takes shape

April Clare Welsh assesses the diversity of artists in Sound Unwrapped who are taking ambient music in new directions

‘As the world has moved towards becoming an information ocean, so music has become immersive. Listeners float in that ocean; musicians have become virtual travellers, creators of sonic theatre, transmitters of all the signals received across the either,’ wrote David Toop in the prologue to his 1995 book on ambient music, Ocean of Sound. This amorphous artform has travelled a long way since its loose beginnings in Erik Satie’s ‘furniture music’ of the early 20th century, and the digital age continues to append even more layers of intertextuality and innovation to the ambient canon. These days, contemporary artists like Lucrecia Dalt, Félicia Atkinson and Nikki Sheth variously interpret history, nature, culture, and tradition to break new ground in sound art and embodied listening experiences.

The ambient and minimalist pantheons have been historically dominated by white male artists, but, back in the ‘1960s, Éliane Radigue’s tape loop and synthesiser experiments were a breath of fresh air in the stagnant boys’ club. Over in Japan, Tokyo-born composer and percussionist Midori Takada - performing in September – smashed through the glass ceiling in the 1980s to emerge with a string of hypnotic works that served to refresh the scene.

Takada described her 1983 cult masterpiece Through the Looking Glass as her version of ‘three-dimensional music’. Drawing from Indonesian Gamelan, Ghanaian, Senegalese and Burkinabè percussion traditions, and enriched with marimba, gongs, and flutes fashioned from Coca-Cola bottles, the LP was wildly underappreciated at the time but later lavished with attention thanks to a 2017 reissue

by Palto Flats and We Release Whatever

The Fuck We Want Records. Takada went on to more recordings and to earn plaudits for her live shows, pouring decades of knowhow and experimentation into spellbinding performances.

Félicia Atkinson and BBC sound recordist Chris Watson’s collaborative work, Things that are far and near, also transports us to Japan via a cache of field recordings collected by Watson during his travels around the country. Natural sounds gleaned from the mountains to the sea form the backbone of the project, which are then toyed with and augmented by Félicia Atkinson, whose spoken word offerings humanise the soundscapes. Atkinson is an avant-garde composer and experimental poet whose hushed vocal whisperings have been likened to the internet-originating phenomenon of ASMR. Merging 20th century classical music influences with a magpie-like 21st century mindset, her abstract fever dreams are mottled with musical titbits, from blasts of noirish saxophone to droning organ, but their non-linearity disrupts the soothing narrative commonly associated with the ambient lexicon.

Similarly, Colombian vocalist, producer and former geotechnical engineer Lucrecia Dalt creates multiple sound worlds while wielding her voice like an instrument. She’ll be presenting a new duo show based on her 2022 LP ¡Ay!; a weighty ‘sci-fi’ concept album about an extraterrestrial being named Preta who winds up on Earth. The LP was influenced in part by Nicolas Roeg’s David Bowie-starring 1976 movie The Man Who Fell to Earth. On ¡Ay!, Dalt revisits the bolero, son, cumbia and Latin American genres she grew up with through a thicket of congas, double bass and more instrumentation. Fluid and freewheeling, her experimental meditations play around with nostalgia and the concept of time.

From sound-mapping and soundwalking to capturing site-specific field recordings, award-winning Birmingham-based composer Nikki Sheth covers the wide spectrum of sound art in her experiments with space and location. Forging participatory listening and immersing her audience in atmospheric sound through her employment of multichannel and ambisonic spatial audio, Sheth examines themes relating to identity, culture, and nature. For Sound Unwrapped, she joins a cohort of experimental Black and South Asian sound artists – NikNak, Dhangsha, Poulomi Desai, Gary Stewart, and Dushume – in confronting institutionalised whiteness as part of Nonclassical presents: Disruptive Frequencies, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Throughout her pioneering practice, the late legendary Pauline Oliveros stressed the difference between hearing and listening: ‘I feel that listening is the basis of creativity and culture. How you’re listening, is how you develop a culture and how a community of people listens, is what creates their culture.’ For this iteration of Sound Unwrapped, we are encouraged to consider new ways of listening and sensing.

Sat 10 Jun | Hall Two 8pm

Rakhi Singh Soundscape Solos

contemporary

Since co-founding Manchester Collective in 2016, violinist Rakhi Singh has become an increasingly familiar name to those in both classical and experimental music circles. She's toured with Hiromi and Philip Glass, directed her first Prom with Manchester Collective and composed and collaborated with Clark, Vessel and NYX Electronic Drone Choir. For Sounds Unwrapped, Singh will perform works adapted and spatialised for d&b Soundscape, including work by Wolfe, Gordon, Matteis and Groves.

