CONTEMPORARY AND NEW MUSIC
OC T – DEC 2018
0121 331 5909 | BCU.AC.UK/CONCERTS /RoyalBirmCons
@BirmCons
Birmingham City University
FRI 19 & SAT 20 OCT
QUILT SONG 7pm The Old Rep Theatre FREE ADMISSION Produced by Selfmademusic and The Old Rep Theatre Conductor Susie Self Director White Raven Selfmademusic Singers and Orchestra Maureen Brathwaite and Elizabeth Cragg sopranos The Alma Guitar Trio: Hannah Woollacott, Jonnie Cumming, Rowan McConkey Chris Brannick percussion
Torbjörn Hultmark Dr Paul Norman photo by Jubal Battisti / Paul Norman
Young singers from Birmingham Ormiston Academy Susie Self Quilt Song the opera
Quilt Song is a new upbeat opera composed for the Birmingham community celebrating social inclusivity using quilting as a metaphor. Its première is exactly 100 years after John Drinkwater’s play Abraham Lincoln opened at the same theatre.
Dr Andy Ingamells photo by Paul Blakemore
TUE 30 OCT
SONGS WITHOUT WORDS 2pm The Lab FREE ADMISSION Robert Ashley Tract Annea Lockwood Duende Alvin Lucier Music for Baritone and Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillators Phill Niblock ‘As Yet Untitled’
£10 (£8) austraLUYSIS Torbjörn Hultmark trumpet, soprano trombone, composer live electronics Roger Dean piano, composer, live electronics
3.30pm Workshop 2 Dr Paul Norman (Royal Birmingham Conservatoire): Finding a Place for Bob and Cynthia
Dr Andy Ingamells (Royal Birmingham Conservatoire): Reading, character and playing
By appropriating the structure of one of his short video works, Bob and Cynthia, Paul Norman will highlight the potential of producing artistic works, and reflecting upon them, as a critical and robust method for artistic research.
“Don’t read this, it’s not for you. Do you want to risk being bored? Well, OK then. Compositional rules excite me because they generate actions in which sounds may occur. Your presence is required for music. If you’re not here then you’ve missed out, so I won’t describe what happens. But don’t worry, there’s plenty of other things to listen to, although it’s better to make a piece than to perform, to perform than to listen, to listen than to hear.”
The presentation will comprise spoken/written text, video and live performative actions through which he will embody the compositional approach as a ‘lecture performance’.
For more than 40 years, baritone Thomas Buckner has dedicated himself to the world of new and improvised music. Buckner has collaborated with a host of new music composers including Robert Ashley, Annea Lockwood, Roscoe Mitchell, and Pauline Oliveros amongst many others. He has made appearances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Herbst Theatre, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Ostrava Days Festival, the Prague Spring Festival, and the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.
Dr Paul Norman is a composer whose practice places emphasis on ideas and concepts and includes visual and performative elements in both the composition process and performance. Norman has shown solo projects and interdisciplinary collaborations together with dance, fine art and theatre, across Europe.
Songs Without Words, for voice (no text) and electronics presents work written for, and dedicated to Thomas Buckner by some of the most pioneering composers in experimental music. FURTHER PROGRAMME DETAILS AVAILABLE AT WWW.BCU.AC.UK/CONCERTS
DEEP BRASS, DEEP VOICE: BRASS, VOICE AND POETRY MEET DEEP LEARNING 1pm The Lab
PUBLIC RESEARCH SEMINAR DOUBLE BILL: PAUL NORMAN AND ANDY INGAMELLS £5
TUE 23 OCT
FRI 2 NOV
Dr Andy Ingamells is an experimental musician who develops unusual methods of composition that blur the line between composer and performer. He has filled taxis with recorder players reading traffic lights as notation, played gold-painted pianos overflowing with buckets of red wallpaper paste, and been tickled by improvisors playing his ticklish body as an instrument.
Two international leaders in their fields present a performance featuring music for soprano trombone and piano in the context of electroacoustic sound, image and performed text. A special feature of this programme is performanceinteraction with computational deep learning, used here for music and text generation and for timbral transformation.
