What' On Contemporary and New Music Jan - Apr '19

CONTEMPORARY AND NEW MUSIC

JA N – A PR 2019

TUE 29 JAN

TRASH TV TRANCE

0121 331 5909 | BCU.AC.UK/CONCERTS /RoyalBirmCons

@BirmCons

Birmingham City University

Trash TV Trance

TUE 29 JAN

TRASH TV TRANCE 7pm Centrala, 158 Fazeley St, Birmingham B5 5RT £5 includes free drink, tickets available on the door Produced by Serge Vuille and Adrian Spillett Millennial Percussion Simon Aeschimann electric guitar Chris Roberts guitar Yfat Soul Zisso singer Programme to include: Guo Wenjing Drama Fausto Romitelli Trash TV Trance György Ligeti Síppal, dobbal, nádihegedüvel Fumiko Miyachi Stratified By popular demand, Millennial Percussion return to Centrala. This first of two shows sees the incredibly diverse guitarist, Simon Aeschimann feature alongside percussionists and composers from Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. World premières by local composer Fumiko Miyachi and the extraordinary work, Síppal, dobbal, nádihegedüvel by Ligeti for mezzo-soprano and percussion promise to make for a high-energy evening of contrasts bringing together Trash, TV and Trance. *Commission kindly supported by Hinrichsen Foundation

WED 30 JAN

#BIRMINGHAMNEWMUSIC 7pm The Lab £8 (£6)

Tin Men and the Telephone

THU 7 FEB

TIN MEN AND THE TELEPHONE Eastside Jazz Club 6.30pm Support: Steve Saunders 7.45pm Main Show £13 Tickets available from www.thsh.co.uk Tony Roe piano and electronics Jamie Peet drums Pat Cleaver bass Tin Men and the Telephone have made a name for themselves with their innovative use of technology and multimedia – and following their four-concert residency with us back in November, the Amsterdambased jazz giants are back.

Join Tony and the band for what The Times have described as ‘a 21st-century gig in which multimedia gadgetry and a sense of mischief combine to create something fresh and unexpected.’

Frontiers presents a concert of new works by Royal Birmingham Conservatoire composers, featuring a wide range of styles utilising the flexible layout of the Lab in creative and inventive ways.

FURTHER PROGRAMME DETAILS AVAILABLE AT WWW.BCU.AC.UK/CONCERTS

TUE 19 FEB

MON 25 FEB

STRING MOTION SENSOR

FRONTIERS: RECORDER FUTURES

7pm Centrala, 158 Fazeley St, Birmingham B5 5RT

7pm Recital Hall

£5 includes free drink, tickets available on the door

£8 (£6)

Produced by Serge Vuille and Adrian Spillett Millennial Percussion Maximillian Haft electric violin Serge Vuille percussion

Royal Birmingham Conservatoire recorder department musicians perform new and innovative works exploring the use of electronics and sound treatments.

Programme to include Sarah Nemtsov Drummed Variation Christopher Lortie Jouska Steven Snowden A Man With a Gun Lives Here Steve Reich Four Organs Michael Daugherty Lex Millennial Percussion return to Centrala, this time in collaboration with musicians from Ensemble Contrechamps and Royal Birmingham Conservatoire’s Stage Management Department. This show sees the incredibly diverse violinist, Maximillian Haft and percussionist, Serge Vuille feature alongside percussionists from Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Don’t miss Steve Reich’s remarkable and rarely performed, Four Organs, alongside some amazing pieces using music technology.

This programme is an invitation to take a fresh look at the symbiotic relationship between musical sound and motion.

Don’t miss the prequel, Trash TV Trance on Tue 29 Jan.

Music by Donnacha Dennehey, Jesper Nordin, Annette Ziegenmeyer and Roderik de Man, as well as Royal Birmingham Conservatoire composers.

WED 27 FEB

INTEGRA LAB SHOWCASE 4pm The Lab £8 (£6) Integra Lab presents a selection of interactive music technology performances showcasing staff research and performance collaborations. Exploring live electronics, gestural controllers and music interaction design, this concert will feature exciting new works.

WED 6 MAR

THE ANDREW DOWNES PERFORMANCE PRIZE FRI 22 FEB

ROYAL BIRMINGHAM CONSERVATOIRE COMPOSER’S ORCHESTRA 7pm The Bradshaw Hall £8 (£6) Conductor Daniele Rosina Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Composer’s Orchestra

7pm Recital Hall £8 (£6) Sponsor of this prize, Andrew Downes was Head of Composition and Creative Studies at Birmingham Conservatoire from 1990 to 2005. Well-respected as a composer around the world, the prize requires entrants to perform a programme of his music along with that of other British composers born after 1949, as they compete to win an impressive cash prize and recital opportunity.

This exciting concert is the culmination of an intensive four days of rehearsals with conductor Daniele Rosina and Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Composer’s Orchestra.

The four composers presenting new works are James Abel, Hugo Bell, Alvin Ka Cheuk Kwok and Matthew Trembling. Come and listen to brand new works for the orchestral medium.

