Frontiers Festival: Extraordinary Music From Downtown New York And Birmingham by Royal Birmingham Conservatoire

A WARM

WELCOME TO FRONTIERS FESTIVAL 2014 ‘Downtown New York’ is the term given to the musical and artistic scene which began in New York in the 1960s. Artists began to use non-traditional venues, such as lofts and industrial spaces, to make and perform experimental music and art. The rule book was torn up; it was a case of anything goes. This spring, Frontiers Festival brings to Birmingham an extraordinary array of some of the seminal composers, creative musicians, and film-makers associated with the ‘Downtown New York’ scene. For the first time in the UK, we gather together a group of individuals who have collectively re-defined artistic boundaries and notions of genre, placing their work alongside that of a new generation of Birmingham-based composers and artists who themselves are questioning all that we take for granted. What both generations of artists have in common is that their work is visceral, immediate, challenging, nonconformist, irreverent, at times laugh-out-loud funny, and at others deeply moving. Birmingham Conservatoire has in recent years emerged as one of Europe’s most adventurous conservatoires and our contemporary music festival, Frontiers Festival, as one of the UK’s most ambitious, with recent features on Louis Andriessen, Heiner Goebbels and Pierre Boulez. In addition, we are part of one of the UK's most progressive universities, Birmingham City University, with its concentration of unique creative schools. We are fortunate in Birmingham to have a culture of co-operation and partnership, which is the only way we could bring together a festival with this scale and ambition. We are grateful to everyone who is supporting and contributing to Frontiers Festival and in particular we would like to thank Arts Council England, Hotel La Tour, Yorks Bakery Café, Chiltern Rail, Marketing Birmingham, UK Guitar Shows, Laney Amps, Rotosound, Library of Birmingham, Ikon Gallery, BCMG, Town Hall Symphony Hall and Flatpack Film Festival. Welcome to Frontiers Festival 2014. We hope that you enjoy delving into the extraordinary world that our artists present. David Saint (Principal), Joe Cutler (Head of Composition) and Michael Wolters (Deputy Head of Composition)

W WW.FRO N T I ERSM U SI C.ORG

CONTENTS P. 05 P. 06-07 P. 08-09 P. 11

FESTIVAL INTRODUCTION FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS FESTIVAL TIMETABLE A NEW GENERATION OF CREATIVE TALENT

FRONTIERS FESTIVAL PART 1 (22 MARCH - 5 APRIL) P. 14-15 VISUAL MUSIC P. 17 NEW GENERATION ARTS #1 P. 18 EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC #1: PAULINE OLIVEROS P. 19 EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC #2: APARTMENT HOUSE & DECIBEL P. 20 EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC #3 PLUS SOME EXTRAORDINARY SPOKEN WORD P. 21 NEW GENERATION ARTS #2 P. 23 EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC #4: ELLIOTT SHARP P. 24-25 EXTRAORDINARY FILM P. 26 EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC #5: OBJECT COLLECTION P. 27 EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC #6: ROBERT ASHLEY P. 28-29-30 MUSICAL MARATHON #1: FESTIVAL IN A DAY P. 31 NEW GENERATION ARTS #3 P. 32-33 EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC #7: THALLEIN ENSEMBLE P. 34-35 WALKS, TALKS & HAPPENINGS

FRONTIERS FESTIVAL PART 2 (2 - 8 JUNE) P. 37 P. 38-39 P. 40-41 P. 42 P. 43 P.44 P.45 P.46

NEW GENERATION ARTS #4 MUSICAL MARATHON #2: THE MONKATHON EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC #8: RHYS CHATHAM EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC #9: WARREN SMITH EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC #10: DAVID LANG BOOKING INFORMATION SPONSORS & PARTNERS VENUE MAP 3

FRONTIERS FESTIVAL 2014: “I was much surprised at the place, but more at the people. They were a species I had never seen; they possessed a vivacity I had never beheld: I had been among dreamers, but now I saw men awake: their very step along the street shewed alacrity. I had been taught to consider the whole twenty-four hours as appropriated for sleep, but I found a people satisfied with only half that number.” William Hutton (1741), Birmingham’s first historian

“Birmingham is intelligent, but in the American way.” Alexis de Tocqueville, 1835

SEEKING THE ‘EXTRA’ IN THE ‘ORDINARY’ OF NEW YORK & BIRMINGHAM Imagine walking along Birmingham’s Soho Road, lost in your thoughts…and then suddenly realising that you’re now in SoHo, New York. Perhaps this might be some legendary Soho, neither ‘SOuth of HandswOrth’ nor ‘SOuth of HOuston’, neither balti nor bagel… Frontiers Festival is an invitation to lose yourself in a parallel world - not a fantasy of yellow cabs, Times Square, Sinatra’s ‘city that never sleeps’, the ‘bright lights’ and bossanova where ‘you can forget all your troubles’ of Petula Clark’s hit Downtown, nor the place ‘where all the hippies go to be seen’ of Neil Young’s Downtown. The Downtown that Frontiers Festival offers is an experience of being more alive, super alert, astonished by sounds, performance, poetry, film and visual music that has changed your world. Dig a little beneath the surface of the culture around us and you’ll find a network of connections to the energy, ideas and ingenuity of this scene. Looking at the night sky, we can see the glittering of stars, but we know these celestial bodies are bright with the explosive heat of creation. On every page of this programme you will find work that seeks the ‘extra’ in the ‘ordinary’, offering experiences that are joyful, hilarious, ecstatic, surreal and generous. The musicians, artists and poets who make these experiences have done it their own way, creating paths into new realities that we’re invited to follow, where we might discover, to our surprise, that we are enchanted and more attuned to ourselves than we feel we have any right to be. Just don’t expect reality to be quite the same afterwards. Ed McKeon - Festival Curator

Festival Producers: Birmingham Conservatoire and Third Ear Principal Funders: Arts Council England and Birmingham City University Media Partners: What’s On West Midlands, BBC Radio 3 Accommodation Partner: Hotel La Tour The artwork for the Frontiers programme has been lovingly created by Birmingham’s talented Ink Soup collective. Check out http://inksoupp.tumblr.com/ for more examples of their fabulous work.

W WW.FRO N T I ERSM U SI C.ORG

FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS COME AND JOIN US AND IMMERSE YOURSELF IN A PARALLEL WORLD… Frontiers Festival is about exploring the go-it-alone, DIY, collaborative traditions of the Downtown movement. It is about discovering the network of connections and influences that connect this with the bold new work of Birmingham’s own vibrant music and art scenes. It is an opportunity to immerse yourself in sounds, performance, poetry, film and visual music … in everything from post-punk to new composition, and from jazz to theatre-of-sound … and in everything from performance art and exhibitions to cutting edge technology. Here is a taster of what to expect…

EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC

WALKS, TALKS AND HAPPENINGS

A stellar line up of US artists including Elliott Sharp, Carl Stone, Pauline Oliveros, David Lang, Rhys Chatham, Warren Smith, Henry Hills, Object Collection and John O’Gallagher are about to descend on Birmingham and we make a special feature of works by Robert Ashley.

Allowing you to dig a little deeper into the extraordinary arts and culture of Downtown New York and Birmingham, performances in people’s houses with Chambres des Amis (page 35), ‘live’ sound-walks (page 35) and The Crimson Pangolin’s auction Artefacts of Contemporary Music (page 35) all feature alongside talks with Pauline Oliveros (page 35) and Rhys Chatham (page 40) and a day-long symposium on New York’s loft scene (page 39). Ikon Gallery delves into the sights and sounds of the 1960s (page 34) and Birmingham historians, curators and music archivists examine the music, stories and opinions of those who have shaped the Birmingham that we know and love today (page 34).

Witness the first fully-realised performance of Ashley’s String Quartet Describing the Motion of Large Real Bodies, incorporating 42 laptop artists and the Elysian Quartet (page 28), and Object Collection’s European stage première of his Automatic Writing, on a platform strewn with television monitors, video cameras, and dim pools of slowly shifting light (page 26). Elliott Sharp brings his stunning graphic score Foliage for a big band improvisation (page 23), whilst the ‘king of sampling’, Carl Stone, presents his latest work Fujiken in which the sounds of south-east Asia shape-shift into clouds of sound (page 30). Pauline Oliveros brings her unique blend of improvisation, meditation, electronics, myth and ritual and leads a Deep Listening Meditation (page 18) as well as a ‘telematic’ performance with collaborators half way across the world (page 18). ‘No Wave’ pioneer Rhys Chatham brings the UK première of his A Secret Rose for 100 Guitars (pages 40 & 41) and David Lang offers the world première of Crowd Out for 1000 chanting, singing and shouting voices (page 43). Collaborator with Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Anthony Braxton and Van Morrison to name just a few, drummer and percussionist Warren Smith is joined by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth and a top team of improvisers in a gig that moves from big band jazz to the frontiers of improvised sound (page 42). Last but not least, Apartment House presents Songs for Drella, Lou Reed and John Cale’s 1990 tribute to Andy Warhol (page 19), classic works by Philip Glass are performed by Frontiers’ resident ensemble Decibel (page 19), and Thallein Ensemble presents Terry Riley’s classic In C alongside Surge (page 33). 6

VISUAL MUSIC Exploring how composers, musicians and artists have invented their own systems to reimagine how music can be represented through notation and text, the festival exhibition SCORE: Trace That Sound includes beautiful examples of visual music, musical graphics and eye music from pioneering composers Robert Ashley, Pauline Oliveros, Elliott Sharp, Wadada Leo Smith and Carl Bergström Nielsen, alongside examples from ancient Egypt and medieval England and new and recent work by Janet Boulton, Claudia Molitor and young people from Birmingham (pages 14 and 15).

MUSICAL MARATHONS Frontiers Festival features not one but two musical marathons within the programme. In April, the Festival in a Day is an amazing feat of back-toback events which include Pauline Oliveros, Carl Stone, Elliott Sharp and Decibel, alongside Andy Ingamells’ disintegrating piano performance installation (pages 28 to 30). In June, the Conservatoire Jazz Department is a messenger on a special mission, using plenty of endurance, intensity, physicality and spirit to host Birmingham’s first ever Monkathon - a four day celebration featuring the entire back catalogue of American jazz giant Thelonious Monk (page 38-39).

WWW.FRO NTIERSMUSIC.O RG

EXTRAORDINARY FILM

EXTRAORDINARY YOU

Musicians inspiring film makers, inspiring artists and inspiring actors, Downtown signifies a hotbed of collaborative working practices and a merging of arts disciplines. In partnership with Flatpack Film Festival, long-time resident of New York’s East Village Henry Hills joins us to present his dense and intensely rhythmic experimental films and to discuss his connections to and ‘survival’ of the downtown art scenes of 1980s New York (page 24-25). Other offerings include Bill Morrison and Michael Gordon’s film symphony Gotham, Beatrice Gibson’s science fiction-esque A Necessary Music, Ericka Beckman’s unique record of New York’s No Wave scene 135 Grand Street New York 1979 and William Basinski’s hauntingly beautiful Disintegration Loop (page 25).

Get involved and show the world your creative side - Frontiers Festival is looking for YOU to take part:

NEW GENERATION ARTS Birmingham City University is one of Britain’s largest communities for training in the creative arts. Its substantial creative provision is formed of Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham School of Acting, Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, Birmingham School of Media and the School of English. Frontiers Festival presents the bold new work being created by these communities and plays host to the wealth of home-grown talent that is emerging from the University. From Jewellery Records and Anna Palmer to Waste Paper Opera, Hot Potato and Maraca2, Frontiers Festival presents this and so much more, from the moment the festival opens with violinist Sarah Farmer wearing skates encased in ice to respond to Laurie Anderson’s iconic performance piece As:If, to the moment the festival closes in June (pages 17, 21, 33 and 37).

SCORE: Trace That Sound: As part of SCORE: Trace That Sound, Ringing Out is a unique installation that suspends giant multi-coloured clusters of helium-filled balloons in the Library of Birmingham. These can be moved and changed by pulling on long ropes. Check the website or notices in the Library for opportunities to join us in ‘ringing’ to see the changes in the cluster read as musical notation by a live choir, filling the library with celebratory sounds (pages 14). Also as part of SCORE: Trace That Sound you can make and submit your own visual scores (22 March - 5 April). Selected submissions will be performed at the exhibition as part of the Frontiers Festival Part 1 Finale (pages 14 and 15). A Secret Rose for 100 Guitars: Do you play the guitar? Frontiers Festival is looking for YOU to take part and perform in this once-in-a-lifetime event (pages 40 and 41). Register your interest by following the links at www.frontiersmusic.org by 14 March. Crowd Out: Hundreds of people have already signed up to perform David Lang’s Crowd Out and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group would be delighted if YOU were able to join the ‘crowd’. Whether you prefer to stand out or become lost in the crowd, this is a fantastic opportunity to have your voice heard! Crowd Out has been written for people of all ages and all abilities, including those with no musical training or experience, so anyone can take up the challenge and enjoy the thrill and satisfaction of giving voice to this distinctive new piece (page 43). Register your interest at www.bcmg.org.uk. JOIN THE CONVERSATION AND STAY IN TOUCH Keep up to date with our blog www.frontiersmusic.org.uk/blog Follow us on Facebook FRONTIERSPLUS Follow us on Twitter FRONTIERSPLUS Join the Conversation #FRONTIERSMUSIC

W WW.FRO N T I ERSM U SI C.ORG

F E S T I V A L

T I M E T A B L E

22 MARCH - 5 APRIL

26 MARCH

SCORE: TRACE THAT SOUND

HOT POTATO

Saturday 22 March - Saturday 5 April 8am - 8pm (Mon - Fri) 9am - 5pm (Sat) 11am - 4pm (Sun) Spotlight Exhibition Area: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND Free admission

Wednesday 26 March | 7-8pm New Lecture Theatre: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £2

23 MARCH LITTLE COMPOSERS IN A DAY Saturday 22 March | 10-11.30am and 2-3.30pm Children’s Library: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND Free admission