£18.50 + concession tickets

Fri 16 Jun | Hall One 8pm

Hannah Peel & Beibei Wang Spirit of Edens

contemporary

Fascinated by the interplay of human and electronic rhythm, Hannah Peel collaborates with virtuosic percussionist Beibei Wang to explore how sound can evoke place. Combining their unique collection of synths, Chinese drums, gongs and water percussion, they aim to bring many worlds, seasons and cities onto the stage. Hannah Peel and Beibei Wang first collaborated on a recording of Hannah’s Neon for the Manchester Collective, a piece that conjured the Shinjuku suburb of Toyko through sound. Beibei was surprised that Hannah had so perfectly invoked a sense of place connected to somewhere she had never visited.

£19.50 - £25 + under 30s £8.50 + concession tickets

Sat 17 Jun | Hall Two 8pm

Laura Cannell

Antiphony of the Trees

contemporary

The captivating performercomposer Laura Cannell presents the live version of her album Antiphony of the Trees. This multilayered work, created in Laura’s studio by manipulating live recorder playing with delay and reverb, is recreated in an exciting live show by transforming and diffusing the sound in the space to recreate the sonic world of the album with the use of pedals, and roaming speakers attached to performers, an immersive journey inside the treetops. From slow chordal drones to the sound of rapidly beating wings, she plays all the parts of all the birds: the hoarders, the gatherers and the sacred birds.

£18.50 + under 30s £8.50

Fri 16 Jun | Beibei Wang

Sat 24 Jun | Hall One 8pm

London Sinfonietta Turning Points: Sound Unwrapped

contemporary

Jonathan Harvey Ricercare una Melodia (solo instrument + tape)

Kaija Saariaho NoaNoa (solo flute and electronics)

Luciano Berio Naturale (for viola, percussion & tape)

David Fennessy The Room is the Resonator (solo cello and live electronics)

Dai Fujikura K's Ocean (solo trombone and live electronics)

Ailis ni Rian new work (solo cello and tape)

Christian Mason I wandered for a while (spatialised picc, cello, piano, bells + electronics)

A programme of electro-acoustic music and manipulated sound, with live performance in dialogue with electronics, delving into the early innovations by twentieth-century composers alongside their modern-day counterparts. The pre-concert event explores AI in composition, while the late night session in Hall Two will include spatialised versions of classic and new electro-acoustic works. £22.50

Sat 24 Jun | Hall Two 9pm

London Sinfonietta

Late Night

contemporary soundscape

Karlheinz Stockhausen Gesang der Jünglinge

Edgard Varèse Poème

Electronique

See website for details

Sat 15 Jul | Hall Two 7pm

Nonclassical Disruptive frequencies

contemporary

Nonclassical presents the launch release party for Disruptive Frequencies evening of experimental sounds by Black and South Asian artists NikNak, Dhangsha, Nikki Sheth, Poulomi Desai, Gary Stewart and Dushume. This AHRC funded project aims to challenge institutional whiteness in experimental sound practice by investigating the creative identities of contemporary Black and South Asian composers working in the UK.

£15

Sun 16 July I Hall One 7pm

Genesis Sixteen & friends

Spem in allium

classical Programme to include Thomas Tallis: Spem in Allium

Genesis Sixteen and their alumni combine to perform Tallis’s monumental 40-part motet in the gallery and stage of Hall One, in a programme that spaces the singers around the audience.

£19.50 - 39.50 + under 30s £8.50 + concession tickets

Fri 22 Sep | Hall One 7.30pm

Aurora Orchestra Anno

contemporary

Nico Muhly All perfections keep Caroline Shaw new work for harpsichord and strings (Parabola Foundation commission, UK premiere)

JS Bach Keyboard concerto in D minor BWV 1052

Anna Meredith Anno

Kit Armstrong harpsichord

Matthew Gee trombone

Alexandra Wood violin / direct

Anna Meredith’s Anno (2016) is a vivid 21st-century re-imagining of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in which Meredith takes excerpts and loops, reorders and reinterprets them, weaving fragments together with her own interstitial music, drum machine cross-rhythms and recorded birdsong. The result is something at once familiar and wholly new, into which the audience is deeply immersed through surround-sound amplification. This concert also features the UK premiere of Pulitzer Prizewinning composer Caroline Shaw’s new work for Aurora, commissioned by Parabola Foundation, and featuring the dazzling Kit Armstrong on harpsichord, who also performs JS Bach’s D minor keyboard concerto.

