariadou, cello
Join us as we celebrate Wagner's epic and ground-breaking oeuvre in irreverent fashion. With resident DJs Gabriel Prokofiev & Nwando, and guest DJ Joel Cahen (New Toy).
>>> Advance Tickets (Wegottickets)
>>> Find this event on Facebook
We're delighted to be collaborating with LSO Aftershock once again in April, as we host a free post-concert event featuring new music by composers and composer/performers from the LSO's Soundhub scheme:
Jason Yarde / Andrew McCormack / Edmund Finnis / Raymond Yiu / Tom Coult / Philip Venables / Elspeth Brooke / Darren Bloom / Matthew Kaner / Cevanne Horrock-Hopayian
LSO Soundhub composer/performers: Jason Yarde (saxophone) / Andrew McCormack (piano) / Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian (vocals)
LSO performers: Lorenzo Iosco (bass clarinet), Jessica Lee (bass clarinet), Tom Norris (violin), Laurent Quenelle (violin), David Worswick (violin), Malcolm Johnston (viola), Paul Silverthorne (viola), Jani Pensola (double bass)
Plus DJ sets from Richard Lannoy spanning all manner of contemporary acoustic and electronic sounds.
The event is part of LSO Futures, a brilliant series of events profiling young composers with orchestral and chamber concerts, workshops, and more, running from 9th - 13th April.