RESPONDING TO LAURIE ANDERSON’S AS:IF Saturday 22 March | 12pm Outside the Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND Free admission

27 MARCH SPECTRUM Thursday 27 March | 7.30-9.30pm New Lecture Theatre: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £2

CITY WALKS WITH CHRIS UPTON Sunday 30 March | 5-6pm Starting from the entrance of the Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND £3 plus transaction fee

Friday 28 March | 7.30pm-9pm Eastside Projects, 86 Heath Mill Lane, B9 4AR £4 (£2) Friday 28 March | 7.45-9pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £6 (£4) (Free to under 16s)

29 MARCH TO SIR WITH LOVE: 1968, POPULAR CULTURE AND THE CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL STUDIES - ILLUSTRATED TALK Saturday 29 March | 11-12pm Heritage Learning Space: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND £15 (£12) - Day Passes

Sunday 23 March | 11.15am-3.30pm Conference Suite, Level 1: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND Free admission

Saturday 29 March | 12.15-1.30pm Heritage Learning Space: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND £15 (£12) - Day Passes

ALTO - CREATIVE FEMALE COLLECTIVE

SIDEWALK POETRY: SELECTED FILMS BY HENRY HILLS

Sunday 23 March | 6-11pm Cherry Reds, John Bright Street, B1 1BN Free to attend

(RECOMMENDED PG) Saturday 29 March | 2-4pm Custard Factory Theatre, Gibb St, B9 4AA £7.50 (£5.50)

24 MARCH BEAT IT! PERCUSSIONISTS LED BY MARACA2 Monday 24 March | 5-6pm Moor Street Station, Moor Street Queensway, B4 7UL Free to attend

COMPOSERS’ PLATFORM Monday 24 March | 7.30-9pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £5 (£3)

25 MARCH

IKON IN THE 1960S

FILM SCREENING: MOTORCITY MUSIC YEARS Saturday 29 March | 4-5.30pm Heritage Learning Space: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND £15 (£12) - Day Passes

THE ALTERNATIVE ‘60S- SOUND AND VISION Saturday 29 March | 6-8pm Studio Theatre: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND £15 (£12) - Day Passes £8 (£6) - Evening only events

EXPLORING THE ARCHIVES WITH DR CHRIS UPTON Saturday 29 March | 2.30-3.30pm Heritage Learning Space: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND £15 (£12) - Day Passes

HANS KOLLER QUARTET FEATURING JOHN O’GALLAGHER

WASTE PAPER OPERA COMPANY PRESENTS BASTIEN UND BASTIENNE

Saturday 29 March | 8-9.45pm CBSO Centre, Berkley Street, B1 2LF £15 plus transaction fee

BY JAMES OLDHAM Tuesday 25 March and Wednesday 26 March | 7.30-8.30pm The Rainbow Warehouse, 160 Digbeth High Street, B12 0LD £8 (£5) plus transaction fee

30 MARCH THE CRIMSON PANGOLIN PRIVATE COLLECTION: ARTEFACTS OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC Sunday 30 March | 12-2pm Ikon Gallery, 1 Oozells Square, Brindleyplace, B1 2HS Free admission

BIRMINGHAM AGAINST THE WORLD? AND STORIES OF BIRMINGHAM’S PAST

Featuring The Beat Generation Cut-up & Fold-in: Musical Settings of the works of four Beat legends: Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs and Corso Friday 28 March | 5.30-7.30pm Café Mezzanine: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND Free admission

THE YOUNG COMPOSERS’ PROJECT SHOWCASE

COMPOSER IN A DAY

Sunday 30 March | 2-3pm Heritage Learning Space: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND Free admission

BEATS AND BIRMINGHAM - POETS AND THE CITY

Saturday 22 March | 12-1pm By The 3rd Floor Gallery: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND Free to attend

(AFTER JAN HOET) Sunday 23 March | 11am-5pm Private dwellings in Birmingham By donation

BURMINUM: BLACK MUSIC AND THE CITY

28 MARCH

DOWNTOWN NYC: HENRY HILLS TALK

MAYA VERLAAK: CHAMBRES DES AMIS

Sunday 30 March | 12.15-1.15pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B1 3HG £5 (£3) plus transaction fee

Sunday 30 March | 3.30-4.30pm Heritage Learning Space: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2DN Free Admission

RYAN PROBERT’S THIRTY-SIX VIEWS OF MOUNT FUJI

23 MARCH

FIVE ENCORES TO DYNAMIC MOTION

STEVE REICH’S ELECTRIC COUNTERPOINT Sunday 30 March | 6-7pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £5 (£3) plus transaction fee

SONGS FOR DRELLA Sunday 30 March | 7.30-9.30pm Studio Theatre: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND £10 (£7) plus transaction fee

31 MARCH ROBERT ASHLEY’S MANEUVERS FOR SMALL HANDS (EUROPEAN PREMIÈRE) Monday 31 March | 3-4pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £10 (£7) plus transaction fee

PAULINE OLIVEROS IN CONVERSATION WITH FRANCES MORGAN (THE WIRE) Monday 31 March | 5-6:15pm Heritage Learning Space: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND Free admission

THALLEIN PERFORMS WORKS BY BROWN, FELDMAN & CAGE Monday 31 March | 7-8pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £10 (£7) plus transaction fee

MORTON FELDMAN’S THE SWALLOWS OF SALANGAN (EUROPEAN PREMIÈRE) Monday 31 March | 8.30-8.40pm Adrian Boult Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £10 (£7) plus transaction fee - joint ticket which also allows entry to ‘David Lang’s The Passing Measures’ immediately afterwards

1 APRIL THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX: SOME NON-CONFORMISTS FROM BIRMINGHAM’S PAST Tuesday 1 April | 1-1.30pm Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, Chamberlain Square, B3 3DH £3

WWW.FRO NTIERSMUSIC.O RG

F E S T I V A L

T I M E T A B L E

PAULINE OLIVEROS QUARTETTO TELEMATICO Tuesday 1 April | 7-8pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £10 (£8) plus transaction fee

ELLIOTT SHARP: MOMENTUM ANOMALY (UK PREMIÈRE) Wednesday 2 April | 7.30-8.15pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £10 (£7) plus transaction fee

BEAT CITY BIG BAND

DECIBEL PERFORMS PHILIP GLASS

CARL STONE: FUJIKEN 富士軒 (UK PREMIÈRE) Wednesday 2 April | 9-10pm Ikon Gallery, 1 Oozells Square, Brindleyplace, B1 2HS £10 (£7) plus transaction fee

SINFONIETTA CONCERT

Tuesday 1 April | 7.30-10pm Ikon Gallery, 1 Oozells Square, Brindleyplace, B1 2HS £12 (£8) plus transaction fee

2 APRIL

3 APRIL

3 JUNE

DEEP LISTENING® MEDITATION

BEAT IT! PERCUSSIONISTS LED BY MARACA2, PART II

RHYS CHATHAM IN CONVERSATION WITH ED MCKEON

Wednesday 2 April | 9.30-11am Ikon Gallery, 1 Oozells Square, Brindleyplace, B1 2HS £15 (£10) plus transaction fee

Thursday 3 April | 12.15-1.15pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £5 (£3)

THE ELYSIAN QUARTET, NUNTEMPA, JAMES DOOLEY AND 42 ELECTRONIC ARTISTS

MEMORY MIXTAPE WORKSHOP

Tuesday 3 June | 6-7pm Heritage Learning Space: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND Free admission

Monday 2 June | 8.30-10.30pm The Yardbird Jazz Club, Paradise Circus, B3 3HJ Free admission Monday 2 June | 8.45-10.15pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £2

Thursday 3 April | 2-3pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG Free admission

KROCK: THREE OBJECTS IN A CONCERT HALL

ANDY INGAMELS: PIANO RECITAL Wednesday 2 April | 1.30-2.30pm Arena Foyer: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £4 - individual event ticket £10 (£7) plus transaction fee - as part of the Festival in a Day ticket for all events between 1.30-7.30pm

AUTOMATIC WRITING (EUROPEAN STAGE PREMIÈRE) COMPOSED BY ROBERT ASHLEY ADAPTED AND PERFORMED BY OBJECT COLLECTION Thursday 3 April | 7-8pm Studio Theatre: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND £12 (£8) plus transaction fee

BRILLIANT CORNERS

HOWARD SKEMPTON WITH VIA NOVA

ELLIOTT SHARP’S FOLIAGE

Wednesday 2 April | 12.15-1.20pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £12 (£8) plus transaction fee

Wednesday 2 April | 2.30-3pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £4 - individual event ticket £10 (£7) plus transaction fee - as part of the Festival in a Day ticket for all events between 1.30-7.30pm

WILLIAM BASINSKI: DISINTEGRATION LOOP Wednesday 2 April | 3-4pm Arena Foyer: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £2 - individual event ticket £10 (£7) plus transaction fee as part of the Festival in a Day ticket for all events between 1.30-7.30pm

BILL MORRISON / MICHAEL GORDON: GOTHAM Wednesday 2 April | 4-4.30pm Arena Foyer: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £2 - individual event ticket £10 (£7) plus transaction fee - as part of the Festival in a Day ticket for all events between 1.30-7.30pm

DECIBEL Wednesday 2 April | 4.30-5.30pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £4 - individual event ticket £10 (£7) plus transaction fee - as part of the Festival in a Day ticket for all events between 1.30-7.30pm

BEATRICE GIBSON: A NECESSARY MUSIC Wednesday 2 April | 5.30-6pm Arena Foyer: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £2 - individual event ticket £10 (£7) plus transaction fee - as part of the Festival in a Day ticket for all events between 1.30-7.30pm

NOSZFERATU Wednesday 2 April | 6-7pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £4 - individual event ticket Tickets available on the door (individual event tickets) £10 (£7) plus transaction fee - as part of the Festival in a Day ticket for all events between 1.30-7.30pm

W WW.FRO N T I ERSM U SI C.ORG

Thursday 3 April | 9-10pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £12 (£8) plus transaction fee

4 APRIL TERRY RILEY’S IN C Friday 4 April | 12:15-1:15pm Book Rotunda: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND Free to attend

THIRTY MINUTES ON THE SUBJECT OF SOAP OPERAS

Tuesday 3 June | 7.30-9pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £10 (£7) plus transaction fee Tuesday 3 June | 9.30pm-midnight The Spotted Dog, 104 Warwick Street, B12 0NH By donation

4 JUNE FRANÇOIS THÉBERGE Wednesday 4 June | 7-8pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £5 (£3) 8.30pm onwards The Spotted Dog, 104 Warwick Street, B12 0NH By donation

5 JUNE DOWNTOWN NEW YORK JAZZ: A ONE-DAY SYMPOSIUM

Friday 4 April | 3-4.15pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £5 (£3) plus transaction fee

Thursday 5 June | 10.30am-4.30pm Heritage Learning Space: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND Free admission

DECIBEL PERFORM WORKS BY ROBERT ASHLEY AND BIRMINGHAM CONSERVATOIRE COMPOSERS

UGLY BEAUTY

WITH A CEREMONY TO MARK THE AWARD OF AN HONORARY DOCTORATE OF MUSIC TO ROBERT ASHLEY BY BIRMINGHAM CITY UNIVERSITY Friday 4 April | 7.30-9.30pm Adrian Boult Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £9 (£7) plus transaction fee

WARREN SMITH AND SPECIAL GUESTS

5 APRIL ‘LIVE’ SOUND WALKS WITH MAYA VERLAAK AND LUKE DEANE Saturday 5 April 12-4pm (walks last between 5-10 minutes) Starting from Symphony Hall Canal-Side Entrance, ICC Level 1, B1 2EA (by the bridge over to Brindleyplace) By donation

2 JUNE

Thursday 5 June | 5-6.30pm Bramall Music Building: University of Birmingham, B15 2TT Free admission Thursday 5 June | 8-10pm The Hare and Hounds, 106 High Street, Kings Heath, B14 7JZ £10 (£7) plus transaction fee

MONKATHON FINALE Thursday 5 June | 9.30pm The Yardbird Jazz Club, Paradise Circus, B3 3HJ Free admission

7 JUNE RHYS CHATHAM: A SECRET ROSE FOR 100 GUITARS (UK PREMIÈRE) Saturday 7 June | 7-8.15pm Town Hall, Victoria Square, B3 3DQ £15 plus transaction fee

CHASING THE UNICORN Monday 2 June | 4.00-6.00pm Symphony Hall Foyer, Broad Street, B1 2EA Free admission

8 JUNE

HOT POTATO FEATURING YEDO GIBSON

Sunday 8 June | 2.30-3.30pm and 4.30-5.30pm Millennium Point, Curzon Street, B4 7XG Free to attend

Monday 2 June | 7.30-8.30pm Arena Foyer: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £2

DAVID LANG: CROWD OUT (WORLD PREMIÈRE)

A NEW GENERATION OF CREATIVE TALENT

When it comes to art, culture and creativity, Birmingham is truly world-class. The only English city apart from London to have a symphony orchestra, ballet company and opera company, its Symphony Hall is one of the best in the world and it is home to one of the UK’s busiest theatres. Birmingham’s creative credentials extend far beyond these high profile venues and organisations however. From Artslabs to the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies and from Supersonic to Fierce Festival, Birmingham has always demonstrated itself to be open to alternative thinking, experimentation and new methods of expression in music and the arts. Birmingham also stakes a claim to having one of the youngest populations in Europe, which is hardly surprising when you consider that three Universities are located within its boundaries. Of the three, Birmingham City University boasts a unique creative provision that incorporates Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham School of Acting, Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, Birmingham School of Media and the School of English. With nearly 6000 students enrolled on courses in these areas, Birmingham City University is one of Britain’s leading providers of graduate talent to the creative and cultural industries and one of the largest communities for training in the creative and cultural arts outside of London. Producing strong young voices and bold new work, this substantial creative offer makes an important contribution to Birmingham’s cultural life. During 2013, a wealth of student and graduate talent from the University was labelled part of the city’s ‘New Beat Generation’, an international scheme launched to highlight the impact of local young people on the UK’s cultural profile. Comparing the city’s young population to the so-called Beat Generation of the 1950s, the scheme demonstrated how our young, creative people are challenging the status quo of the UK’s cultural offering and sparking “an explosion of culture” in Birmingham. Following the example of musicians and artists from Downtown New York, Birmingham’s artists are likewise finding their own independent path, collaborating widely, opening up new spaces and new ways of sharing work with audiences and putting the rule book aside to go with their instincts. We invite you to trust and follow them…

W WW.FRO N T I ERSM U SI C.ORG

VISUAL MUSIC From the middle of the 20th century the established framework of music notation exploded. Composers, musicians and artists invented their own systems and re-imagined how music can be represented. An overwhelming variety of notation systems and graphics now exists, ranging from penned graphics by The Beatles to interactive architectural structures. Delve into visual music with the Frontiers Festival exhibition SCORE: Trace That Sound, and discover how many of these graphic scores can be appreciated as both music and works of art in their own right. Experience performances of some of the scores that will be on show with Robert Ashley’s Maneuvers For Small Hands on 31 March (see page 27), Earle Brown’s December 1952 also on 31 March (see page 32) and Elliott Sharp’s Foliage with Christian Marclay’s Shuffle on 3 April (see page 23).