£19.50 - £69.50 + under 30s £8.50 + concession tickets

Midori Takada

contemporary

Verdant utopias, meditative caves and abundant life. Japanese percussionist Midori Takada invokes entire ecosystems —her music connecting mind and soul to tree and soil. Takada’s 1981 album

Through the Looking Glass is considered an essential recording of minimalist music. Don’t expect to hear this work though, Takada is constantly pushing forward. Now 70 years of age, Takada is a maestro. Wielding xylophone, marimba, gongs and theatrical physicality, her performances go beyond the musical to transcend through rhythm. ‘The sight of Midori Takada whiplashing between drums, cymbals and marimba is something few observers forget. She is a mesmerising performer of great physical intensity.’ The Guardian

Fri 29 Sept | Hall One 7.30pm

Monteverdi 1610 Vespers I Fagiolini & English Sackbutts and Cornetts

classical

Robert Hollingworth conductor

For the first time in Hall One, a performance of Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers, using both stage and galleries. As Robert Hollingworth of I Fagiolini writes: ‘After many years, I Fagiolini returns to this iconic, if misunderstood, work with a truly stellar line-up of performers dipped in the Monteverdi cauldron when young. Much of the glory of the Vespers’ psalm settings is in their detail, too often lost in the vast acoustics of many venues. Monteverdi even suggests the more intimate ‘chapels or chambers of princes’ for the book’s motets. Experimenting with Hall One’s acoustic clarity, close balconies and up to date with the latest research, I Fagiolini & English Sackbutts and Cornetts offer an intimate guide to this defining work.

£24.50-59.50 + concession tickets

Sat 30 Sep | Hall Two 8pm

Zubin Kanga Cyborg Soloists with Shiva Feshareki

contemporary

Pianist, composer and technologist Zubin Kanga launches an album featuring new works which use innovative technologies to melt and morph the piano’s sounds, with digital instruments, motion sensors, AI-generated sounds and interactive video. Laura Bowler’s MiMU sensor gloves, live video and social media avatars. Emily Howard envelops the piano in clouds of sound generated through a machine-learning neural network.

Oliver Leith combines cutting-edge TouchKeys keyboard with classic synthesizers, while Laurence Osborn pushes the limits of virtuosity between piano and keyboards. Shiva Feshareki joins Zubin for a virtuosic duo where piano combines with turntables and electronics swirling around the audience via a multi-speaker array.

£18.50 + under 30s £8.50 + concession tickets

Sun 1

Oct | Hall One 7pm

Eliane Radigue Occam Ocean

contemporary

Rhodri Davies harp

Angharad Davies violin

Hélène Breschand harp

Dominic Lash double bass

Éliane Radigue (b 1932) is regarded as one of the most innovative and influential composers working today. Up until 2000, she produced electronic works. Since then, she has composed mostly for acoustic instruments, and from 2011, exclusively in collaboration with individual performers, working with the musician’s personal technique and relationship to their instrument, using solely oral and aural means of transmission rather than written scores. The resulting body of 80 pieces, the series Occam Ocean, are specific to those performers, rather than to their instruments. For their performance at Kings Place, musicians Helene Breschand, Angharad Davies and Rhodri Davies will perform various combinations of solo pieces (Occams) and duo pieces (Rivers) in varying configurations. The concert will showcase the premiere of a new duo piece for two harps.

See website for details

Thu 12 Oct I St Martin in the Fields 7.30pm

Gesualdo Six & Matilda Lloyd

Radiant Dawn

classical

Thomas Tallis O nata lux,

Dum transisset Sabbatum

Robert White Christe qui lux es et dies (II)

Alec Roth Night Prayer

Owain Park Phos hilaron

Hildegard von Bingen O gloriosissimi

Donna McKevitt Lumen

Richard Barnard Aura

Deborah Pritchard The Light Thereof

Orlande de Lassus Ave maris stella

James MacMillan O radiant dawn, In splendoribus sanctorum

Gesualdo Six

Matilda Lloyd trumpet

Owain Park director

Vocal consort The Gesualdo Six join forces with trumpeter Matilda Lloyd to present a stunning programme that explores different sonorities and spatial relationships within the church of St Martin in the Fields. Works from the Golden Age of polyphony by Tallis and White are juxtaposed with new compositions by Alec Roth and Deborah Pritchard. Highlights include Sir James MacMillan’s ‘In splendoribus sanctorum’, a meditative and atmospheric setting from the composer’s ‘Strathclyde Motets’, alongside Richard Barnard’s Aura, co-commissioned by the artists.

