Ahead of our performances with them in Birmingham and London in February 2019, the PRS Foundation made it possible for us to workshop new piece by Alexander Hawkins and Kit Downes which will blend their ensembles (the Alexander Hawkins & Evan Parker Woods Duo, and ENEMY) with Riot Ensemble musicians for an evening that combines notation, improvisation, and electronics.  We worked with each composer for 90 minutes, and they took away recordings, notes, parts and ideas to complete their pieces over the winter holiday.

See you in Feb!

We make our Cafe Oto debut in an evening prefaced by Lee Hyla’s raucous duet We Speak Etruscan (for baritone saxophone and bass clarinet).  That piece is followed by sets where the Alexander Hawkins & Evan Parker Duo, and ENEMY each perform with Riot Ensemble musicians in PRS-funded commissions that blend notation, improvisation, and electronics.

We make our Birmingham debut in an evening prefaced by Lee Hyla’s raucous duet We Speak Etruscan (for baritone saxophone and bass clarinet).  That piece is followed by sets where the Alexander Hawkins & Evan Parker Duo, and ENEMY each perform with Riot Ensemble musicians in PRS-funded commissions that blend notation, improvisation, and electronics.

Presented as part of the Spitalfields Music Festival, this concert showcases three eclectic and exciting Canadian composers.  It includes the UK premieres of Christopher Mayo’s BEAST (originally written for Alarm Will Sound), and the rapidly upcoming Nicole Lizée’s BLACK MIDI (a co-commission with Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Avanti! and Stargaze), and a new, large ensemble version of Richard Reed Parry’s MUSIC FOR HEART AND BREATH, in which the musicians are led (in tempo) by their own heartbeats and breath.

All three composers will join us for the concert, which takes place near the waterfront across from the O2, at Trinity Buoy Wharf, a short walk from the East India (DLR) or Canning Town (Jubilee Line) stations.

Solstices is a 70-minute piece from Georg Friedrich Haas, which takes place entirely in darkness. For 10 musicians, including a completely re-tuned grand piano, Solstices opens with a passage of taut, energetic and precise music.  From here the piece turns to a process of deep-listening by the musicians who, led by a totally re-tuned grand piano, play and tune a series of overtone chords.  Soon Haas introduces a variety of musical ‘games’ and elements that play upon the surface of this slowly moving texture.  Building to an intense climax, the final chord is held by the musicians for more than four minutes.  Haas writes:

very gradually the light comes back
the brighter the light, the softer the music
decrescendo al niente

After our exciting collaborations with Patricia Alessandrini at Goldsmiths earlier this year, we’re hugely excited to be involved in recording three of her pieces for an upcoming portrait disc on Huddersfield Contemporary Records.  We’ll travel up to Huddersfield and on 2nd December record her work for vocalist and large ensemble, Parlour Songs.

You can read an interview we did with Patricia here.

After our exciting collaborations with Patricia Alessandrini at Goldsmiths earlier this year, we’re hugely excited to be involved in recording three of her pieces for an upcoming portrait disc on Huddersfield Contemporary Records.  We’ll travel up to Huddersfield and on 1st December record her chamber works Funeral Sentences and Parlour Songs.

You can read an interview we did with Patricia here.

Fresh from our Deutschlandfunk Radio recording, we perform Jonathan Harvey’s masterwork, Song Offerings (with our soprano Sara Dacey) alongside world premieres of Benjamin Graves Four Facades for viola and seven players (commissioned by Riot Ensemble with support from the RVW Trust, Carne Trust and Hinrichsen Foundation for Stephen Upshaw) and our 2018 Call For Scores commissions:  Die Brücken hinter uns by Caterina di Cecca and Broken Beauty Judit Varga.

There will be Halloween sweets and a cash bar available!

Built around two of Philip Venables most exciting chamber pieces (Illusions and numbers 91-95) this concert also features our first performance of Sarah Nemstov (Central Park / Manhattan), Lee Hyla’s raucous We Speak Etruscan (a piece that imagines a new (fake) language, spoken by a heavily amplified bass clarinet and baritone saxophone) and Helga Arias Parra’s meditative Incipit. Dwelling on memory and our shared histories, Helga’s piece expands from a quote of Pergolesi that is only heard properly in the dying moments of the work.