With an emphasis on pioneering work from New York and Birmingham, and remarkable precedents from ancient Egypt and medieval England, the exhibition features pieces by composers ranging from Robert Ashley, Pauline Oliveros and Howard Skempton, to Elliott Sharp, Claudia Molitor, Janet Boulton and Michael Wolters.

RINGING OUT Created by artist Beth Derbyshire and composer / artist Andy Ingamells SCORE: Trace That Sound is brought to life by Ringing Out, a three-dimensional score intervention where a giant multi-coloured cluster of suspended helium balloons can be moved and changed by pulling on long ropes, similar to the way bell ringers operate church bells. The changes in the cluster will be read as musical notation by a live choir, filling the library with celebratory sounds. If you would like to ring the cluster, then look for announcements at www.frontiersmusic.org about opportunities for you and your friends to join us in ‘ringing’.

POSTCARD SCORES

SCORE: TRACE THAT SOUND Saturday 22 March - Saturday 5 April 8am - 8pm (Mon - Fri) 9am - 5pm (Sat) 11am - 4pm (Sun) Spotlight Exhibition Area: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND Free admission - no booking necessary

SCORE: Trace That Sound includes postcard scores created by local people, under the guidance of composer Kirsty Devaney. Please visit www.frontiersmusic.org for details of workshops and opportunities for you to make and submit your own score, with a selection of scores being performed at the exhibition as part of the Frontiers Festival Part 1 Finale on 5 April at 3.30pm. Performances of works in SCORE: Trace That Sound will be given each day, 22 March - 5 April, in the Library at 3:30pm.

Co-curated by Joe Scarffe and Beth Derbyshire Sock puppets, playing cards, telephone doodles... These are just some of the 30 composers’ works on display in SCORE: Trace That Sound, which presents a snapshot of the incredible variety of musical scores that have emerged since the 1950s. The invention and joy shown by the diversity of scores reflect the desire of composers and performers to find new sounds and collaborative relationships. These new approaches also blur the lines between composer and artist and require different skills and discipline of musicians. So we follow the diversity of approaches, from scores that also work as visual art towards those that use more conventional forms of music notation.

WWW.FRO NTIERSMUSIC.O RG

LITTLE COMPOSERS IN A DAY Saturday 22 March | 10-11.30am and 2-3.30pm Children’s Library: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND Free admission - advance booking advisable Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line

diversity of styles and openness of the group. The Young Composers’ Project has encouraged young people to find their own musical voice, by giving them freedom to experiment with their music in a creative and safe environment, producing startlingly wonderful effects.

Music and fun for families with small children (0-5 years) turning your ideas and scribbling into a music score! Musicians from Birmingham Conservatoire will be on hand to play your piece, which may even be chosen for the Frontiers Festival Part 1 Finale on 5 April at 3.30pm.

COMPOSER IN A DAY Sunday 23 March | 11.15am-3.30pm Conference Suite, Level 1: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND Free admission - advance booking advisable Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line Want to compose music but not sure where to start? Learn how at this workshop and create a recording to take home. Your piece may even be played at the Frontiers Finale on 5 April! For adults and young people aged 12+.

THE YOUNG COMPOSERS’ PROJECT SHOWCASE Friday 28 March | 7.45-9pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £6 (£4) (Free to under 16s) Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line The Young Composers’ Project is an initiative set up by Birmingham Conservatoire’s Head of Composition Joe Cutler and led by composer Kirsty Devaney. The project involves 13 young composers who have been attending workshops from October 2013 to March 2014, where they have worked with professional and student composers and musicians. This concert will showcase the work that has been produced: from group song-writing with Jack McNeill to composing music for short animations and writing music for professional musicians. A group-devised piece led by composer Sid Peacock will also be presented along with a huge range of music reflecting the W WW.FRO N T I ERSM U SI C.ORG

For further information or to find out how you as a young composer can apply for the next Young Composers’ Project starting in September 2014, please go to: http://youngcomposersproject.wordpress.com

“This Show is not to be missed”

★★★★★ Edinburgh Evening News

“Unashamedly drumming as theatre... exhilarating”

★★★★ The Herald

“An invigorating, life-enriching experience. you’ll be poorer if you miss it.”

FE ST IV AL

H O TE L. ..

The Stage

IA L

Tuesday 13th May 2014, 7.30pm

Box Office: 0121 345 0492 or online: www.thsh.co.uk £18 Full Price, £15 Concessions, £10 for under 18’s

O FF

Bramall Music Building at the University of Birmingham

ELGAR CONCERT HALL

NEW GENERATION ARTS #1 With strong young voices and bold new work, a new generation of composers and artists is emerging from Birmingham City University’s creative courses. Challenging the status quo and questioning all that we take for granted, throughout Frontiers Festival they invite you to journey into their creative world.

stimulus - his relatives including the leader of the first choirboy strikes, Australian country singer Geoff Mack, and leader of the British team who designed Concorde, Sir George Edwards.) Ryan is a long-time collaborator with the Vickers-Bovey Guitar Duo for whom he has written the large scale works Eight Views of the Four Seasons and Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji. The latter, to be presented here by the duo is perhaps his most popular set of compositions. Subtle and moving, these pieces were awarded the John Mayer Prize in 2013.

ALTO - CREATIVE FEMALE COLLECTIVE RESPONDING TO LAURIE ANDERSON’S AS:IF Saturday 22 March | 12pm Outside the Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND Free to attend - no booking necessary Sarah Farmer (violin) A familiar figure of the Downtown Movement, throughout her career as a performance artist, Laurie Anderson has been a pioneer of experimental violin - using the violin in her artworks alongside storytelling and improvisation. First conceived in New York in the early 1970s, Anderson played cowboy songs on her violin whilst wearing ice skates frozen into blocks of ice. The performance continued until the ice completely melted. Frontiers Festival begins on 22 March when Sarah Farmer responds to and re-imagines this piece, taking inspiration from the recurrent themes and sound worlds in Anderson’s work, adding her own interpretations, all whilst wearing skates encased in ice. As with the original, Sarah’s performance will also continue until the ice has melted.

RYAN PROBERT’S 36 VIEWS OF MOUNT FUJI Saturday 22 March | 12-1pm By The 3rd Floor Gallery: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND Free to attend - no booking necessary Performed by the Vickers-Bovey Guitar Duo Birmingham Conservatoire composer Ryan Probert takes his inspiration from conscious and unconscious memory, using these to find unique approaches to composition, and combining this with a love of melody and family history (for which he has no shortage of W WW.FRO N T I ERSM U SI C.ORG

Sunday 23 March | 6-11pm Cherry Reds, John Bright Street, B1 1BN Free admission Providing a platform for creative women to showcase their art, promote their business and communicate with like-minded people, Alto showcases an eclectic array of art forms and businesses to encourage future collaborations and to build a sense of community. And for the record, Alto does not discriminate; this is about celebrating women - not excluding men. If you believe in equality, then we believe in you!

BEAT IT! PERCUSSIONISTS LED BY MARACA2 Monday 24 March | 5-6pm Moor Street Station, Moor Street Queensway, B4 7UL Free to attend - no booking necessary Birmingham Conservatoire percussionists led by Maraca2 will explore the pulsating minimalist rhythms of Downtown New York from the bustling environment of Moor Street Station. They will perform and also invite members of the travelling public to join them in an open workshop. To see the percussionists in full flow, come to their performance on 3 April (see page 31), when they combine classics of the repertoire, including an arrangement of Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint for marimba ensemble, with works by younger composers from New York and Birmingham.

QUARTETTO TELEMATICO

EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC #1: PAULINE OLIVEROS

Tuesday 1 April | 7-8pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £10 (£8) plus transaction fee Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line

ARTIST PROFILE: Winner of the 2012 John Cage Award, Pauline Oliveros is a pioneering figure in contemporary American music. In a career spanning over fifty years of boundary breaking music-making, she has pushed the perceived limits of technology and consciousness, and has forged new ground through her work with improvisation, meditation, electronic music and ritual. Since the start of her career Oliveros has placed herself at the vanguard of electronics, working alongside the likes of Steve Reich, John Cage and Morton Subotnik. The power of high speed internet is now bringing new developments to her already legendary career. Oliveros is as interested in new sounds as in finding new uses for old ones, and an accordion is the primary instrument that she uses in performance. This is adjusted through electronics to bring what many would consider to be a traditional instrument to the cutting edge of music. The focus of her life’s work is ‘Deep Listening’, the practice of ‘listening in every

possible way to everything possible to hear, no matter what one is doing’. Through listening intensely to daily life, to nature, to her thoughts and to music, Oliveros opens the door to the Universe and its sounds.

‘Raw listening, however, has no past or future. It is the roots of the moment. It has the potential of instantaneously changing the listener forever.’ Pauline Oliveros

Pauline Oliveros, Chris Chafe, Jonas Braasch, Doug van Nort Pauline Oliveros is interested in the ‘super human’ qualities of which we are all capable, especially our ability to be attuned to the world when enhanced by technology. She traces this fascination back to receiving a reel-toreel tape player for her 21st birthday in 1953, but also to growing up with advances in radio and telephone technologies. Quartetto Telematico is the latest in Oliveros' work to take technology - this time, super-fast broadband only available through the University network - to its limits in extending the possibilities for human musical interaction, here involving realtime globally networked improvisation with collaborators in Stanford (California), Troy (New York), and Montreal (Canada).

DEEP LISTENING® MEDITATION Wednesday 2 April | 9.30-11am Ikon Gallery, 1 Oozells Square, Brindleyplace, B1 2HS £15 (£10) plus transaction fee Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line ‘Deep Listening is my life practice’ Pauline Oliveros explains simply about the process she created. Intended to heighten awareness of sound, silence and sounding beyond ordinary perceptions, Oliveros engages participants in an immersive experience through energy exercises, listening meditation, journaling on listening, improvisation and performance of Sonic Meditations and Deep Listening Pieces. This event is presented as part of our Festival in a Day (see pages 28-30 for details) On Monday 31 March Pauline Oliveros is also in conversation with Frances Morgan of The Wire (see page 35 for details).

WWW.FRO NTIERSMUSIC.O RG

EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC #2: APARTMENT HOUSE & DECIBEL Our adventures into extraordinary music continue with two phenomenal ensembles. Apartment House, led by cellist Anton Lukoszevieze, is regarded as one of the most exciting groups in Europe. Decibel, led by Irish composer Ed Bennett, explores experimental, energetic, extreme and unusual work which generally exists between, or outside the usual categories.

SONGS FOR DRELLA Sunday 30 March | 7.30-9.30pm Studio Theatre: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND £10 (£7) plus transaction fee Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line Apartment House with Leo Chadburn Apartment House: Kerry Yong keyboard Alan Thomas e-guitar Geth Griffith bass guitar Anton Lukoszevieze cello Apartment House creates memorable performances of new, improvised and experimental music. For Frontiers, together with Leo Chadburn they perform numbers from Songs for Drella, Lou Reed and John Cale’s 1990 tribute to Andy Warhol, alongside music by the cult cellist, composer and Talking Heads collaborator Arthur Russell, classic drone-based work by Phill Niblock, rarely heard music by Alvin Lucier, and Chadburn’s own.

‘It was one of those rare performances where you feel changed afterwards. If I could, I would still be there, listening.’ Review of Apartment House at The Rest is Noise Festival, 2013 on Bachtrack

W WW.FRO N T I ERSM U SI C.ORG

Programme: Alvin Lucier Criss-Cross Phill Niblock Hurdy Hurry Leo Chadburn X Chairman Maos Songs by Arthur Russell and the Velvet Underground John Cale/Lou Reed Songs for Drella

DECIBEL PERFORMS PHILIP GLASS Tuesday 1 April | 7.30-10pm Ikon Gallery, 1 Oozells Square, Brindleyplace, B1 2HS £12 (£8) plus transaction fee Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line Artistic director: Ed Bennett Ensemble in Residence for Frontiers Festival, critically-acclaimed group Decibel gives a rare performance of Philip Glass’ ground-breaking early minimal compositions. The programme includes Music in Fifths, Music in Similar Motion and Two Pages, pieces that defined an era and which remain as fresh, radical and controversial as they did 40 years ago. For this special concert, Decibel have prepared a typically high energy, rhythmically driven, amplified and thrilling performance of these revolutionary and mesmerizing works. In the first part of the concert, 7.30-8.10pm, Decibel will present a programme of Birmingham Conservatoire student works, followed by their Philip Glass programme from 8.45-10pm.