FURTHER PROGRAMME DETAILS AVAILABLE AT WWW.BCU.AC.UK/CONCERTS

WED 6 MAR

TUE 19 MAR

#BIRMINGHAMNEWMUSIC

FRONTIERS: STEVE POTTER

7pm The Lab

HAM-HANDED: VIDEO, WORDS AND MUSIC FOR PIANO PLAYERS APART

£8 (£6) Frontiers presents a concert of new works by Royal Birmingham Conservatoire composers, featuring a wide range of styles utilising the flexible layout of the Lab in creative and inventive ways.

MON 18 MAR

LINES/REDGRAVE/MCCARTHY TRIO

7pm The Lab £8 (£6) Steve Potter concept and music K. Yoland video and direction Manrutt Wongkaew costume Mette Slot Johnsen producer Alex Grauze piano Potter/Yoland/Wongkaew HAM-HANDED: video, words and music for piano players apart (world première)

5.30pm Organ Studio £10 (£8) Tim Lines clarinet Rose Redgrave viola Eliza McCarthy piano This trio is a flexible chamber music group that brings a fresh perspective and energy to established repertoire as well as being strong advocates of new music. This afternoon, they perform music by Royal Birmingham Conservatoire composers.

Riadh Bouassab, Oliver Hayne, Bingxu Hou, Charlie Kedge, Angelina Kuznetsova, Adam Parry-Davies and Jonah Raes have been working closely with the trio.

In this collaboration between composer Steve Potter, video artist K. Yoland and fashion choreographer Manrutt Wongkaew, an ambiguously gendered, white, pianist playing on a cheap keyboard attempts to play along with a Cecil Taylor improvisation from 1981 shown on a screen. After a while on a 2nd screen James Baldwin appears and critiques ‘living life by habit and imitation’.

At this point the pianist panics that they have made an interracial faux-pas but continues to play noisily along. Captions intervene to try to make sense of it all.

TUE 26 MAR

CREATIVE INTERACTIVE MUSIC TECHNOLOGY SHOWCASE 6pm The Lab £8 (£6) Students from Royal Birmingham Conservatoire’s Postgraduate programme present a selection of new and exciting works that combine interactive technologies with musical performance.

Spanning a broad range of genres, expect performances that examine ways in which technologies—new and old—can be used to generate, expose and explore musical ideas using novel and unconventional approaches.

FURTHER PROGRAMME DETAILS AVAILABLE AT WWW.BCU.AC.UK/CONCERTS

WED 27 MAR

SITARSCAPES

Hard Rain Ensemble

6pm The Lab £8 (£6) Chithrinie Wijayakulathilaka sitar Will Crawford guitar Merlin Jones cajon Maja Pluta violin

Sitarscapes brings together the soulful Indian sitar mixed with electronics, in what promises to be an exciting concert from the subterranean depths of The Lab. In this performance, Chithrinie explores a crossover between Indian classical music and a variety of genres, including flamenco, jazz and electronic music, supported by an ensemble of western musicians.

THU 28 MAR

(RE)APROPOS 8pm The Lab £8 (£6) Jessie Marino Commitment :: Ritual I :: BiiM Maximilian Marcoll Amproprification #6 Hugo Bell New Work Nicole Lizée Softcore Dan Cippico New Work Cassandra Miller Bel Canto Featuring music by pioneering international composers and two new Royal Birmingham Conservatoire composition works, (re)apropos presents different approaches to how musical ‘appropriation’ has been used as a compositional tool in the 21st century.

FRI 29 MAR

HARD RAIN SOLOISTS ENSEMBLE: ACROSS THE POND 7.30pm The Bradshaw Hall £10 (£8) Conductor Sinead Hayes Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble Aisling Agnew flutes Sarah Watts clarinets Joanne Quigley McParland violin Dave McCann cello Daniel Browell piano Alex Petcu percussion Perry Goldstien Twittering Machines Elizabeth Kelly Into the Depths John Zorn Hexentarrot Greg Caffrey Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold Piers Hellawell Ground Truthing Joe Cutler Archie Elliott Carter Triple Duo To celebrate Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble’s fifth anniversary they revisit the monumental and challenging Triple Duo from Elliott Carter as well as work from his compatriots, resulting in a programme with a strong USA thread, albeit a broad stylistic variety.

There are also two brand new pieces; firstly Ground Truthing by Piers Hellawell, and then the latest work from Greg Caffrey completing his Yeats trilogy, Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. Finally, we have a work from our very own Joe Cutler; his piano trio, Archie.

FURTHER PROGRAMME DETAILS AVAILABLE AT WWW.BCU.AC.UK/CONCERTS

George Kirkham, Fumiko Miyachi, Susie Perkis

MON 1 APR

SUSIE PURKIS/GEORGE KIRKHAM/ FUMIKO MIYACHI

Decibel

7pm The Lab

TUE 2 APR

£8 (£6)

DECIBEL PLAY ED BENNETT

Voice, percussion and piano – not your standard trio, is it?! Come and find out how our composers, Lily Lorrain-Smith, Tristan Kersten, Cornelius O’Driscoll, Adam Pennington, Antonio Daprile, Cat Mole, Katie Ellwood and Kunling Liu have tackled the challenge of writing for this unusual setup, and be the first to experience eight brand new pieces.