TUE 6 NOV
THE 2018 PHILIP BATES PRIZE FOR COMPOSERS AND SONGWRITERS 7pm The Lab £8 (£6) Join us for our annual celebration of new compositions for small instrumental ensembles and young composers from all over the UK, between the ages of 16 and 25, who have been able to submit works in any style, as long as they are for one or two vocalists, and between two to five players.
FURTHER PROGRAMME DETAILS AVAILABLE AT WWW.BCU.AC.UK/CONCERTS
WED 14 & THU 15 NOV
FRI 16 NOV
ANA RUTTER: SHEE WATER #3 2018 INSTALLATION
THALLEIN ENSEMBLE
12pm – 6pm Level 0, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire
£10 (£8) ticket entitles you to drinks offer at Boult’s Bar
FREE ADMISSION
Conductor Daniele Rosina Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Thallein Ensemble
The series ‘Shee Water 2018’ are pieces created using video and audio gathered in the Cairngorm national park in June 2018 exploring the remediating of micro elements of gathered material to create the event and atmosphere of a moment.
7pm The Bradshaw Hall
Dobrinka Tabakova Fantasy homage to Schubert Joe Cutler Akhmatova Fragments Emily Abdy new piece Maarten Benschop new piece
Ana Rutter is a visual artist and is currently conducting a practice-based PhD at B.C.U. School of Art.
Tonight’s concert has an Eastern European focus, featuring music by the GRAMMY nominated Dobrinka Tabakova who is Composer-in-Association with the BBC Concert Orchestra. Alongside this is a substantial song-cycle by Joe Cutler which sets the Russian poetry of Anna Akhmatova. This piece is included on Cutler’s new CD, Elsewhereness, which is released on 16 October by NMC Recordings. Completing the programme are brand new works by Royal Birmingham Conservatoire composition students, Emily Abdy and Maarten Benschop.
THU 15 NOV
INTEGRA LAB 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.
FRI 9 NOV
MARC AINGER
MON 26 – THU 29 NOV
5.30pm The Lab
TIN MEN AND THE TELEPHONE RESIDENCY
£8 (£6) Ann Stimson (flute) and Marc Ainger (composer and laptop performer) present a concert of music that extends the flute into the sound world of the acousmatic; music with video; and purely acousmatic music. ‘Sultry, smart-alecky flute and voice parts were refried by Ainger’s machinery – but with a refreshingly roughhewn quality. Disjointed shifts in the sound spectrum were reminiscent of Godard’s jerky jump-cut approach to film editing – viewing events from different angles and different temporal attitudes. Pregnant pauses spilled into sudden densities, and the jumbled whole was graced with a sort of ironic suspense factor.’ Josef Woodward, Los Angeles Times
FURTHER PROGRAMME DETAILS AVAILABLE AT WWW.BCU.AC.UK/CONCERTS
Mon 26 11pm – 12.30am The Lab Tue 27 – Thu 29 5.30pm The Lab FREE ADMISSION Tony Roe piano and electronics Jamie Peet drums Pat Cleaver bass Marcel Wierckx media programming Matthew Herbert creative advisor
The Creative Advisor for this residency is British electronic musician and producer, Matthew Herbert who will be working alongside the group during the residency, where you become the fourth member of the band.
Mark Marijnissen and Stijn van de Pol programming
“A 21st-century gig in which multimedia gadgetry and a sense of mischief combined to create something fresh and unexpected. Roe and his friends were reminding us — in captivating style — that jazz can be fun and profound at the same time.”
Immerse yourself in a series of participatory performances where random words become lyrics and everyday sounds become melodies, as performers create compositions in real-time based on your suggestions. Download the Tinmendo app and arrive armed with a fully-charged smartphone to get involved in this exciting, multi-faceted residency with the highlyacclaimed Amsterdam-based Tin Men and the Telephone.
***** The Times (Ronnie Scott’s 2017)
FURTHER PROGRAMME DETAILS AVAILABLE AT WWW.BCU.AC.UK/CONCERTS
FRONTIERS + FERNEYHOUGH Coventry-born Brian Ferneyhough celebrates his 75th birthday this year - and to celebrate, BCMG are joined by the Arditti String Quartet to perform his music here in the heart of the Midlands. Ferneyhough’s music is renowned for its interwoven lines and it hums with activity. In Dum Transisset I-IV we hear the composer’s tribute to Christopher Tye, a sixteenthcentury composer and organist; La Chute d’Icare conjures Icarus’s stunning achievement of flight, thwarted by his hubris; and Funérailles reflects on pianist and composer Franz Liszt’s work of the same name written over a century earlier.