‘Unclassifiable, raw-nerve music of huge energy and imagination’ The Guardian on Decibel

You can also see Decibel perform as part of the Festival in a Day at Birmingham Conservatoire on 2 April (see pages 28-30) and as part of the Robert Ashley Honorary Doctorate of Music event at Birmingham Conservatoire on 4 April (see page 27).

The great jazz pianist and composer Hans Koller is joined by saxophonist John O’Gallagher. O’Gallagher is fast becoming a key figure on the New York scene, and is a member of drummer Jeff Williams’ New York Quartet. The quartet also includes Percy Pursglove, a Jazzlines Fellow supported by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation, on bass.

EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC #3 ... PLUS SOME EXTRAORDINARY SPOKEN WORD Find the rhythms and energy of jazz transposed to words in a reflection on city life, and hear the uproarious music of two wild men of American music, John Zorn and Henry Cowell, rise up amidst the festival events.

Presented In association with Jazzlines at Town Hall Symphony Hall

FIVE ENCORES TO DYNAMIC MOTION BEATS AND BIRMINGHAM - POETS AND THE CITY Featuring The Beat Generation Cut-up & Fold-in: Musical Settings of the works of four Beat legends: Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs and Corso Friday 28 March | 5.30-7.30pm Café Mezzanine: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND Free admission - no booking necessary In association with The Institute of Creative and Critical Writing (Birmingham City University) The Institute of Creative and Critical Writing brings Beat poetry into dialogue with Birmingham for a meditation on the city and the poetry of city life. Enjoy readings of the Beats alongside poets of the city Luke Kennard, Bohdan Piasecki, Roy Fisher and Louis MacNeice. Steve Tromans, Simon King and Sid Peacock set to music the texts of the four major early works of Beat Generation writers: Allen Ginsberg (Howl), Jack Kerouac (On the Road), William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch), and Gregory Corso (Bomb), cutting up and folding back the texts with a contemporary nod in the direction of Burroughs' famous method.

HANS KOLLER QUARTET FEATURING JOHN O’GALLAGHER Saturday 29 March | 8-9.45pm CBSO Centre, Berkley Street, B1 2LF £15 plus transaction fee* Booking: Call 0121 345 0600 or visit www.thsh.co.uk to book online *A £2.50 transaction fee, plus £1(optional) postage, will be charged on all bookings except purchases made in person at the Town Hall or Symphony Hall Box office.

Sunday 30 March | 12.15-1.15pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B1 3HG £5 (£3) plus transaction fee Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line Victoria Bonham piano Henry Cowell Tiger, The Banshee, Aeolian Harp, Sinister Resonance, Dynamic Motion, The Five Encores to Dynamic Motion 1. Why? 2. Amiable Conversation 3. Advertisement 4. Antinomy 5. Timetable Séan Clancy Thirteen Minutes of Music on the Subject of the Transformation of Things (Première) Bobbie-Jane Gardner Tick (Première) John Zorn Carny Dynamic young pianist Vicky Bonham presents a programme of music by two wild men of American music together with new commissions from Birmingham Conservatoire composers. Henry Cowell was one of the true radicals, one of the first to explore the inside of the piano for new sounds as well as the inventor of tone clusters. John Zorn’s Carny is a rip-roaring ride through music from the 18th to 20th centuries, a collage and collision of musical ideas from cartoon music, boogie woogie, classical and New Orleans funk. Séan Clancy’s new work plays on the difference between illusion and reality, and Bobbie-Jane Gardner’s Tick also receives its world première.

WWW.FRO NTIERSMUSIC.O RG

NEW GENERATION ARTS #2 Birmingham Conservatoire’s young composers are collaborating widely and finding an independent voice in their work. A feast of musical treats is about to be served...

COMPOSERS’ PLATFORM Monday 24 March | 7.30-9pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £5 (£3) Tickets available on the door As Frontiers Festival gets underway, Birmingham Conservatoire presents another full programme of music created and performed by its talented students. Expect a wide range of styles, experimentation and music which throws the rule book out of the window and exemplifies the Downtown scene.

WASTE PAPER OPERA COMPANY PRESENTS BASTIEN UND BASTIENNE BY JAMES OLDHAM Tuesday 25 March and Wednesday 26 March | 7.30-8.30pm The Rainbow Warehouse, 160 Digbeth High Street, B12 0LD £8 (£5) plus transaction fee Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line Matthew Durkan Bastien Sophie Pullen Bastienne Luke Deane Colas James Oldham Director Ed Denham Producer Thomas Payne Conductor Picture a quaint Classical opera (Mozart’s Bastien und Bastienne to be precise, written 250 years ago when Mozart was just 12) that has been dragged carelessly through time, picking up various references and influences along the way. Then prepare yourself for a thorough and at times brutal reworking of it. Do not be in any doubt; this is 21st century theatre at its best.

W WW.FRO N T I ERSM U SI C.ORG

Bastien und Bastienne was originally shown in April 2013 as part of CRASH week and now is back bigger and bolder than before. Laughs are to be expected in this “so Mozart, yet so not Mozart” production. Expect opera, comedy, magic, electronics, absurdity, delicacy, brutality and Mozart.

“James Oldham’s Bastien und Bastienne is one of the best things I've seen in a long time” Michael Wolters (composer)

HOT POTATO Wednesday 26 March | 7-8pm New Lecture Theatre: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £2 Tickets available on the door Conductor and director: Robert Nettleship With: Sean Gibbs (trumpet), Pete Grimshaw (trombone), Sarah Margolis (flute), Tamara Haynes (clarinet), Sarah Johnson (clarinet), Matieuz Pizulak (soprano saxophone), Dan Searjeant (alto saxophone), Christine Cornwell (violin), Sara Gale (cello), Mark Pringle (piano), Ben Miurhead (double bass), Billy Weir (drums) Robert Nettleship and his ensemble Hot Potato, present a set of striking contemporary music infused with a strong flavour of jazz. You can also see Hot Potato perform at Birmingham Conservatoire with Yedo Gibson on 2 June (see page 37).

SPECTRUM Thursday 27 March | 7.30-9.30pm New Lecture Theatre: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £2 Tickets available on the door This programme of choral and chamber music demonstrates the broad spectrum of music being written and performed at Birmingham Conservatoire, and features both new works and Conservatoire classics. Daniel Galbreath conducts choral pieces by Fang Fang and Ami Oprenova, alongside chamber works by Ryan Probert, Cameron Dodds and Richard Stenton.

EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC #4: ELLIOTT SHARP ARTIST PROFILE: Fuelled by strong coffee in his Lower East Side studio, Elliott Sharp is a restless innovator fascinated by science, science fiction, electronics, music and people of all types. It makes him hard to categorise. He’s just too busy making music to get worried about putting himself into a box. Sharp has been a central figure in the Downtown music scene since the late ‘70s. A brilliant guitarist, saxophonist and clarinetist, he has released over 85 recordings ranging from orchestral music to blues, jazz, noise, no wave rock and techno music. He’s a stunning improviser, a blues freak with his band Terraplane, and a composer of highly original music for string quartet (“it’s like a rock power trio”) and other groups. Sharp is deeply interested in people and society, which comes in part from his mother, a Holocaust survivor, and also from his studies in anthropology. It’s perhaps this fascination for others and how we interact that fuels Sharp’s focus on improvisation and his openness to music of all types. Morton Feldman, one of his teachers, commented of his music “You put too much sociology in it - music should be listened to sitting in red plush seats, and yours is for sitting on the floor!” It is with great anticipation that we bring Sharp to Birmingham for Frontiers Festival, where he will present the European première of Occam’s Razor and the UK première of Momentum Anamoly as part of the Festival in a Day at Birmingham Conservatoire on 2 April (see pages 28-30), as well as the UK première of Foliage as a big band version.

‘…There is another path between composed and improvised that is often best represented with graphics. Foliage is a culmination of my work in this approach, the closest I’ve come to presenting the “look” of what I’m hearing when I compose in my Inner Ear.’

ELLIOTT SHARP’S FOLIAGE Thursday 3 April | 9-10pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £12 (£8) plus transaction fee Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line Big band version with Percy Pursglove (trumpet), Jeremy Price (trombone), Jean Toussaint (saxophones), Riaan Vosloo (bass), Liam Noble (piano), Andrew Bain (drums), Graham Sibly (tuba), & Birmingham Conservatoire students (strings) The show will also include a performance of Christian Marclay’s Shuffle.

Elliott Sharp’s Foliage is a graphic score that acts as a set of abstract instructions to be brought to life by the individual interpretation of each musician that performs it. It blurs the distinction between the fixed structure of musical notation and improvisation. Sharp created the score by exporting passages of notation into his computer as graphic files and then applying the same processes to these that he uses to mix sound. This activity of turning musical notes into image, and then back into sound through its performance, allows musicians to play what they see and make audible through performance what Sharp ‘hears’ in his graphics. Foliage is the representation of music through visual symbols and occupies a place where musical composition, art installation and performance meet. This is the first time that Foliage will have been performed as a big band version in the UK. To realise this a stellar line up from Birmingham Conservatoire’s Jazz Department has been gathered including Jazzlines Fellow Percy Pursglove, Grammy award winner Jean Toussaint, the Conservatoire’s Head of Jazz Jeremy Price, BBC Big Band Drummer winner Andrew Bain, CBSO principal tuba Graham Sibley, and pianist for Stan Sulzmann Liam Noble. As Foliage is performed, the individual pages of the score will be projected, allowing both the performers and audience to understand the music as they see it. Foliage is a beautiful score that can be appreciated as much as an artwork in its own right, as it can musical notation. Foliage will be on display during Frontiers Festival at the Library of Birmingham as part of SCORE: Trace That Sound (see pages 14 for details).

Elliott Sharp, 2012 W WW.FRO N T I ERSM U SI C.ORG

EXTRAORDINARY FILM Musicians inspiring film-makers, inspiring artists and inspiring actors, Downtown signifies a hotbed of collaborative working practices and a merging of arts genres. In partnership with Flatpack Film Festival, we invite you to take a trip downtown through the medium of film.

DOWNTOWN NYC: HENRY HILLS TALK Friday 28 March | 7.30pm-9pm Eastside Projects, 86 Heath Mill Lane, B9 4AR £4 (£2) Booking: Call 0844 338 8000 or visit www.theticketfactory.com/fpf/online to book on-line A long-time resident of New York’s East Village, Henry Hills has been making dense, intensely rhythmic experimental films since 1975. He has ongoing working relationships with the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Poets, composer John Zorn, and choreographer Sally Silvers and here, with Eastside Projects and as part of Flatpack Film Festival, will discuss his connections to and ‘survival’ of the downtown art scenes in New York in the ‘80s. Alongside this, Hills will show some of his videos, including the rarely seen Naked City Series (Gotham, Igneous Ejaculation, & Osaka Bondage). Presented with Eastside Projects as part of Flatpack Film Festival www.flatpackfestival.org.uk

SIDEWALK POETRY: SELECTED FILMS BY HENRY HILLS (Recommended PG) Saturday 29 March | 2-4pm Custard Factory Theatre, Gibb St, B9 4AA £7.50 (£5.50) Booking: Visit www.flatpackfestival.org.uk to book on-line 24

arcana (digibeta film) - 30min Kino Da! (16mm film) - 2min Money (16mm film) - 15min Little Lieutenant (16mm film) - 7min SSS (16mm film) - 6min Radio Adios (16mm film) - 11min For over thirty years Henry Hills has pursued a restless, freewheeling and very personal form of cinema, one that has taken him from Manhattan cut-ups (SSS, Money) to Indonesian feverdreams (Bali Mecanique, Goa Lawah). A regular collaborator with John Zorn and other members of the New York improv scene, Hills’ own love of jazz and dance are evident from the fractured rhythms of his editing. This special event is a rare chance to catch some of his key works on 16mm, and to hear from Hills himself in conversation with Vivienne Dick. This event is presented jointly with Flatpack Film Festival.