See website for details

Sat

Many

Sat 2 Dec | Shiva Feshareki

Sat 25 Nov | Hall Two 8pm

Aurora Orchestra

In the light of air

contemporary soundscape

Anna Thorvaldsdottir In the Light of Air

Music by Adès, Takemitsu and Debussy

Principal players of Aurora Orchestra

Aurora presents an immersive performance of Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s In the Light of Air. Scored for viola, cello, piano, harp percussion and electronics, the piece is described by Gramophone as ‘an exquisite tetralogy in which melodies are thrown up by the music’s very exploration of sound and texture… a musical perusal of light and air, and of visibility, temperature and geology.’

Presented in the round in Hall Two with theatrical lighting and players within touching distance of the audience, Thorvaldsdottir’s 40-minute work is paired here with music by Thomas Adès, Tōru Takemitsu and Claude Debussy.

£24.50 + concession tickets

Sat 2 Dec | Hall Two 8pm

Shiva Feshareki with Sean Shibe

Seismic Orchestra Wave

contemporary soundscape

Turntablist and composer Shiva Feshareki joins forces with radical guitarist Sean Shibe for a performance of her Seismic Orchestra Wave diffused through Soundscape. Shibe will create new spatialised sound performances of Reich’s Electric Counterpoint and Julius Eastman’s Bhudda

See website for details

Booking

Tickets for all performances available on the website. A 10% booking fee will be applied to all ticket bookings, with a maximum charge of £4.50 per transaction. Fees do not apply to bookings or ticket collections made in person at the Box Office.

Under-30s Tickets

A limited number of Under-30s (£8.50; no booking fee) tickets are available for specially selected events at Kings Place, ranging from classical concerts to jazz and world music. Terms and conditions apply. For more information, please visit our website or call the Box Office.

Concession Tickets

A new Concession Ticket scheme will be available from January 2023 providing an allocation of discounted tickets on the majority of events for students and those in receipt of any benefit or financial support (eg Pension, Disability, Universal Credit).

Returns policy

Tickets cannot be refunded or exchanged except where a concert is cancelled or postponed, or when it is sold out and the ticket can be resold.

Online

Secure 24-hour online booking kingsplace.co.uk

Box Office

The box office is open (in person and over the phone) every day there is an event on. Our lines are open from an hour before the first show of the day and close when the last show of the day begins. The Box Office and phone lines will always be open from 5pm on the evening of an event. You are advised to get in touch with specific queries via email: info@ kingsplace.co.uk

The Venues

Hall One

Hall One is a seated venue with state-of-the-art fresh air ventilation for your comfort. The majority of events in Hall One have allocated seats but some will be general admission.

Hall Two

All seating is general admission. Some events may have a combination of seating and standing, and some standing only.

St Pancras Room

All seating is general admission. Some events may be standing only with limited number of seats bookable.

Access

We aim to make your visit to Kings Place as comfortable as possible. Kings Place is fully accessible for wheelchairusers, with lifts from ground floor to concert level, and multiple wheelchair-accessible toilets.

An infrared system is available in both Hall One and Hall Two. All areas are accessible to those with Guide and Hearing Dogs. To help us give you the best possible experience, please inform the Box Office team of your access requirements either by emailing info@kingsplace.co.uk or by calling 020 7520 1490 during opening hours. The full Access Guide can be found on the website. An access scheme will be launched in 2023.

Arriving late

We will endeavour to seat latecomers at a suitable break in the performance, according to the artists’ instructions, although this may not always be possible and in some instances latecomers may not be admitted at all. Tickets are non-refundable.

Taking pictures

The use of cameras, video or sound recording equipment is strictly prohibited during performances, concerts and exhibitions. Kings Place may take pictures during your visit that are later used for promotional purposes. Please put phones on airplane mode during all performances.

Food & Drink Policy

Please note that food is not permitted inside our venues. Please ensure that all drinks are decanted into the plastic cups provided prior to entering our venues. Red wine is not permitted inside Hall One.

Security Bag Policy

To make your visit as safe, secure and enjoyable as possible, we have enhanced our security. This includes the introduction of bag checks upon entry to our venues. Any bags which are larger than 30x50cm will need to be checked into our Cloakroom on Concert Level -2.

Food & Drink

Rotunda Bar & Restaurant is the perfect place to dine and enjoy a drink when attending a performance. With its waterside setting, and a range of dining options including a full à la carte menu, great value preperformance menu, light postperformance supper, as well as a selection of smaller nibbles and bar food, there is something to suit everybody. However if it’s just a drink you’re after, Rotunda also has a great range of beers and wine for a pre- or postperformance tipple. 020 7014 2840.

