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We're pleased to finally be able to present you with this shortlist of the best tracks recieved for our recent remix competition. There was a huge volume of entries spanning - as usual - a massive range of moods, genres and techniques. Have a listen and let us know what you think!
A week of events at East London's Red Gallery celebrating ten years of Nonclassical.
20/10 - 'We Break Strings' Book Launch - FREE
23/10 - 'NON'salon Panel Discussion: Does the future of classical music lie outside the concert hall? - FREE
23/10 from 8.30pm - NONCLASSICAL Club - £6 / £8
As part of our tenth anniversary celebrations taking place throughout the autumn, we’re embarking on our first tour, taking in four cities and presenting a combination of live sets and DJs. Among the prgoramme highlights is a unique chance to hear live versions of the winners of our recent remix competition. We’re looking forward to our first ever nights in Durham and Manchester and Colchester, as well as a return to Leeds.
Click on this link to visit the Kickstarter page: http://kck.st/1qsN57S
Ten years ago, a new generation of composers and musicians started putting on classical gigs in non-traditional venues. Since then, a new alternative classical music scene has emerged. Now, there are alt classical gigs happening all over London - everywhere from warehouses to pubs, to abandoned underground stations - essentially creating a new music movement, yet nobody has captured and drawn this together in a single printed document.
Our book “We Break Strings” is a labour of love, and will showcase a community of talented musicians at a pivotal moment in music. We hope you will support us in making this book a reality.
We have put in time and money to bring this book to a nearly finished state. We have taken all the photographs, written up the text, the layout has been designed; all that is left is to manufacture the book and distribute it. We are hoping to find backers to help us with this final cost.
Please take a look at the exciting rewards we’ve put together for our supporters, every little bit really does help! If you can’t support us financially, please consider spreading the word via social media or your friends. Thank you so much in advance.
Please click on or share this link to visit our Kickstarter page: http://kck.st/1qsN57S
This year Gabriel Prokofiev's celebrated label and clubnight marks ten years of rewriting the classical rule-book. We're celebrating the anniversary with a season of unmissable events which takes Nonclassical across the UK in September and October and back to London in November. We'll be taking on Colchester, Manchester, Leeds, and Barnard Castle, Durham and then back home for a three amazing London events.
We are giving away a pair of season tickets to our 10th Anniversary London Season! You’ll have special access to the book launch for We Break Strings, at the Red Gallery (20 October) as well as tickets to “Non Salon”, live music / club night (23 October) plus our huge party at Bloc (15 November) and to round it all up our “Global” event at the Nonclassical Loft (26 November) where we’ll be linking and live streaming with Brazil, Canada and Switzerland. All you have to do is enter your details below and we’ll pick a lucky winner out of a hat on September 18th
We're delighted to be hosting the launch party for the release of We Break Strings, a new book by Thom Andrewes and Dmitri Djuric that traces the emergence of London's 'alternative classical' scene. This event forms part of our week-long residency at Red Gallery, celebrating 10 years of Nonclassical.
The book draw together Thom Andrewes' interviews with some of the key musicians and producers that have broken new ground over the last few years, including Kate Whitley, Oliver Coates, Gabriel Prokofiev, Lucy Railton and many more. It also features some of the stunning images captured by photographer Dmitri Djuric, snapshots that reflect the up-close immediacy of the scene in action.
The launch will also feature live performances from some of our favourite artists: Aisha Orazbayeva, Neil Luck, Vicious Circus and others TBC.
Please do consider donating to this Kickstarter, which has been set up to help secure the printing of the book.
We look forward to seeing you there for this very special occasion!
Below you can stream the entries so far to our 10th anniversary Remix Contest. The playlist is being updated regularly, so keep checking back.
Anyone can enter the competition: to find out more click here
Written for the Nonclassical 10: Remix Competition. Original: https://soundcloud.com/nonclassical/tempest-flute-trio-niederau-ii-aufach
To launch our celebrations marking ten years of the label and club night, we're holding a very special remix competition, open to all. Previous Nonclassical remixers have included Thom Yorke, Kidkanevil, Mira Calix and many more. Now you have the chance to add yourself to this distinguished list.
There are four tracks to choose from: two from the upcoming debut album by Tempest (compositions by Mark Simpson and Gary Carpenter), one from Tansy Davies' critically acclaimed Troubairitz, performed by the Azalea Ensemble, and one from Gabriel Prokofiev's Piano Book No. 1 (selections of which are included in Prokofiev's forthcoming portrait album Selected Classical Works 2003-2012).