WILLIAM BASINSKI: DISINTEGRATION LOOP Wednesday 2 April | 3-4pm Arena Foyer: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £2 - individual event ticket As part of our Festival in a Day tickets are also available for £10 (£7) for all events taking place between 1.30-7.30pm on 2 April (see pages 28-30) Booking: Individual event tickets are available on the door. For Festival in a Day tickets call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line In the summer of 2001, William Basinski decided to digitise a set of tape recordings that he had made in the 1980s. What Basinski had not realized was that the tapes had deteriorated and as they passed through the spindle, the magnetic strip slowly crumbled leaving Basinski with a permanent record of their demise. Soon after the digitisation of the decayed tapes, came the September 2001 attacks. Whilst listening to his newly created recordings, and watching footage that he had shot from the roof of his Brooklyn apartment, of the final hour of daylight on September 11 and smoldering lower Manhattan, Disintegration Loop was born. Disintegration Loop has earned an iconic status in contemporary arts. In the early 2000s it was the type of music you told your friends about, or indeed that you wanted to hear the moment you had been told about it. The music has a heartbreakingly melancholic atmosphere, and the accompanying image of destruction imparts a power that stretches far beyond. This event is presented as part of our Festival in a Day (see pages 28-30 for details)

WWW.FRO NTIERSMUSIC.O RG

BILL MORRISON / MICHAEL GORDON: GOTHAM Wednesday 2 April | 4-4.30pm Arena Foyer: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £2 - individual event ticket As part of our Festival in a Day tickets are also available for £10 (£7) for all events taking place between 1.30-7.30pm on 2 April (see pages 28-30) Booking: Individual event tickets are available on the door. For Festival in a Day tickets call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line Combining Bill Morrison’s beautiful original and archival footage of New York, with Laurie Olinder’s photographic projections of the urban landscape, and composer Michael Gordon’s raw, minimalist, contemporary music, Gotham is one of three film symphonies centered on cities that Gordon and Morrison have created: Gotham (2004, New York City), Dystopia (2008, Los Angeles), the third installment about Miami seeing Gordon and Morrison reunited for the 2014/2015 season. This event is presented as part of our Festival in a Day (see pages 28-30 for details)

BEATRICE GIBSON: A NECESSARY MUSIC Wednesday 2 April | 5.30-6pm Arena Foyer: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £2 - individual event ticket As part of our Festival in a Day tickets are also available for £10 (£7) for all events taking place between 1.30-7.30pm on 2 April (see pages 28-30) Booking: Individual event tickets are available on the door. For Festival in a Day tickets call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line A Project by artist Beatrice Gibson with composer Alex Waterman. Narration by Robert Ashley. A musically conceived piece, referencing the video operas of Robert Ashley, A Necessary Music is a science fiction film about modernist social housing. Employing the residents of New York’s Roosevelt Island, a small sliver of land situated between Manhattan and Queens, as its authors and actors, it constructs a script using texts written by these residents and accompanied by narration taken from Adolfo Bioy Casares’ 1941 science fiction novel The Invention of Morel. Dissolving from attempted realism to imagined narrative, it explores the social imagery of a utopian landscape through directed attention to the voices that inhabit it, moving from an investigation into sociality to an investigation into representation itself. This event is presented as part of our Festival in a Day (see pages 28-30 for details)

W WW.FRO N T I ERSM U SI C.ORG

ERICKA BECKMAN: 135 GRAND STREET NEW YORK 1979 (EXCERPTS) Wednesday 2 April | 7-7.30pm Arena Foyer: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £2 - individual event ticket As part of our Festival in a Day tickets are also available for £10 (£7) for all events taking place between 1.30-7.30pm on 2 April (see pages 28-30) Booking: Individual event tickets are available on the door. For Festival in a Day tickets call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line A unique record of the rawness and driving energy of New York’s No Wave scene, circa 1979, in its ascendant. This film is history, capturing UT, Rhys Chatham, Morales, Youth in Asia, Steven Piccolo and Jill Kroesen performing live in sparse downtown lofts, alongside the only known footage of Theoretical Girls and The Static. It is a visual statement of new forms created out of New York’s antieverything musical nihilism, where musicians, painters, filmmakers and actors thrive in the pulsating, vibrant post-punk world of New York where high art met low culture. This event is presented as part of our Festival in a Day (see pages 28-30 for details)

“If you wanna see what the Soho side of No Wave looked like this is the only place you’re ever gonna find it” Glenn Brancav

FLATPACK FILM FESTIVAL 20-30 MARCH 2014 The first glimmer of spring heralds the return of Flatpack Film Festival. The eighth edition of the Birmingham-based film jamboree will be packed with a programme of new features, short films, archive discoveries and events, from canal-side sound walks and artist talks to expanded cinema performances and live soundtracks. As well as our joint programme on Henry Hills, Flatpack Film Festival will be showing Everybody Street, a film illuminating the lives and work of New York's iconic street photographers, accompanied by an exhibition of street photography presented in association with Birmingham Loves Photographers, on 20 March at Six Eight Kafé. Venues across Birmingham | www.flatpackfestival.org.uk

EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC #5: OBJECT COLLECTION ARTIST PROFILE: Object Collection was founded in 2004 by writer/director Kara Feely and composer/musician Travis Just. Based in Brooklyn, the group operates within the intersecting practices of performance, experimental music and theatre, combining dense layers of text, notation, objects and performance processes, the results of which are complex and urgent. Object Collection work to give audiences unconventional viewing experiences through the merging of theatricality and pedestrian activity. Upsetting the habitual notions of time, space, progression and virtuosity, they value accumulation above cohesion.

‘Object Collection, under the direction of Kara Feely and Travis Just, has made Automatic Writing into a chamber opera of unusual intensity... This realization by Object Collection is a remarkable accomplishment. I could never have imagined it. Robert Ashley

‘precedent-setting’ BOMB

AUTOMATIC WRITING (EUROPEAN STAGE PREMIÈRE) COMPOSED BY ROBERT ASHLEY ADAPTED AND PERFORMED BY OBJECT COLLECTION Thursday 3 Aprl | 7-8pm Studio Theatre: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND £12 (£8) plus transaction fee Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line Written in 1979, the staged version of Automatic Writing was premièred by Object Collection at Incubator Arts Project in New York City in November 2011. This will be the UK première of this staged version. 26

Object Collection: Fulya Peker voice Tim Parkinson keyboard Aaron Meicht vocal processing Travis Just voice Daniel Allen Nelson audio playback/actions Paula Matthusen programming/electronics Composed by Robert Ashley Adapted by Travis Just and Kara Feely Directed and designed by Kara Feely Music direction by Travis Just Lighting by Jonathan Cottle Production management by Daniel Allen Nelson After being released as a recording in 1979, Automatic Writing became well-known in contemporary music circles. However, due to the way in which the piece captures the mutterings and ranting of ‘involuntary speech’ (the piece grew out of Ashley’s mild Tourette’s), and due to the intentionally private techniques that were used to create it, Ashley always viewed it as a piece that would be impractical to perform. That is until Object Collection challenged themselves to adapt it for stage in 2011. In their adaptation, on a stage strewn with television monitors, video cameras, and dim pools of slowly shifting light, Object Collection gives the four musical parts on the original recording (Ashley’s voice, the whispered voice, the keyboard, and the muffled soul music) a physical manifestation embodied by four characters/performers. The phenomenon of automatic speech has been taken at face value and the group’s imaginations have wandered: genders and languages are switched, male becomes female, and French becomes German. The ensuing results inhabit a place that is nowhere in particular, but exudes an indescribable, ecstatic aura - balancing between hypnosis and extreme focus, a prism in the mud. This engagement is supported by Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation through USArtists International in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

WWW.FRO NTIERSMUSIC.O RG

Robert Ashley sadly passed away on 3 March 2014, shortly before his 84th birthday. We dedicate Frontiers festival to him.

EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC #6: ROBERT ASHLEY ARTIST PROFILE: A deep sea diver in American spiritualism; The David Lynch of contemporary music; Putting the ‘para’ into ‘normal’ … Robert Ashley can truly be described as one of the most extraordinary minds to have contributed to contemporary music. A distinguished American composer, Ashley was a leading figure in new music from the 1960s onwards building on the pioneering work of John Cage but in quite different directions, given his early interest in boogie woogie, jazz and popular music. He developed live electronic music systems along with Alvin Lucier, Gordon Mumma and David Behrman, together founding the influential Sonic Arts Union and he proved influential to the young Iggy Pop with his use of electronic feedback systems. Working closely with performance artists, film-makers and theatre makers, he instigated and led the highly original and popular ONCE Festival at Ann Arbor (Michigan) and formed the legendary ONCE group. Building on this experience, throughout his career Ashley developed a unique form of opera created in the imaginary space made possible by the microphone and its attachment to the voice. Ashley proposed that TV makes things seem more real than reality, and this ‘hyperreality’ was the stage for his entertainments, surreal and dream-like dramas, prompting the comparison with David Lynch.

ROBERT ASHLEY’S MANEUVERS FOR SMALL HANDS (EUROPEAN PREMIÈRE) Monday 31 March | 3-4pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £10 (£7) plus transaction fee Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line Reinier van Houdt piano Maneuvers For Small Hands is one of Ashley’s first major works, yet it hasn’t been performed since the 1960s. It’s an introduction to the radical music that was suddenly gaining huge interest, a kind of W WW.FRO N T I ERSM U SI C.ORG

compendium playfully borrowing ideas from John Cage, David Tudor, Luciano Berio, Gordon Mumma, Roger Reynolds, Cornelius Cardew, Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff, Earle Brown, La Monte Young and many others. Over time, the piece “became a kind of portrait gallery of my colleagues”, and also very theatrical (Ashley also came to think of it as a possible movie of 110 scenes). This European première of Maneuvers will be presented by Dutch pianist Reinier van Houdt. The score for Maneuvers For Small Hands will be on display during Frontiers Festival at the Library of Birmingham as part of SCORE: Trace That Sound (see pages 14 for details).

‘Reinier van Houdt, one of the most unconventional pianists in Holland, is in full command of this score, physically and technically, but is also able to give this music wings; this makes him an extraordinary performer. History was written here; a heroic act of this pianist, who had to travel through an unimaginable mass of notes, dazzling and complex.’ Haagse Courant

DECIBEL PERFORM WORKS BY ROBERT ASHLEY AND BIRMINGHAM CONSERVATOIRE COMPOSERS WITH A CEREMONY TO MARK THE AWARD OF AN HONORARY DOCTORATE OF MUSIC TO ROBERT ASHLEY BY BIRMINGHAM CITY UNIVERSITY Friday 4 April | 7.30-9.30pm Adrian Boult Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £9 (£7) plus transaction fee Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line Frontiers Festival is dedicated to Robert Ashley, who passed away on 3 March shortly before his 84th birthday and who had been very much involved in planning performances of his works in this celebration of his music. Marking the finale of Part 1 of the festival, Birmingham City University and Birmingham Conservatoire will posthumously confer an Honorary Doctorate of Music to Ashley, with short videos made by friends, collaborators and admirers of his work. This will be given in the interval of a special performance given by our resident ensemble, Decibel, who will present Ashley’s Outcome Inevitable and Hidden Similarities alongside works by Birmingham Conservatoire composers Ed Bennett, Joe Cutler, Michael Wolters, Andrew Hamilton, and by Damien Harron. You can also see Decibel perform at Ikon Gallery on 1 April (see page 19) and as part of the as part of the Festival in a Day at Birmingham Conservatoire on 2 April (see pages 28-30). The world premiere of Robert Ashley’s String Quartet Describing the Motion of Large Real Bodies will be presented in Frontiers Festival as part of our Festival in a Day (see pages 28-30 for details).

MUSICAL MARATHON #1: FESTIVAL IN A DAY Bring your packed lunch, as Frontiers Festival presents its Festival in a Day. Indulge and delight in a back-to-back programme of performance and film, and lose yourself in the parallel worlds these events create.

Quartet - last seen in Birmingham performing in four helicopters as part of Stockhausen’s Mittwoch aus Licht - alongside which are 42 electronic artists working together and apart, social networks in which no single player is in control to ‘direct’ the music, but networks which act collectively to listen to and explore the possibilities. When the String Quartet was composed in 1972, the logistics and economics involved with the technology of the time made the piece practically impossible to perform. Only in recent years, with the development of digital technology, has it become possible to perform this as intended and we are thrilled to be presenting the world première at Frontiers. ELLIOTT SHARP’S OCCAM’S RAZOR (EUROPEAN PREMIÈRE) Performed by the Elysian Quartet and Nuntempa

DEEP LISTENING® MEDITATION Wednesday 2 April | 9.30-11am Ikon Gallery, 1 Oozells Street, B1 2HS £15 (£10) plus transaction fee Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line See page 18 for details of this event.

THE ELYSIAN QUARTET, NUNTEMPA, JAMES DOOLEY AND 42 ELECTRONIC ARTISTS Wednesday 2 April | 12.15-1.20pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £12 (£8) plus transaction fee Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line ROBERT ASHLEY’SSTRING QUARTET DESCRIBING THE MOTION OF LARGE REAL BODIES (WORLD PREMIÈRE) Performed by the Elysian Quartet, 42 electronic artists, and with live electronics devised by James Dooley Robert Ashley created music in which the listening situation is transformed, often using amplification and processing to change something familiar into something completely unexpected. In this case, that most classical of groups, the string quartet, bow their instruments at 1/30th of the slowest bowing speed - up to 10 minutes for one bow - exchanging the smooth strings sound for pops, crackles, and surprising and beautiful sympathetic resonance of the other strings. These sounds are then transformed by seven electronic networks, each involving six performers managing separate midi controls. Each network adds a different effect: delays, reverberation, pitch shifting and frequency band controls. Combinations of these effects collectively transform the sounds of the string instruments into almost any sound imaginable. Performing for Frontiers are the Elysian 28

We are also excited to be presenting the European première of Elliott Sharp’s luminous double string quartet Occam’s Razor. Performed by the Elysian Quartet and Nuntempa, a quartet made up of Birmingham Conservatoire students in the early stages of their professional career, Occam’s Razor is a stunning example of Sharp’s unique writing for quartet, which he likens to a “power rock” group, creating incredible sonic structures by applying fractal geometry and chaos theory to his music.

‘Describing “Occam’s Razor,” and indeed much experimental music, is challenging, as terms like atonal, atmospheric, sinusoidal, and dissonant fall far short. So, while the piece wasn’t beautiful in the “perfect fifths” sense of tuned strings, mellifluous melody, and major-key harmony, it was absolutely beautiful in Sharp’s cataphonic universe of fractal geometry and chaos theory. Here, we define beauty simply as something not previously experienced, and we crave innovative incomprehensibility, abstract ineffability, and trompe l’esprit (fool the mind) prestidigitation, a hounding half-step behind G-d.’ Brooklyn Rail reviewing Occam’s Razor

MEREDITH MONK’S STRINGSONGS Performed by the Elysian Quartet Written for the Kronos Quartet, Stringsongs is Meredith Monk’s first piece for quartet, in which she creates unexpected textures and sounds in much the same way that she has worked with the voice over many years. See pages 26 and 27 for details of other Robert Ashley events being performed within Frontiers Festival.

WWW.FRO NTIERSMUSIC.O RG

ANDY INGAMELS: PIANO RECITAL

BILL MORRISON / MICHAEL GORDON: GOTHAM

Wednesday 2 April | 1.30-2.30pm Arena Foyer: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £4 - individual event ticket £10 (£7) plus transaction fee - as part of the Festival in a Day ticket for all events between 1.30-7.30pm

Wednesday 2 April | 4-4.30pm Arena Foyer: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £2 - individual event ticket £10 (£7) plus transaction fee - as part of the Festival in a Day ticket for all events between 1.30-7.30pm

Andy Ingamells returns to Birmingham for a repeat performance of his celebrated Piano Recital. Watch, listen and keep your distance, as he battles with himself, his piano, red paint and his assistant, playing as best he can as the music stutters to its sticky conclusion. Following the performance, the resulting mess installation will be left in the Arena Foyer for the remainder of the day.