7pm The Lab Composer / Artistic Director / Electronics Ed Bennett Conductor Daniele Rosina Mira Benjamin violin Neil McGovern saxophones Michelle Holloway recorders Jack McNeil clarinets Martyn Sanderson trombone Paul Norman electric guitar Sebastiano Dessanay bass Eliza McCarthy piano Damien Harron percussion This handpicked ensemble of amazing musicians present a high energy programme ranging from wild and driving polyrhythmic workouts to delicate moments of stillness and quiet introspection, featuring some of the most outstanding contemporary performers working in new music today.

“

T H I S I S H I G H - O C TA N E M U S I C T H AT P O U N D S A W A Y, D E M A N D I N G T H E L I S T E N E R ’ S AT T E N T I O N

” CLASSICAL MUSIC MAGAZINE ON DECIBEL *****

£10 (£8)

Decibel premiere Ed Bennett’s new work for cello and amplified ensemble, Song of the Books, alongside works written especially for the group by maverick composers Laurence Crane, Egidija Medeksaite and others.

Decibel gratefully acknowledges the support of the PRSF Composers fund.

FURTHER PROGRAMME DETAILS AVAILABLE AT WWW.BCU.AC.UK/CONCERTS

Dan Watson

FRI 5 APR

THALLEIN ENSEMBLE AND THUMB CONTEMPORARY MUSIC ENSEMBLE 7pm Recital Hall

THU 4 APR

DECIBEL PLAY WORKS BY ROYAL BIRMINGHAM CONSERVATOIRE COMPOSERS 7pm The Lab £10 (£8) Composer / Artistic Director / Electronics Ed Bennett Conductor Daniele Rosina Mira Benjamin violin Neil McGovern saxophones Michelle Holloway recorders Jack McNeil clarinets Martyn Sanderson trombone Paul Norman electric guitar Sebastiano Dessanay bass Eliza McCarthy piano Damien Harron percussion In this special concert, Decibel present seven brand new works by Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Composers Georgia Denham, Henryk Golden, Simon Paton, Kailan Barton-Porter, Hugo Bell and Millicent James. Expect the unexpected in this evening performance which is the culmination of a three-day project working with the composers.

£10 (£8) Conductor Dan Watson Stuart Stevens Inner Ring Stuart Stevens All About and to a Female Artist

All About and to a Female Artist is a highly engaging music-theatre work that combines the personal stories of a working-class heroine (Shelagh Delaney) with some of the most virtuosic music recently written. It is Stuart Stevens’ masterpiece, which he realised a few months before his sudden death in February 2016. The work was written entirely using 31-tone equal temperament to create new harmony, melody and texture, immersive soundscapes mixed with dramatic speech producing a music-theatre-opera mix.

This melodrama celebrates ordinary people’s lives, which is also an enduring legacy of Delaney’s “Kitchen Sink Realism” writing style.

WED 10 APR

#BIRMINGHAMNEWMUSIC 7pm The Lab £8 (£6) Frontiers presents a concert of new works by Royal Birmingham Conservatoire composers, featuring a wide range of styles utilising the flexible layout of the Lab in creative and inventive ways.

FURTHER PROGRAMME DETAILS AVAILABLE AT WWW.BCU.AC.UK/CONCERTS

TUE 30 APR

PERFORMING WITH TECHNOLOGY 7pm The Lab £8 (£6) Students from Royal Birmingham Conservatoire’s Postgraduate programme present a selection of new and exciting works that combine interactive technologies with musical performance. Spanning a broad range of genres, expect performances that examine ways in which technologies – new and old – can be used to generate, expose and explore musical ideas using novel and unconventional approaches.

SUPPORTERS & EVENT FUNDERS

HOW TO FIND US Royal Birmingham Conservatoire is situated at 200 Jennens Road, Birmingham B4 7XR, opposite Aston University and behind Millennium Point.

PARKING

There is a multi-storey car park owned and managed

by Birmingham City Council situated adjacent to Millennium Point. The car park entrance is on Howe Street off Jennens Road. If you are using a sat nav please use the postcode B4 7AP.

BUS ROUTES Please note all listings correct at time of going to press.

The 14, 55 and 66 all go from Priory Queensway (Argos) and stop on Jennens Road. There is a stop almost opposite Royal Birmingham Conservatoire with a pedestrian crossing nearby.

ACCESSIBILITY

Wheelchair users are entitled to concessionary priced tickets with a complimentary companion seat. Guide Dogs are welcome at all Royal Birmingham Conservatoire venues. If you wish to bring a Guide Dog or wheelchair, please let the Events Office know by calling 0121 331 5909.

BOOK NOW AT WWW.BCU.AC.UK/CONCERTS