Roderick Williams
Emily Levy
Rommi Smith
Photo by Sara Teresa
TUE 11 DEC
RODERICK WILLIAMS AND SUSIE ALLAN: LADS AND LASSES
In Partnership with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
LUNCHTIME MUSIC
1.05pm The Bradshaw Hall £15 (£12) add lunch for £5 Roderick Williams baritone Susie Allan piano
SUN 9 DEC
SUN 9 DEC
BRIAN FERNEYHOUGH IN CONVERSATION WITH HOWARD SKEMPTON
BCMG: IDEAL & FLYING HEIGHT
12pm – 1.15pm Eastside Jazz Club
£15, £5 students
FREE ADMISSION
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group Oliver Janes solo clarinet Arditti String Quartet Conductor Emilio Pomarico
R O YA L B I R M I N G H A M C O N S E R VAT O I R E
4pm The Bradshaw Hall I n c o n j u n c t i o n w i t h G r e a te r B i r m i n g h a m C h a m b e r s o f C o m m e r c e
SUN 9 DEC
ARDITTI STRING QUARTET WITH NEXT STUDENT PERFORMERS
Brian Ferneyhough La Chute d’Icare Brian Ferneyhough Funérailles I & II Jonathan Harvey Scena Charlotte Bray Beneath the Dawn Horizon Michael Wolters Funeral Concerto
2.15pm Recital Hall £8 (£6) Marie Christine Zupancic flute Ferneyhough Cassandra’s Dream Song
Schubert / Müller Gute Nacht Cecilia McDowall / John Greening A stranger I came out here Schubert / Rellstab Ständchen Cecilia McDowall / John Greening After Ständchen Schubert / Müller Mine Cecilia McDowall / John Greening At the wheel Schubert / Müller Tears like rain Emily Levy / Rommi Smith The Rain is Coming Schubert / Müller The Brook sings a lullaby
LUNCH OFFER Make the most of your afternoon in Boult’s Bar by adding lunch for £5. Choose from a delicious sandwich or soup with bread and drink - book in advance with your ticket purchase.
We are delighted to welcome one of the finest English voices of his generation, Roderick Williams, visiting consultant in vocal performance at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, who is joined by the exceptional pianist, Susie Allan. The second half of this concert features a brand new songcycle from composer Emily Levy and writer Rommi Smith, The Rain is Coming, a response from a female perspective to Schubert’s Die schöne Mullerin. These new songs expand themes raised in the original work, adding a contemporary interpretation to the story. This unique mini song-cycle for voice and piano crosses both genre and artistic divides and offers a new perspective on Schubert’s iconic work.
‘Roderick Williams is a national treasure. Acutely responsive to the sound and meaning of words, his approach to the English Romantic song repertoire is revelatory. Susie Allan lingers tellingly over an important detail in the piano writing just at the right moment to complement Williams’ exquisite interpretation.’ BBC Music Magazine
TUE 11 DEC
Performances from NEXT Musicians
ELECTRIC SOUND
Arditti String Quartet Ferneyhough Dum Transisset I-IV
6pm The Lab
As part of this special celebration, the inaugural cohort of NEXT Musicians will feature alongside performances of the music of Brian Ferneyhough from BCMG flautist, Marie Christine Zupancic and the Arditti String Quartet. FURTHER PROGRAMME DETAILS AVAILABLE AT WWW.BCU.AC.UK/CONCERTS
£8 (£6) Expect exciting, original and unconventional sounds as members of the Music Technology department present new works exploring the confluence of technology and music. FURTHER PROGRAMME DETAILS AVAILABLE AT WWW.BCU.AC.UK/CONCERTS
WED 12 DEC
#BIRMINGHAMNEWMUSIC 7pm The Lab ÂŁ8 (ÂŁ6) Frontiers presents a concert of new works by Royal Birmingham Conservatoire composers. This concert will feature a wide range of styles and utilise the layout of the Lab to its maximum.
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