See page 25 for details of this event.

HOWARD SKEMPTON WITH VIA NOVA Wednesday 2 April | 2.30-3pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £4 - individual event ticket £10 (£7) plus transaction fee - as part of the Festival in a Day ticket for all events between 1.30-7.30pm Pauline Oliveros Sound Patterns Robert Ashley She Was a Visitor

‘Sardonic in ways that parallel the perverse discourse taking place in America’ Chicago TimeOut, on rating Decibel’s album My Broken Machines Best Classical Album 2011.

Tristan Perich Momentary Expanse Anna Clyne Choke Missy Mazzoli Orizzonte The Frontiers Festival Resident Ensemble presents a programme of works by Birmingham Conservatoire students alongside music by young New York composers Tristan Perich, Anna Clyne and Missy Mazzoli. See pages 19 and 27 for details of Decibel’s other events within Frontiers Festival.

Contemporary vocal ensemble, Via Nova, with Howard Skempton and conducted by Daniel Galbreath, present two works that explore timbre, phonetics and our relationship to language: Oliveros’ Sound Patterns, winner of the Gaudeamus International Composers Award in 1962, and She Was a Visitor from Ashley’s 1967 opera That Morning Thing.

WILLIAM BASINSKI: DISINTEGRATION LOOP Wednesday 2 April | 3-4pm Arena Foyer: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £2 - individual event ticket £10 (£7) plus transaction fee - as part of the Festival in a Day ticket for all events between 1.30-7.30pm See page 24 for details of this event.

W WW.FRO N T I ERSM U SI C.ORG

Booking: Individual event tickets are available on the door. Festival in a Day tickets are available by calling 0121 245 4455 or visiting www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line 29

NOSZFERATU Wednesday 2 April | 6-7pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £4 - individual event ticket £10 (£7) - as part of the Festival in a Day ticket for all events between 1.30-7.30pm Finn Peters flutes and saxophones Percy Pursglove trumpet Joel Bell electric guitar Ivo de Greef piano Founded in 2000, Noszferatu work across a wide range of genres including contemporary classical, jazz, tango, pop, experimental music and theatre. For Frontiers Festival, two of Noszferatu's members are joined by special guests to perform a set consisting of new works by Birmingham Conservatoire composers. All pieces to be performed have been written specifically for this event with the composers being given a brief to write works of a page in length that allow room for improvised elements.

ELLIOTT SHARP: MOMENTUM ANOMALY (UK PREMIÈRE) Wednesday 2 April | 7.30-8.15pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £10 (£7) plus transaction fee Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line Elliott Sharp is a stunning musician and composer and when it comes to his compelling work on the electro-acoustic guitar, he is nothing short of genius. The remarkable solo-performance piece Momentum Anomoly, illustrates Sharp’s technical command of his guitar and his ability to exploit it in remarkable ways. See pages 23 for details of Elliott Sharp’s other events within Frontiers Festival.

CARL STONE: FUJIKEN 富士軒 (UK PREMIÈRE) Wednesday 2 April | 9-10pm Ikon address is ‘Ikon Gallery, 1 Oozells Square, Brindleyplace, B1 2HS £10 (£7) plus transaction fee Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line Composed in Tokyo, Fujiken blends field recordings made throughout Japan and Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia) with appropriated music from street cassettes, processed and resynthesized. For this event, field materials may include recorded meanderings on the Chao Praya River (Bangkok), a fire outbreak in Phnom Pehn, college sports practice in Toyota City Japan, and whatever else the mood might seek.

‘(Carl Stone’s) music was a powerful stimulant with lingering euphoric effects. Voices stretched like taffy were folded into ghostly choruses; the whine of a stringed instrument became a mosquito arabesque. Noises normally rejected, like surface scrapes and static bursts, provided fertile sonic lodes.’ The New York Times

ARTIST PROFILE Carl Stone is one of the pioneers of live computer music, hailed by the Village Voice as ‘the king of sampling’ and ‘one of the best composers living in the USA today’. He studied composition at the California Institute of the Arts with Morton Subotnick and James Tenney, and he now divides his time between California and Japan. While transferring many thousands of LP records to cassette in the Music Library as an undergraduate, he discovered that the output of the recordings he was making could be mixed up and disturbed. This inspired him to experiment and to make musical collage. In the 1980s Stone developed his technique, using electronic equipment as well as turntables. He has used computers live in performance since 1986 and has been composing electro-acoustic music for over forty years.

Booking: Individual event tickets are available on the door. Festival in a Day tickets are available by calling 0121 245 4455 or visiting www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line WWW.FRO NTIERSMUSIC.O RG

NEW GENERATION ARTS #3 The Frontiers Festival New Generation Arts platform continues with another generous helping of new musical talent from Birmingham Conservatoire, alongside the influential music of Steve Reich, all presented for your aural delight.

STEVE REICH’S ELECTRIC COUNTERPOINT Sunday 30 March | 6-7pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £5 (£3) plus transaction fee Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk to book on-line

Alex Roche & Sam Ackroyd), Ryan Probert’s Eight Views of the Four Seasons performed by the Vickers-Bovey Duo, and Richard Stenton’s 11ST for laptop and guitar.

BEAT IT! PERCUSSIONISTS LED BY MARACA2, PART II Thursday 3 April | 12.15-1.15pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £5 (£3) Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birminghambox.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line Following on from their performance at Moor Street Station on 24 March, Birmingham Conservatoire Percussion Ensemble led by Maraca2 will continue to explore the pulsating minimalist rhythms of Downtown New York. A second instalment of Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint - here arranged for marimba ensemble - will feature, along with Reich’s Clapping Music, a piece produced when, in his own words, Reich wanted to ‘create a piece of music that needed no instruments beyond the human body’. The programme will also feature Solid Break by young New York composer Troy Herion, as well as new works by Birmingham-based composers James Alexandropoulos-McEwan and Robert Nettleship.

MEMORY MIXTAPE WORKSHOP Thursday 3 April | 2-3pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG Free admission - no booking necessary The influence of Steve Reich’s minimalist composition Electric Counterpoint is widespread in mainstream music. The Orb’s sampling of the piece as the foundation for their hit Little Fluffy Clouds is arguably the best known and most celebrated example. It is no wonder that 2006 saw the release of the Reich Remixed album and the debt that modern music owes to Reich can be seen in the work of today’s DJs, pop and electronic artists. Electric Counterpoint as originally composed consists of three movements, ‘Fast’, ‘Slow’ and ‘Fast’. Here it will be performed by solo guitar with a mix of classical, steel string and electric bass tracks diffused in 8.2 surround sound, devised by Matthew O’Malley. The programme also features Samuel Taylor’s Eigengrau performed by the Eigengrau Quartet (Shannon Simon, Martin Johansson, W WW.FRO N T I ERSM U SI C.ORG

A public workshop for the vast work Memory Mixtape, created by Birmingham composer Ryan Probert. See www.frontiersmusic.org.uk for further details.

THIRTY MINUTES ON THE SUBJECT OF SOAP OPERAS Friday 4 April | 3-4.15pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £5 (£3) plus transaction fee Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line Seàn Clancy presents his Thirty Minutes on the Subject of Soap Operas, Andrew Hamilton presents his Friendly Place, and Howard Skempton presents his Selection of Accordion Solos.

EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC #7: THALLEIN ENSEMBLE ARTIST PROFILE: The Thallein Ensemble is dedicated to the performance of contemporary music, the great pieces of the late 20th century and the emerging talents of our own times. In recent years the ensemble has worked with such luminaries as Pierre Boulez, Louis Andriessen, Mark Anthony Turnage and Heiner Goebbels, while next year Sir Harrison Birtwistle will be featured. By its nature, and the nature of the repertoire it plays, Thallein Ensemble is flexible in size and instrumentation. In Frontiers Festival you will hear the ensemble performing with as few as five members and, in David Lang’s The Passing Measures, as many as twenty-eight.

THALLEIN PERFORMS WORKS BY BROWN, FELDMAN & CAGE

The programme is completed by Cage’s famous tape piece, Williams Mix, combined with Variations 1 and 4; and by Maya Verlaak’s funny and disturbing All English Music Is Greensleeves.

Monday 31 March | 7-8pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £10 (£7) plus transaction fee Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line

Conductor: Howard Skempton

Director: Howard Skempton Visuals: Sophie Hedderwick

Howard Skempton conducts players from Thallein Ensemble, and members of Via Nova, in the European première of Morton Feldman’s The Swallow of Salangan (1960), a work for chorus and orchestra. The title was taken from Safe Conduct, a biographical essay by Boris Pasternak. The following passage appears in Feldman’s score:

Feldman De Kooning Brown December 1952 Cage (arr. Sam James) Music for Marcel Duchamp Cage Williams Mix Cage Variations 1 & 4 Verlaak All English Music is Greensleeves One of the characteristics that marks out work from Downtown New York, and much of its legacy, is the way that ideas and practices from one art form became inspirations for use in another, and the way that people have worked across artforms. Many of those involved in the scene drew their close friends and collaborators from other disciplines (as with Cage and his partner Merce Cunningham, for example). This programme features three works all explicitly inspired by the work

of visual artists. Earle Brown took the combination of fixed structure and flexibility of Alexander Calder’s mobiles to invent 'space-time notation' in December 1952 (on view in the SCORE exhibition at the Library of Birmingham see page 14). Painters were among Morton Feldman’s closest friends, and De Kooning - named after the Dutch American abstract expressionist - is just one example of this. John Cage was pivotal in drawing attention to the work of Marcel Duchamp, becoming good friends (and chess opponents). For Music For Marcel Duchamp was written as a piece for prepared piano; here it has been arranged for small ensemble by Sam James. The performance of these works will be joined with a visual realisation made by artist Sophie Hedderwick.

ROBERT ASHLEY REIMAGINED AS A MUSICAL SUPERHERO

Thallein Ensemble With: Via Nova: Daniel Galbreath & Ed Denham

I loved the living essence of historical symbolism, or, putting it another way, that instinct with the help of which we like Salangan swallows, built the world - an enormous nest, put together from the earth and sky, life and death, and two times, the ready to hand and the defaulting. I understood that it was prevented from crumbling by the strength of its links, consisting in the transparent figurativeness of all its parts. WWW.FRO NTIERSMUSIC.O RG

TERRY RILEY’S IN C Friday 4 April | 12:15-1:15pm Book Rotunda: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND Free to attend - no booking necessary Director: Sid Peacock

DAVID LANG’S THE PASSING MEASURES Monday 31 March | 9.15-10pm Adrian Boult Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £10 (£7) plus transaction fee - joint ticket which also allows entry to ‘Morton Feldman’s The Swallows of Salangan’ immediately before Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line’ Conductor: Dan Rosina Thallein Ensemble With: Jack McNeill bass clarinet And players from Birmingham Contemporary Music Group: Ulrich Heinen (cello), Ben Markland (double bass), Hugh Seenan (horn), Alan Thomas (trumpet), Julian Warburton (percussion), Clive Williamson (piano) Birmingham Contemporary Music Group has enjoyed a long and successful relationship with David Lang. His BCMG and Birmingham Jazz commission the passing measures has received huge acclaim and its recording on Cantaloupe Records was named one of the best CDs of the year by The New Yorker. Lang wrote of the piece:

Thallein Ensemble With: Simon King (guitar), Aaron Diaz (trumpet & fx), Steve Tromans (piano), Louis Mather (saxophone), Jason Huxtable (marimba) Featuring: Christopher Hobbs Legend has it that composer Terry Riley was on a bus in San Francisco when the idea came to him for one of the most important and influential pieces of the 20th century. Riley began composing In C in May 1964 and the work had its première in November of the same year. Due to the impact it had on public consciousness, it is often credited as the launching pad for the minimalist movement. It has influenced countless musicians from Philip Glass and Steve Reich to bands such as Soft Machine and The Who. This performance will be led by Northern Irish band leader Sid Peacock with musicians from his Surge Orchestra and Thallein Ensemble. They will also be joined by special guest musicians Mark Sanders and Christopher Hobbs. Hobbs has a very special connection to In C – at the age of 17 he was responsible for its UK première at the Royal Institute Galleries in Piccadilly, London.

‘I think one of the reasons our commercial culture likes all music to be fast and snappy is because in fast music it is harder to recognize the passing of time. You listen to the tunes, to the catchy phrases, but you are not allowed to feel just how time slips away. Slow music is good for contemplation but is probably terrible for business, so you don’t get much of it in your daily life. One of the noble things you can do in a piece of ‘serious’ music is allow for an experience that can’t happen in your everyday life. the passing measures is that kind of experience.’ The world première of David Lang’s Crowd Out takes place as part of Frontiers Festival on 8 June (see page 43 for details)

W WW.FRO N T I ERSM U SI C.ORG

WALKS, TALKS & HAPPENINGS

BIRMINGHAM: CITY OF FREE SPIRITS

Allowing you to dig a little deeper into the extraordinary arts and culture of Downtown New York and Birmingham; walk, talk and enjoy other imaginative goings-on with Frontiers Festival.