We're really pleased that Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Imogen Heap has invited us to be involved in her Reverb festival at Camden's Roundhouse this August. On the 24th August we'll be bringing our resident DJs alongside Holly Melia for a special live flute remix performance. Details of this FREE EVENT can be found here.
Also appearing at the festival are associated Nonclassical artists Joby Burgess, Klavikon and Peter Gregson. There is plenty going on over the 4 day-long event, all of which is detailed on the official site, here.
Nonclassical Recordings are very proud to present the eagerly awaited sophomore album by Juice Vocal Ensemble, following their critically acclaimed debut Songspin.
Laid Bare: Love Songs is a set of specially commissioned love songs from diverse composers from the worlds of classical, jazz, folk and avant-pop integrated and juxtaposed with a series of covers and adaptations of classic love songs performed by performed by Anna Snow (soprano), Sarah Dacey (soprano), Kerry Andrew (alto).
"...amazing razor-sharp tuning and purity of tone...they held their audience spellbound" (Ivan Hewett, Daily Telegraph)
Commissioned composers include Gavin Bryars, Errollyn Wallen, Anna Meredith, Mica Levi (Micachu and the Shapes), Jim Moray (award-winning folk artist), Phillip Neil Martin and Dai Fujikura. The group also collaborated with MaJiKer (producer and co-writer of the French avant-pop sensation Camille) on covers of classic love songs including Rihanna’s 'Only Girl In The World', Erasure's 'A Little Respect' and 'You Don't Love Me (No No No)’ by Dawn Penn. The album also includes remixes by acclaimed producers including Devil Dandy (Quebec based sound designer and composer), THiMK (British composer specialising in film, videogames, modern dance and theatre ), Broken Hours (based in Portland, Oregon and presenting the album with an beautiful ambient remix) and Clay Gold (author, librettist, sound artist, audio engineer and compulsive field recordist).
Laid Bare: 10 Love Songs was commissioned with the financial support of the Arts Council England, the PRS Foundation for New Music (PRSF), and the Vale of Glamorgan Festival.
Buy Juice Vocal Ensemble "Laid Bare: Love Songs" directly | on iTunes
Nonclassical are heading to northern Europe for two very special concerts in Latvia and Lithuania.
Friday 13th June// Baltais Fligelis, Riga, Latvia
Main concert:
Concerto Pour Vibraphone et Orchestre à Cordes (by Emmanuel Sejourné)
Spheres – G Prokofiev
Concerto for Bass Drum – G Prokofiev
Howl - G Prokofiev
Club:
DJs Gabriel Prokofiev, Nwando Ebizie
Cello Multitracks + remixes
Joby Burgess – percussion set featuring:
Temazcal, Javier Alvarez
Until My Blood Is Pure, Max de Wardener
Fanta®, Gabriel Prokofiev
Electric Counterpoint, Steve Reich
The Boom and The Bap, Matthew Fairclough
Saturday 14th June// Lithuania
DJs Gabriel Prokofiev, Nwando Ebizie
Cello Multitracks + remixes
Joby Burgess – percussion set featuring:
Temazcal, Javier Alvarez
Until My Blood Is Pure, Max de Wardener
Fanta®, Gabriel Prokofiev
Electric Counterpoint, Steve Reich
The Boom and The Bap, Matthew Fairclough
Cornelius Cardew, Treatise
In the 1950s and 60s, composers such as Earle Brown, John Cage, Morton Feldman and Cornelius Cardew experimented with new forms of notation, giving birth to the concept of the graphic score. Using visual symbols to represent sounds in an immediate and expressive way, they created striking visual compositions of breathtaking aesthetic power. These works that ranged from simple elegance to baffling complexity blurred the lines between art and music, and radically opened up performance opportunities to non-formally trained musicians.
For our next night, The Hermes Experiment will perform a free improvisation set inspired by John Cage’s iconic graphic score Variations IV. Ahead of this, make your own graphic score for The Hermes Experiment. Our Battle of the Bands co-winner, Hermes is a new quartet with big ideas and a big sound, plus a unique set of instruments (soprano, clarinet, double bass, and harp). Unapologetically adventurous and fearless, these new kids on the block are shaking up the contemporary classical world through their lively performances and diehard commitment to new music.