The Concert Bar is situated adjacent to the concert halls. Place your interval order at the bar prior to the start of the performance and your drinks will be waiting for you. If the bar is closed, drinks can be purchased from Rotunda Bar.

Journey

Kings Place is situated just a few minutes’ walk from King’s Cross and St Pancras stations, one of the most connected locations in London and now the biggest transport hub in Europe.

Public transport

The Transport for London Journey Planner provides live travel updates and options on how to reach Kings Place quickly and accurately. You can also call London Travel Information on 0343 222 1234.

Tube

The nearest tube station is King’s Cross St Pancras, on the Circle, Metropolitan, Hammersmith & City, Northern, Piccadilly and Victoria lines. The station has step-free access from platform to street level. The quickest way to Kings Place is via the new King’s Boulevard. You can also walk up York Way.

Editorial Team

Publisher Kings Place Music Foundation

Contact

020 7520 1440 info@kingsplace.co.uk

Art Direction

Binomi (binomi.co.uk)

Editorial

Helen Wallace

Jacob Silkin

Joanna Woodley

Damien Stewart

James Kinnaird (online)

Samira Pereira

Lucy Furneaux

Printer Indigo Press (indigo-press.com)

Bus

The 390 bus route runs along York Way. Other services running nearby are routes 10, 17, 30, 45, 46, 59, 63, 73, 91, 205, 214, 259 & 476.

Car

Kings Place is outside the Congestion Charge Zone. The nearest car park is at St Pancras Station on Pancras Road, open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week including Bank Holidays. An alternative space is Handyside Car Park in the Tapestry building on Canal Reach, open 8am-10pm, 7 days a week including Bank Holidays.

Bike

Santander Cycle docking stations are located on Goods Way and on the corner of Crinan Street and York Way. For updates and cycling routes please visit tfl.gov.uk/cycling

Image credits

CentralSaintMartins

Programming

Helen Wallace (Executive & Artistic Director)

Rosie Chapman

(Head of Artistic Planning)

Jacob Silkin

(Senior Programme Manager, Contemporary)

Rebecca Millican

(Programme Manager) p5 Colin Currie Group

With thanks to With thanks to Peter Millican OBE, and the whole team at Kings Place Music Foundation.

The greatest care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of information in this magazine at the time of going to press, but we accept no responsibility for omissions or errors. The views expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of Kings Place.

© Kings Place 2023. All material is strictly copyright and all rights are reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without the written permission of Kings Place is strictly forbidden.

© Nick White | p6 Liam Byrne

© Suzanne Plunkett | p6 NikNak

© Sophie Jouvenaar| p7 The Breath © Duncan Elliott; The Sixteen, supplied photo | p8

Christina McMaster © Carlos Lumiere; Gildas Quartet © Matthew Johnson | p9 Lucrecia

Dalt © Aina Climent | p11 Hannah

Peel © Pål Hansen | p13 Riot Ensemble © Matthew Johnson | p14 Cosmo Sheldrake © Peter Flude | p15 Hinoko Omori © Annie lai; Moor Mother © Bob Sweeney | p18 Salamanda supplied photo; Vox Luminis © Mario Leko | p19 Marina Herlop © Anxo

Casals; Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, supplied photo | p20 Space Afrika © Frankie Casillo | p22 | Stick in the Wheel, supplied photo; Valentina Magaletti © Giovanna Sodano | p23 12 Ensemble © Raphael Neal; Robert Henke, supplied photo | p26 Rakhi Singh © Phil Sharp; Beibei Wang © Mike Skelton | p27 Poulomi Desai, supplied photo | p28 | Kit Armstrong © Marco Borggreve; Midori Takada, supplied photo | p29 I Fagiolini © Matthew Brodie | p30 Shiva Feshareki, supplied photo | p31 Hall One, Hall Two, St Pancras Room © Nick White; Rotunda Bar, supplied photo

Sound Unwrapped is supported by Arts Council England through its National Lottery Project Grants programme.

In difficult times, people turn to the arts as a source of respite and wonder. As the cost-of-living crisis bites, we’re launching concessions tickets to ensure that live performance isn’t a luxury.

A donation of £15 to the Audience Fund could pay for one concession ticket to a performance at Kings Place for someone who may not otherwise be able to afford it.

LIVE PERFORMANCE IS LIFE ENRICHING. LET’S KEEP IT ACCESSIBLE TO ALL.

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