Sunday 30 March | 2-3pm Heritage Learning Space: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND Free admission - advance booking advisable Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line

1960S: THE RISE OF COUNTERCULTURE

Presented and organised by Jez Collins, and including Kieran Connell (University of Birmingham), Amlak (Steel Pulse) and Frenchie (PCRL)

PRESENTED IN CELEBRATION OF IKON'S 50TH ANNIVERSARY Saturday 29 March | 11am-8pm Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND Day Passes (includes film screening): £15 (£12) Evening Film Screening only: £7.50 (£5.50) Booking: Call 0121 248 0711 or visit www.ikon-gallery.org to book online FEATURING: TO SIR WITH LOVE: 1968, POPULAR CULTURE AND THE CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL STUDIES - ILLUSTRATED TALK 11am-12pm Dr Kieran Connell, Research Fellow, University of Birmingham, explores the influence of the student protests and popular cultures of the late 1960s, with particular reference to the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (which also celebrates its 50th year in 2014) and a tribute to its former Director the late Stuart Hall, who helped to establish the global field of cultural studies. IKON IN THE 1960S 12.15-1.30pm A panel discussion, chaired by Ikon Director, Jonathan Watkins, with Ikon Icons artist John Salt; one of Ikon’s founders, Jesse Bruton; and former arts editor Birmingham Post and Arts Lab pioneer, Terry Grimley. EXPLORING THE ARCHIVES WITH DR CHRIS UPTON 2.30-3.30pm Join local historian Dr Chris Upton as he explores material from the Library archives for evidence of Birmingham’s counterculture in the 1960s. With thanks to Rachel MacGregor, Collections Curator, The Library of Birmingham. 4-5.30pm Option A: FILM SCREENING: MOTORCITY MUSIC YEARS: SECOND CITY SINNERS (1992) Featuring the music of the Brumbeat groups that rivalled Liverpool’s Mersybeat in the mid ‘60’s followed by a Q & A with filmmakers Jonnie Turpie and Roger Shannon. Option B: TOUR OF IKON GALLERY A short introduction to Ikon and its current exhibitions. 6-8pm THE ALTERNATIVE ‘60S - SOUND AND VISION FILM SCREENING: MEDIUM COOL (1969), CERT. 15 Produced in association with Flatpack Film Festival. 34

FEATURING:

BURMINUM: BLACK MUSIC AND THE CITY

This panel brings together a number of the key black music practitioners that have helped to shape the music of Birmingham. Starting with the early ‘70s, there will be discussion of the music, spaces, places, and the role of pirate radio in the development of Birmingham becoming arguably the centre of black music activity in the country. In a broad examination of black popular culture, we will hear from some of the City’s black music pioneers as well as contemporary musicians and activists.

BIRMINGHAM AGAINST THE WORLD? AND STORIES OF BIRMINGHAM’S PAST Sunday 30 March | 3.30-4.30pm Heritage Learning Space: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND Free admission - advance booking advisable Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line Presented by Dr Chris Upton (Historian and columnist for the Birmingham Post) and Henrietta Lockhart (Curator - Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery) Using images of some of the exciting objects on display in the Birmingham history galleries, Henrietta Lockhart draws out stories about free thinkers from Birmingham’s past, while Dr Chris Upton explores the roots of Birmingham's independence - religious, political and social - and how that freedom of spirit created the city that we live in today.

WWW.FRO NTIERSMUSIC.O RG

CITY WALKS WITH CHRIS UPTON Sunday 30 March | 5-6pm Starting from the entrance of the Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND £3 plus transaction fee Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line

by presenting a series of small events and concerts in houses across Birmingham on Sunday 23 March. The composers that have been invited to take part in Chambres des Amis will each have a one-month residency in a dwelling, culminating in these series of open-house experiences. You can participate in this unique event by following the map available at www.frontiersmusic.org.uk

Leading historian of the West Midlands, Chris Upton takes you on a walk around non-conformist Birmingham.

THE CRIMSON PANGOLIN PRIVATE COLLECTION: ARTEFACTS OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX: SOME NON-CONFORMISTS FROM BIRMINGHAM’S PAST

Sunday 30 March | 12-2pm Ikon Gallery, 1 Oozells Square, Brindleyplace, B1 2HS Free admission - no booking necessary

Tuesday 1 April | 1-1.30pm Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, Chamberlain Square, B3 3DH £3 Booking: Tickets available on the day from the reception desk at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (limited availability) Henrietta Lockhart, Curator of History, will lead a tour of Birmingham: its people, its history at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. The tour will delve into the lives and opinions of the free-thinkers that have helped shaped Birmingham’s history.

PAULINE OLIVEROS IN CONVERSATION WITH FRANCES MORGAN (THE WIRE) Monday 31 March | 5-6:15pm Heritage Learning Space: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND Free admission - advance booking advisable Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line Pauline Oliveros has been exploring the potential for listening and technology for the past 60 years to reveal to us our innermost humanity. Here, she introduces her latest work, written with Ione, The Nubian Word for Flower based on the life of Lord Kitchener. She is interviewed by Deputy Editor of The Wire, Frances Morgan.

MAYA VERLAAK: CHAMBRES DES AMIS (AFTER JAN HOET) Sunday 23 March | 11am-5pm Private dwellings in Birmingham By donation Booking: Visit www.frontiersmusic.org for a venue map and to book on-line Jan Hoet, a Belgian curator from Ghent, organised an exhibition in 1986 using people’s private houses. Chambres des Amis imitates this

W WW.FRO N T I ERSM U SI C.ORG

The Crimson Pangolin is a Private Detective Agency founded by Birmingham based composer Luke Deane. The agency has accumulated a private collection of valuable objects and artefacts that are all connected in some way to Birmingham’s contemporary music history from the last four years. These objects and artefacts will be auctioned here. Among the many fascinating items are the three sand-timers that were used to perform John Cage’s 4’33” at Symphony Hall, and a preserved hard drive containing the unpublished work of British composer Ryan Probert. A viewing of the items will commence at 12 noon, followed by the auction from 1.15pm. Bids can also be made online at www.thecrimsonpangolin.com.

‘LIVE’ SOUND WALKS WITH MAYA VERLAAK AND LUKE DEANE Saturday 5 April | 12-4pm (walks last between 5-10 minutes) Starting from Symphony Hall Canal-Side Entrance, ICC Level 1, B1 2EA (by the bridge over to Brindleyplace) By donation No booking necessary Umbrellas will be provided if required! Join Maya Verlaak and Luke Deane for a sound walk, but not just any sound walk, a ‘live’ sound walk where there will be no stranger talking through headphones or ‘fake’ environmental sounds. Stroll along Birmingham’s canals and be transported into an alternative world of sound through live material and performance. Maya and Luke’s full attention will be offered with each walk conducted for one person at a ratio of 1:2. 35

NEW GENERATION ARTS #4 As Part II of Frontiers Festival gets underway, our young generation of Birmingham artists collaborate with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and artists from Sweden and Amsterdam.

SINFONIETTA CONCERT Monday 2 June | 8.45-10.15pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £2 Tickets available on the door A concert of sinfonietta music conducted by Ryan Probert and devised as part of Birmingham Conservatoire’s partnership with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. Featuring music from James Oldham, Fang Fang, Richard Stenton, Luke Deane, Andy Ingamells and Ryan Probert, expect pudding, punks, playlists, and pistols.

KROCK: THREE OBJECTS IN A CONCERT HALL Tuesday 3 June | 7.30-9pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £10 (£7) plus transaction fee Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line

HOT POTATO FEATURING YEDO GIBSON Monday 2 June | 7.30-8.30pm Arena Foyer: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £2 Tickets available on the door Conductor and director: Robert Nettleship Yedo Gibson tenor saxophone Hot Potato: Sean Gibbs (trumpet), Pete Grimshaw (trombone), Sarah Margolis (flute), Tamara Haynes (clarinet), Sarah Johnson (clarinet), Matieuz Pizulak (soprano saxophone), Dan Searjeant (alto saxophone), Christine Cornwell (violin), Sara Gale (cello), Mark Pringle (piano), Ben Muirhead (double bass), Billy Weir (drums)

Joe Cutler New Work (World Première) Johan Eriksson New Work (World Première) Seán Clancy Forty-Five Minutes on the Subject of Football (Pre-Première) Swedish ensemble Krock specialise in playing contemporary music for electric guitars and since forming in 2005 have commissioned and premiered more than 30 pieces. They regularly collaborate with artists and musicians from other fields and join us for Frontiers to present significant extended pieces by Swedish, British and Irish composers written especially for them. Utilising their unique line up of four electric guitars and four laptops, this is an event not to be missed!

Robert Nettleship and his ensemble Hot Potato are joined by Yedo Gibson, a free improviser from Amsterdam, whose particularly unpredictable and innovative style will be juxtaposed with Hot Potato’s striking style of jazz-infused contemporary music. This event will also feature Gibson performing a set of his inventive compositions.

W WW.FRO N T I ERSM U SI C.ORG

MUSICAL MARATHON #2: THE MONKATHON MONDAY 2 - THURSDAY 5 JUNE Birmingham Conservatoire’s Jazz Department proudly presents Birmingham’s first ever Monkathon - a celebration of the music of American jazz giant Thelonious Monk. Monk’s entire back catalogue, all 70 of his compositions, will be performed in venues across the city, and in a variety of interpretations over the course of four days. This ambitious feat has been inspired by the classical convention of presenting complete cycles and complete works. A large dose of the original ‘Marathon’ ideal has been added for good measure: The Conservatoire Jazz Department is a messenger on a special mission, with plenty of endurance, intensity, physicality, and spirit.

ARTIST PROFILE A towering, visionary figure in 20th Century music, Thelonious Sphere Monk, the original downtown jazz artist, was a key figure in the development of the modern music we know as Bebop, from the 1940s onwards. But like only a handful of other musicians and artists have been capable (Picasso, Cézanne, Stravinsky and Miles Davis all come to mind), he transcended the very style that he helped to create. He has been championed by subsequent generations and avant-garde movements ever since and is as contemporary and cutting-edge today as he was 70 years ago.

CHASING THE UNICORN Monday 2 June | 4.30-6.30pm Symphony Hall Foyer, Broad Street, B1 2EA Free admission - no booking necessary

and composer Hans Koller. Their self-titled album is available on Babel Records. An examination of Monk's highly original music for Frontiers Festival, especially of his lesser-known tunes such as Four in One, Sixteen, Hornin’ in, Gallop’s Gallop and Skippy, has led the group to a new exploration and expansion of the band's sound, group improvisation, and aesthetics of making music together. After Chasing the Unicorn, a second set will follow of short solo piano performances of Monk’s rarely heard blues melodies and ballads, showcasing the excellent piano community currently studying on the Conservatoire’s jazz course.

BEAT CITY BIG BAND Monday 2 June | 8.30-10.30pm The Yardbird Jazz Club, Paradise Circus, B3 3HJ Free admission - no booking necessary Move on to the Yardbird Jazz Club for the evening of 2 June where the Dunnetbaxter Big Band dedicates their regular monthly Yardbird gig to Bill Holman’s Big Band arrangements of Monk.

BRILLIANT CORNERS Tuesday 3 June | 9.30pm-midnight The Spotted Dog, 104 Warwick Street, B12 0NH By donation - no booking necessary Andy Panayi (saxophones), Hans Koller (valve trombone), Percy Pursglove (bass), and Jim Bashford (drums) approach the brilliant corners of Monk’s repertoire from the piano-less perspective, first investigated by the late, great soprano player Steve Lacy in the late 1950s. This is followed by the Monkathon’s first Monk mop-up jam session, with repertoire meister Hans Koller coaxing Conservatoire Jazz students, and any other willing participants, through the un-programmed tunes of Monk.

François Théberge (tenor Saxophone), Hans Koller (piano), Percy Pursglove (bass), and Jeff Williams (drums) Since its inception in 2006, Chasing the Unicorn has almost exclusively played and recorded the compositions of jazz pianist 38

WWW.FRO NTIERSMUSIC.O RG

FRANÇOIS THÉBERGE

UGLY BEAUTY

Wednesday 4 June | 7-8pm Recital Hall: Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, B3 3HG £5 (£3) Tickets available on the door

Thursday 5 June | 5-6.30pm Bramall Music Building: University of Birmingham, B15 2TT Free admission - no booking necessary

8.30pm onwards The Spotted Dog, 104 Warwick Street, B12 0NH By donation - no booking necessary François Théberge from the Paris Conservatoire presents two of the Conservatoire's most exciting jazz bands. After the concert, follow the band back to the Spotted Dog in Digbeth for the second Monk Mop Up and a late night hang.

Jeremy Price (trombone), Tony Kofi (saxophones), Liam Noble (piano), Arnie Somogyi (bass), Clark Tracey (drums) Jeremy Price and Tony Kofi first met in 1997 on a UK tour with David Murray. Tony is well-known for being a Monk specialist and has achieved the stunning feat of performing his own solo Monkathon. Ugly Beauty, Let’s Cool One, Boo Boo’s Birthday and Pannonica will be included in this concert as well as other intriguing greats from Monk.

MONKATHON FINALE Thursday 5 June | 9.30pm The Yardbird Jazz Club, Paradise Circus, B3 3HJ Free admission - no booking necessary Hans Koller leads two jazz bands through the final home straight of the Monkathon. Then the last Monk Mop Up, with special guests Jeremy Price, Tony Kofi, Liam Noble, Arnie Somogyi and Clark Tracey, will ensure the Monk cycle is complete.

THE THREE VENUE MONKATHON FINALE FEATURING:

DOWNTOWN NEW YORK JAZZ: A ONE-DAY SYMPOSIUM Thursday 5 June | 10.30am - 4.30pm Heritage Learning Space: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND Free admission - advance booking advisable Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line From the late 1950s, downtown Manhattan became the epicentre of American experimental jazz. This one-day symposium will uncover this world of improvisation and sonic exploration, with talks on key artists such as Ornette Coleman, David Murray and the AACM, alongside discussions of beat poetry, experimental film and artist-run spaces. Speakers include Tony Dudley-Evans, Roger Fagge, Kirsten Forkert, Nicholas Gebhardt and Tim Wall.

W WW.FRO N T I ERSM U SI C.ORG

RHYS CHATHAM IN CONVERSATION WITH ED MCKEON

EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC #8: RHYS CHATHAM ARTIST PROFILE: Rhys Chatham is a composer, guitarist and trumpet player from Manhattan who altered the DNA of rock and created a new type of urban music by fusing the overtone-drenched minimalism of the early ‘60s with the relentless, elemental fury of the Ramones - the textural intricacies of the avant-garde colliding with the visceral punch of electric guitar-slinging punk rock. Having studied composition under Morton Subotnick and La Monte Young, Chatham was the creator behind the innovative music programme at Manhattan’s famous avant-garde art space The Kitchen. Amongst his many musical credits are listed inclusion in the immensely influential minimalist collectives The Theatre of Eternal Music and The Dream Syndicate.