For tickets and more info about the 5 June concert, click here
To start your graphic score, it’s simple - just imagine the musical sounds you’d like and start drawing them using any type of visual representation. Squiggles, lines, shapes, words are all welcome - the possibilities are endless.
Once completed, just take a picture of it and share with us over Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram using #graphit. Winning selections will be played on video by Hermes on Nonclassical's Instagram profile - so get your creative juices flowing, paper and pencil ready, and draw out some new sounds...
UPDATE! The Hermes Experiment have now filmed three of the submitted graphic scores (instagram.com/nonclsscl), but you can still submit yours on Twitter or Instragram to be in with a chance of them performing it live on June 5th.
"SPILLIGAN" by Christie O'Regan
On Saturday 17th May Nonclassical presents an exciting night of contemporary classical music in Vienna as part of Classical Next. There will be a live performance of the critically acclaimed work ‘Cello Multitracks’ a suite of contrasting movements for nine layered cello parts composed by Gabriel Prokofiev, performed by Lithuanian cellist Gleb Pyšniak. Renowned German composer Moritz Eggert will play outtakes from his piano oeuvre, in which eccentricity meets "Gemuetlichkeit" and ironic sincerity. There will also be new music from the talented students of the Austrian University for Music and Performing Arts. In true Nonclassical style DJ Nwando Ebizie will be spinning the most stimulating new sounds in experimental, electronica, and contemporary classical music with remixes from the Nonclassical label.
Line-up: Gabriel Prokofiev (UK), Composer & DJ // Moritz Eggert (D), Piano // Gleb Pyšniak (LT/AT), Cello // Students of the MDW University for Music & Performing Arts Vienna + DJ sets by Gabriel Prokofiev and resident DJ Nwando Ebizie (UK)
Saturday 17th May 2014, 8.30pm @ Porgy & Bess
£5 adv / £6 Door (wegottickets)
8.00pm, The Shacklewell Arms
This month Nonclassical travels to the extreme boundaries of ensemble and solo playing, presenting emerging young artists who have exploded onto the contemporary classical scene. We welcome the bold voices of our 2014 Battle of the Bands co-winners The Hermes Experiment, along with adventurous clarinetist Max Welford.
The Hermes Experiment, a newly formed quartet with unique instrumentation (soprano, clarinet, double bass, harp), is on an ambitious mission to shake-up the contemporary classical world, regularly commissioning new works, playing creative rearrangements, and diving into free improvisation. They will give the world premiere of Black Sea by Ed Scolding, an emerging London composer who won Nonclassical’s composition competition last year. The ensemble will also perform selections from the iconic graphic score Variations IV by John Cage, Scenes from the Garden of Love by Jonathan Woolgar (2010 BBC Proms Inspire Young Composers’ Competition Winner), and new arrangements of Bernstein and Gershwin. We are also running our own experiment called Graphit! you can submit your own graphic score for The Hermes Experiment to perform on video, and one will be performed live on June 5th - click here for more information.
Also appearing on the night is emerging clarinetist Max Welford (2014 Park Lane Group Young Artist), who is making major waves in the classical music world. His thoughtful virtuosity and artistry has been praised as “oozing class” (The Guardian) and exuding “rhythmic bite” (The Times). Welford brings his electric energy, gutsy interpretations, and nuanced colours to challenging works for solo clarinet by Bach, Berio, Stravinsky, Jorg Widmann and Tiberiu Olah.
As always Nonclassical resident DJs will be mixing the best in contemporary classical, experimental electronica, and more.
To submit your own graphic score and get it performed by Hermes click here
Join Nonclassical artist Klavikon and DJ Nwando for an evening of beats and blips as they explore groundbreaking electronic repertoire by rule-breakers and mavericks from the 60s to the present day at the Science Museum Lates. A meeting of underground East London club culture, contemporary classical and electronics. You’ll also get a last chance to see the spectacular exhibition, Collider.
Wednesday 30th April 2014 18.45–22.00, Free Entry Science Museum. Exhibition Road, South Kensington London, SW7 2DD
For more info on the Science Museum Lates click here.
Application Deadline - Friday 2nd May 2014 at 6pm Start Date - Monday 19th May 2014, for approximately four months Hours approx. 8-16 hours per week with some room for flexibility Internship is unpaid, however reasonable expenses will be covered
We are looking for an an energetic, organised, and reliable individual with plenty of initiative - and an interest in contemporary classical music - to become part of the team. We will train you up on how to plan and execute creative marketing strategies, live event planning, production and promotion, and give you experience working on every area of our monthly live events, not just the time consuming admin.
