The Gentlest Chord (Monday, 7th June 2021) • City, University of London

As half of our 2021 on-line City Summer Sounds pageant, we current a various choice of the brand new music created by our undergraduate composers. Throughout 2020 and 2021, our college students participated in workshops with acclaimed improvising musicians Cath Roberts and Tom Ward, and mezzo-soprano Lucy Goddard, to create open scores, graphic scores and absolutely notated works, reflecting a vibrant vary of inspirations and dealing strategies.

The live performance will comprise alternatives from these exploratory periods, alongside repertoire for solo voice by Morton Feldman, Barbara Monk Feldman and Aaron Einbond, and group improvisations.

All live performance occasions within the collection will probably be livestreamed on Youtube and will probably be free to view. Please register utilizing the button above to obtain the streaming hyperlinks nearer to the date of the occasion.

Programme to incorporate:

Lucy Goddard (mezzo-soprano):

  • Ellen Wakelin, Silence
  • Alex Manolache, Élégie
  • Audrey Han, Possible
  • Aaron Einbond, Mary Garden
  • Barbara Monk Feldman, The Gentlest Chord (1991)
  • Morton Feldman, Only (1947)

Cath Roberts, Tom Ward (saxophones), Tullis Rennie (trombone):

  • Graphic scores by Ali Roohbanyeivazi, James Bickers, Tristan Wong
  • Improvisations

Cath Roberts by Palma Fiacco, Tullis Rennie and Tom Ward by Agata Urbaniak.

Cath Roberts‘ work explores free improvisation, composition and the music at their assembly level. Her major outlet as a composer and improviser on baritone saxophone is the quintet Sloth Racket, which has toured broadly and launched a number of albums in addition to increasing into the ten piece improvising ensemble Favourite Animals. As bandmate, Cath is a member of a number of teams together with Madwort Sax Quartet, Article XI and MoonMot. She has a long-standing duo with guitarist Anton Hunter, in addition to common collaborations with Tullis Rennie, Benedict Taylor, Alex Bonney, Seth Bennett and others. Cath co-runs LUME with Dee Byrne, producing live shows, excursions and festivals since 2013 and releasing music on the Luminous label. With Tom Ward and Colin Webster she organises BRÅK, an improvised music collection going down in Brockley, South East London.

Tom Ward is a musician, composer and pc programmer from Yorkshire, at the moment primarily based in London. His major instrument stays the saxophone, however in recent times he has more and more targeted on bass clarinet and flutes. Tom leads a quantity of teams taking part in his personal compositions (together with Madwort Saxophone Quartet and Madwort’s Menagerie), in addition to collaborating on a quantity of freely improvised and collective teams together with Cotovelo (PortaJazz), Spinningwork, Ma/ti/om, and an ever-shifting selection of duos and trios. He additionally co-runs the common BRÅK evening, an improvised music gig in a South London homebrew store that has hosted such improvisers as John Edwards, Corey Mwamba, Charlotte Keeffe and extra. As a side-person, he has toured/carried out with Overground Collective, Beats & Pieces Big Band, Favourite Animals, Porpoise Corpus and lots of extra. In 2020, he was closely concerned in Noise Orchestra’s Autonomous Noise Unit (ANU) venture, constructing an easy-to-use standalone JackTrip machine, in addition to doing dwell web broadcasts from mulitple areas utilizing JackTrip for London Improviser’s Orchestra (LIO) and Sloth Racket.

Tullis Rennie is a composer, improvising trombonist, digital musician, and subject recordist. His work encompasses sound set up, community-engaged participative initiatives, multi-channel live performance works, combined media and dwell/improvised performances. He is co-founder of Walls On Walls with visible artist Laurie Nouchka, and founder member of the Insectotròpics audio-visual collective, primarily based in Barcelona. He curates the multi.modal label with Claudia Molitor. His work has been offered at live shows and festivals throughout 20 nations, alongside UK nationwide broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 and ResonanceFM. In 2019 he collaborated on Molitor’s Decay venture, touring quite a few worldwide festivals together with Sound of Stockholm, TRANSIT, NovemberMusic and hcmf//. His writing has been revealed in Organised Sound and Leonardo Music Journal. He options on releases by the Luminous label, ZeroWave and Efpi Records.

Lucy Goddard is a passionate exponent of modern music.  As a member of EXAUDI she has carried out on the main UK festivals and venues, together with Spitalfields, Aldeburgh, Huddersfield and Southbank.  In 2017-18 she toured An American Songbook, a recital of avant-garde tune and new commissions, with pianist Siwan Rhys, following a Snape Maltings residency. This 12 months Lucy and Siwan will file discs of music by Michael Finnissy and James Weeks.  Lucy can be in demand in additional conventional fare and has carried out as a soloist with teams such because the Academy of Ancient Music, in venues together with the Wigmore Hall.  Stage appearances embody Hänsel, Annio La Clemenza di Tito, Dorabella Così fan tutte, and Zerlina Don Giovanni.  In addition to her singing work she conducts the Orlando Chamber Choir. She graduated with distinction for her Masters on the Royal Academy of Music, having beforehand learn Languages at Cambridge University, and spent a 12 months finding out violin on the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole.

Lucy Goddard

Lucy Goddard by Dimitri Djuric.

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