Tuesday 3 June | 6-7pm Heritage Learning Space: Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, B1 2ND Free admission - advance booking advisable Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line Ahead of the UK première of A Secret Rose for 100 Guitars, Rhys Chatham will be joined by Frontiers Festival curator Ed McKeon to discuss a range of topics from Downtown to guitars and minimalist music to rock and roll.

Starting Guitar Trio in the 1970s and culminating with A classicalwith convention of presenting complete cycles and complete Crimson 200ofelectric guitars in 2009, Chatham been works. A Grail largefor dose the original ‘Marathon’ ideal has has been working forgood overmeasure: 30 years to make use of armies electric guitars added for The Conservatoire JazzofDepartment is in special tunings mergemission, the extended-time of the sixties a messenger on ato special with plenty music of endurance, and seventies with serious hard rock. intensity, physicality, and spirit. Parallel with his rock-influenced pieces, Chatham has been working with various brass configurations since 1982, and recently has developed a completely new approach to collaborations, improvised and compositional pieces involving trumpet. Chatham’s trumpet work deploys extended playing techniques inherited from the glory days of the early New York minimalist and free jazz period. Chatham continues to write for his orchestras of electric guitars and A Secret Rose for 100 Guitars, his latest composition for 100 guitars, was premièred in the San Francisco Bay area in November 2013. It will receive its UK première as part of Frontiers Festival.

WWW.FRO NTIERSMUSIC.O RG

RHYS CHATHAM: A SECRET ROSE FOR 100 GUITARS (UK PREMIÈRE) Saturday 7 June | 7-8.15pm Town Hall, Victoria Square, B3 3DQ £15 plus transaction fee* Booking: Visit www.thsh.co.uk or www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line *A £2.50 transaction fee, plus £1 (optional) postage, will be charged on all bookings except purchases made in person at the Town Hall or Symphony Hall Box office. See Chatham, section leaders David Daniell, Seth Olinsky, and Toby Summerfield, Birmingham-based rhythm section Laurence Hunt of Pram and bassist Sebastiano Dessaney joined by 100 guitarists, to perform his mesmerising piece, A Secret Rose for 100 Guitars, in the magnificent setting of Town Hall. Pictures for Music (1979) by Robert Longo will accompany the performance as visual projections. Whether experienced as spectator or performer, A Secret Rose for 100 Guitars will be a truly awe-inspiring and unifying once-in-a-lifetime event.

WE NEED YOU! DO YOU PLAY THE GUITAR? FRONTIERS FESTIVAL IS LOOKING FOR YOU TO TAKE PART AND PERFORM IN A SECRET ROSE. PLEASE REGISTER YOUR INTEREST AT WWW.FRONTIERSMUSIC.ORG BY 14 MARCH. WWW.RHYSCHATHAM.NET

‘Like a demigod, [Rhys Chatham] set everything in motion and then disappeared, leaving us to figure out how to live in the universe he created.’ The New York Times

‘[Rhys Chatham] is one of noise rock’s founding fathers. Without him, there would be no Sonic Youth, no Jesus and Mary Chain, no My Bloody Valentine... he remains a towering figure among six-string aficionados.’ Greg Kot, Chicago Tribune, author of Wilco: Learning How to Die

W WW.FRO N T I ERSM U SI C.ORG

EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC #9: WARREN SMITH ARTIST PROFILE: Warren Smith is one of the great American drummers, percussionists and composers. Who else, over an almost sixty year career, has collaborated with Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Janis Joplin, Nat King Cole, Max Roach, Anthony Braxton, Charles Mingus and Van Morrison? The list could go on!

WARREN SMITH

Known as W.I.S to those close to him, Smith’s roots are firmly grounded in the Chicago South Side Music Scene. He was born into a musical family and since moving to New York to study at the Manhattan School of Music in 1957 he has never looked back. At this time Smith quickly established himself as an articulate voice within jazz circles, becoming a key figure in the Downtown Loft Scene, where he remains prominent to this day. Along with artists such as Lester Bowie, Don Maye, Amina Myers and Joseph Jarman, Smith has played an essential role in the development and definition of African American music. He also became deeply entwined in the Motown scene. He is a master of percussion and has been, it would seem, the drummer to contact forever.

WARREN SMITH AND SPECIAL GUESTS

PAT THOMAS

ALEX WARD AND THURSTON MOORE

Thursday 5 June | 8-10pm The Hare and Hounds, 106 High Street, Kings Heath, B14 7JZ £10 (£7) plus transaction fee Booking: Call 0121 245 4455 or visit www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers to book on-line In the company of Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), Dominic Lash, Pat Thomas, Alex Ward, and players from Birmingham Conservatoire, Warren Smith demonstrates why he is deserving of his reputation as a master percussionist and drummer, and why such a ‘who’s who’ list of musicians across such a vast range of genres have chosen to work with him. Together, this stellar line up present music that moves from big band jazz to the frontiers of improvised sound.

WWW.FRO NTIERSMUSIC.O RG

EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC #10: DAVID LANG ARTIST PROFILE: David Lang’s music is difficult to define and he does not fit neatly into a category. But then as an American composer living in New York, it would seem hardly fair to expect him to. Lang is a passionate, prolific and complicated composer, with an extensive catalogue covering opera, orchestra, chamber and solo works. He is deeply versed in the classical tradition but do not let this fool you, Lang’s music crosses amongst other things the genres of modernism, minimalism and rock. Showing an unwavering commitment to creating new musical forms through his work, Lang has produced pieces as diverse as Death Speaks, a song cycle based on Schubert, but performed by rock musicians, Love Fail, an evening-length work for the early music vocal ensemble Anonymous 4, and The Difficulty of Crossing a Field, a fully staged opera with the Kronos Quartet. Lang has worked with artists, choreographers and film makers, and it was through this ensemble that he contributed to the music for cult film Requiem for a Dream. Lang personifies a restless spirit of invention and is one of America’s most performed composers. Most of his works resemble each other no further than their cleverly-planned structures. His music can in turns be comic, moving, ethereal, urgent, hypnotic and unsettling. He approaches his compositions with an intelligence that seems to expand the definition of virtuosity. Even seemingly simple pieces can be fiendishly difficult and require incredible concentration by musicians and audiences alike. Co-founder of New York’s legendary music collective Bang on a Can, Lang is the recipient of numerous honours and awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, Musical America’s 2013 Composer of the Year and Carnegie Hall’s Debs Composer’s Chair for 2013-14. It seems that Lang’s time has come and in the words of The New Yorker about his winning of the Pulitzer Prize, ‘…Lang, once a post-minimalist enfant terrible, has solidified his standing as an American master.’

W WW.FRO N T I ERSM U SI C.ORG

DAVID LANG: CROWD OUT (WORLD PREMIÈRE) Sunday 8 June | 2.30-3.30pm and 4.30-5.30pm Millennium Point, Curzon Street, B4 7XG Free to attend - advance booking necessary Booking: Visit www.bcmg.org.uk for details of how to book Birmingham Contemporary Music Group has enjoyed a long and successful relationship with David Lang. His last BCMG commission The Passing Measures received huge acclaim and was subsequently recorded on Cantaloupe Records, a recording which was named one of the best CDs of the year by The New Yorker and which can be heard performed in Frontiers on 31 March (see page 33). In a festival that has explored the non-traditional and experimental, on Sunday 8 June BCMG will lead 1000 people in an all-singing, all-shouting super group as a fitting finale. This will be the world première performance of Lang’s new piece Crowd Out, and one of the largest vocal events that the city has ever seen! 800 people have already signed up to perform Crowd Out and BCMG would be delighted if you were able to join the ‘crowd’. Whether you prefer to stand out or become lost in the crowd, this is a fantastic opportunity to have your voice heard! Crowd Out has been written for people of all ages and all abilities, including those with no musical training or experience, so anyone can take up the challenge and enjoy the thrill and satisfaction of giving voice to this distinctive new piece. Influences for Lang’s Crowd Out encompass a wide range of public singing and vocalising, including football chanting. A common theme is the sense of community created through ‘performance’. The result is an entirely new kind of piece and a serious musical work that anyone can perform through talking, shouting, whispering, clapping and singing set lines of simple text. This text for Crowd Out was ‘found’ by the composer using an auto-complete internet search using the phrase ‘When I am in a crowd I…’ This led Lang to dozens of phrases about how people feel when in a crowd such as ‘I feel energy’ and ‘I feel like rushing into tears’. Lang selected lines that could have meaning for those performing the piece and it is these lines that make up the text for Crowd Out. For further details please visit www.bcmg.org.uk.

B O O K I N G

I N F O R M A T I O N

Frontiers Festival events take place at a variety of venues across Birmingham. Please see our venue map on page 50.

Tickets for festival events are available to purchase in a variety of ways:

THROUGH OUR TICKETING PARTNER - THE BIRMINGHAM BOX Where stated in event listings, tickets can be purchased through our ticketing partner The Birmingham Box. Tickets can be purchased by clicking on the booking link within the on-line event listing at www.frontiersmusic.org or: By Phone Call the TICKET HOTLINE 0121 245 4455 Open Mon to Sat 10am to 5.30pm In Person Visit The Box at Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Centenary Square, Broad Street, Birmingham, B1 2EP. Open Mon to Fri: 10am to 5.30pm; Sat: 10am to 4pm On-Line Go to www.birmingham-box.co.uk/season/frontiers Visa, Delta, Connect, Mastercard and Switch cards can be used. Cheques should be made payable to Birmingham Repertory Theatre. When purchasing tickets in person or over the telephone, credit card bookings incur a 3% fee per transaction and debit card bookings incur a 50p fee per transaction. Both of these fees are waived for on-line bookings and all cash payments are fee free.

prior to the event start time. For such events taking place at Conservatoire venues, you can guarantee your ticket by reserving your ticket in advance. Please do so by phoning the Concert Office on 0121 331 5909 (lines open Mon-Fri 10am-4pm). Your ticket will then be reserved and available for you to pay for on the door. Unless otherwise stated, concessionary prices apply to children (16 and under or in full time education), students, 60 plus, registered disabled and the unemployed. Identification may be requested for those carrying concessionary tickets. Frontiers Festival cannot guarantee refunds or exchange tickets after purchase. All details are correct at the time of going to print, however the festival reserve the right to change the programme or replace artists due to unforeseen circumstances. We hope that you enjoy your Frontiers Festival experience and that you take away many lasting memories. We would love to hear your thoughts and feedback and your suggestions as to how the festival may change and develop in the future. Please get in touch with us at www.frontiersfestival.org.uk or by emailing bhamcons.concerts@bcu.ac.uk Please note that an event photographer and film crew will be at the festival and photographs and footage taken may be used for future publicity.

THROUGH OUR PARTNER VENUES Where stated in the event listings, tickets can be purchased through our partner venues. Contact the venue directly to check availability and to purchase your tickets in person or by telephone. You can also use the relevant booking link to purchase your tickets on-line.

ON THE DOOR Where indicated in the event listings as â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Tickets available on the doorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, tickets cannot be purchased in advance, and are available to purchase at the venue from up to 45 minutes

WWW.FRO NTIERSMUSIC.O RG

Frontiers Festival offers a heartfelt thank you to everybody that has funded and supported the festival, without whom this programme would not have been possible. We would also like to celebrate the contribution of the many musicians, composers and artists that feature in the programme and the volunteers that have given their time so generously. To all of these people we also say a very big thank you.

F U N D E R S

P A R T N E R S

Frontiers Festival 2014 has been curated by Ed McKeon and produced by Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham City University. Festival Team: Festival Curator Ed McKeon (Third Ear), Festival Coordinator & Marketing Manager Emily Bartlett (Birmingham Conservatoire), Festival Coordinator and Orchestral Manager Zoe Poyser (Birmingham Conservatoire), Production Coordinator Lynsey Satchell (Birmingham Conservatoire), Event Coordinators Libby Hall & Mark Scott (Birmingham Conservatoire) Marketing Support Peter Holder (Birmingham Conservatoire), Technical Coordinators Richard Cornock, Simon Hall and Matthew Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Malley (Birmingham Conservatoire), Web Design David Luke Allen (Birmingham Conservatoire), Conservatoire Liasion David Purser, Joe Cutler & Michael Wolters (Birmingham Conservatoire), Press and PR Manager Helen Stallard (Helen Stallard Communications), A Secret Rose co-producers Bobbie-Jane Gardner and Clare Edwards, Production Assistants Christine Cornwell, Ed Denham and Rosie Clements (Birmingham Conservatoire).

W W W.F R O N TI ERSM U SI C.O RG TO CONTACT ANY MEMBER OF THE TEAM PLEASE EMAIL: BHAMCONS.CONCERTS@BCU.AC.UK BIRMINGHAM CONSERVATOIRE, PARADISE PLACE, BIRMINGHAM, B3 3HG. T: 0121 331 5909 DESIGN: TWENTYFIRSTCENTURDESIGN & WHATâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S ON MAGAZINE. ARTWORK: INK SOUP 45

V E N U E

M A P

FESTIVAL ACCOMMODATION:

FESTIVAL FOOD AND DRINK:

We are delighted to present Hotel La Tour as the Frontiers Festival official festival hotel, the perfect place to relax and unwind after immersing yourself in the sights and sounds that the festival programme has to offer. Rooms are available at specially discounted rates for festival friends and visitors. Visit www.frontiersmusic.org/hotel-la-tour for more information.

For the best coffee and the best place to hang out in the heart of Birmingham visit our Festival Hub - Yorks Bakery CafĂŠ. Special deals are available for festival friends and visitors. Visitwww.frontiersmusic.org/yorks for more information