Your responsibilities will include:
Collaborate with Marketing Manager on campaign strategies and ideas Manage social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram) Analyse social media data to assess optimal way to engage and increase followers Writing press releases and concert description copy Research, liaise, and develop relationships with external organisations and media contacts Research and create listings Collate press material Assist on editing the newsletter Updating newsletter contacts Working with Events Producer in curating monthly nights by researching musicians/repertoire and contacting musicians Perform front of house duties: compile guestlist, collect email addresses, record attendance and income
Our ideal intern is: Educated to degree level or equivalent, resourceful, organized, methodical, creative, a keen and skilled writer, natural communicator, culture vulture, bursting with creative ideas, a solution finder, and social media lover.
Additional (but definitely not essential) skills: Graphic design, web design, photography, audio & video editing, DJing.
To Apply: Please email your CV (2 sides of A4 maximum) with a covering letter explaining why you would like this internship to Amelia Ideh (amelia@putmeonit.com) by 6pm on Friday 2nd May 2014
We'll be celebrating our 10th anniversary throughout the year with special events and surprises (to be announced very soon), but to get things started The Quietus have done an in-depth interview with label founder and composer Gabriel Prokofiev. The interview covers our history from being a spark of an idea, the very early days, some of the challenges, unexpected moments and triumphs. You can read a snippet below or the full article on their website.
"I'd grown up playing in pop bands and when I was 14 we made a cassette, we photocopied the inlay and with a double tape deck made 120 copies. From that point onwards, I was in the recording world, and it became a natural process that if you write a piece of music you're going to record it. So when I wrote my first string quartet, which was after a considerable break from actually writing classical music I was really pleased with it and I thought I have to record this, but hang on, who's going to release this? In the dance music world there are loads of labels you can approach and you can try, but with classical music there just was nothing, no options.The string quartet that recorded it was the Elysian Quartet, they were really young, they hadn't won a competition, this is 2003 and I was 28, they weren't on the circuit so none of the traditional labels would take them. Me too - I'd just come back to composing, there just wasn't any label that would take me on. I already ran a label with another producer in these studios, that at the time was called Nonstop Recordings, and we were doing some hip hop and electronic music so I knew how it all worked, the structure and I was quite excited about running a label, and then I thought, "What the hell, I'll release it on my own label."...
When traditional record company models no longer work, what next?
It's a question Nonclassical founder Gabriel Prokofiev has been addressing for the past ten years, and on 16th May will be discussing on a panel at Classical Next in Vienna.
Moderated by Gramophone magazine’s James Jolly, Gabriel and fellow innovative music entrepreneurs John Anderson of Odradek Records and Marc Tritschler of the record co-operative Testklang, will discuss topics including peer review-led A&R decision-making, co-operative funding, the recording environment and philosophy, and working with partners to get the message across.
Info:
Friday, 16 May 2014 | 15:00 - 15:45 | Lecture Hall
http://www.classicalnext.com/program/conference/conference_schedule/session_20
We're very excited to be taking part in this years York Spring Festival of New Music, a genre defying weekend (9-11th May) of musical discovery and creativity across the whole City of York.
On Sunday 11th May Nonclassical DJ Nwando Ebizie will be spinning the most stimulating new sounds in experimental, electronica, and contemporary classical music with remixes from the Nonclassical label. There will also be a live performance of the critically acclaimed work ‘Cello Multitracks’ a suite of contrasting movements for nine layered cello parts composed by Gabriel Prokofiev, by a cellist and composer described as "working at the forefront of the new music scene" (The New Yorker), Peter Gregson.
Links
Tickets: http://purchase.tickets.com/buy/TicketPurchase?agency=UNIOFYORK&organ_val=org_id&pid=7698589
It's a pleasure to release this EP by composer Gabriel Prokofiev and cellist Peter Gregson, featuring the track 'Float Dance' plus a series of remixes - the winners of an open remix competition we held. 'Float Dance' is taken from the album Cello Multitracks, released in 2011 to critical acclaim from The Times, The Independent, Gramophone, and others. Float Dance EP - NONCLSS014y (Listen / Buy)
Tracklisting
