Churnalism.... from art to music and back again...

Here are  three events that I think will be good, and details of a season's programme by an orchestra I rather like They are all about music. Except the second one, that's about visual art. As always, press release in plain text, Vile comments in italics

Edit-Point: Axe! Music for Electric Guitar and Electronics

Persistently intriguing Glasgow-based contemporary composers Edit-Point dial it up to 11 with music performed by guest electric guitarist, Peter Argondizza. An eclectic set of live guitar and electronics and fixed media music played over a multi-speaker sound system. 

The classical modernist meets the post-minimalist in Luciano Berio’s Sequenza XI and Jack Vees’ National Anthem. Gilles Gobeil’s small, but perfectly full-on Associations Libres takes on Alistair MacDonald’s sparse and intriguingly angular Quite Still. All of this is contrasted by lush, fixed-media works by Manuella Blackburn and Oliver Carman.

7.30pm Friday 15 November, Recital Room, City Halls, Candleriggs. Tickets £6 (£3)

This next one could provoke an intriguing article about how visual art made in Glasgow, at one point excluded from GOMA and the 'mainstream' has become part of Glasgow's Cultural Capital. These artists are getting to go in the Big Important Museum  -have a cheeky keek at Social Sculpture, the book, to see how complicated that relationship is...

The first programme details for a landmark series of exhibitions celebrating 25 years of contemporary art in Scotland have been revealed. GENERATION will bring an ambitious and extensive programme of works of art by over 100 artists to over 60 galleries, exhibition spaces and venues the length and breadth of the nation between March – November 2014, with the majority of exhibitions taking place over the summer of 2014, as part of the Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme.

GENERATION has been in the making since 2011. The programme will continue to grow in the coming months, and featured artists announced today include Charles Avery, Sara Barker, Karla Black, Christine Borland, Martin Boyce, Roddy Buchanan, Steven Campbell, Duncan Campbell, Katy Dove, Graham Fagen, Moyna Flannigan, Douglas Gordon, Ilana Halperin, Charlie Hammond, Iain Hetherington, Louise Hopkins, Callum Innes, Jim Lambie, Lorna Macintyre, Sophie Macpherson, Alan Michael, Rosalind Nashashibi, Toby Paterson, Ciara Phillips, Alex Pollard, Charlotte Prodger, Mary Redmond, John Shankie, David Shrigley, Ross Sinclair, Simon Starling, Clare Stephenson, Corin Sworn, Joanne Tatham and Tom O’Sullivan, Cara Tolmie, Sue Tompkins, Hayley Tompkins,  Zoë Walker & Neil Bromwich, Alison Watt, Cathy Wilkes, Richard Wright and many more.

Yep, totally need to deconstruct and elaborate on that line-up... 

WEST SIDE STORY

King’s Theatre 15 - 25 January 2014

West Side Story - based on a conception of Jerome Robbins

Book by Arthur Laurents. Music by Leonard Bernstein. Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

Entire original production directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins

Originally produced on Broadway by Robert E. Griffith and Harold S. Prince

by arrangement with Roger L. Stevens

“WEST SIDE STORY” changed the course of musical theatre when it opened on Broadway in 1957 and it still remains one of the most successful stage shows of all time. The 1961 film version won ten Academy Awards. Based on Romeo and Juliet, “WEST SIDE STORY” is set on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and explores the rivalry between two teenage gangs; one white, the other Puerto Rican. When Tony falls in love with Maria, the sister of the rival gang’s leader, the feud takes on a new dimension, and as their love blossoms so begins a fatal journey overshadowed by violence and hatred.   The score includes the unforgettable songs ‘Maria’, ‘Tonight’, ‘Somewhere’, ‘America’ and ‘I Feel Pretty’.

“WEST SIDE STORY” originally directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins, has a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein with Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

This production is directed and choreographed afresh by Joey McKneely - former assistant to Jerome Robbins. Joey has worked extensively on Broadway where his choreography credits include “Smokey Joe’s Café” (Tony Award nomination) and “The Boy From Oz” starring Hugh Jackman. His other credits include Hal Prince’s production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Whistle Down the Wind” and Nicholas Hytner’s production of “Twelfth Night”.

West Side Story

15 - 25 January 2014

Box Office 0844 871 764

The Scottish Ensemble’s 2013/14 Season 
Musical journeys around Scotland and EuropeThe Scottish Ensemble will launch its 2013/14 season at the Music Hall in Aberdeen on Friday 7 June 2013. The choice of location is not accidental: it underlines the Ensemble’s commitment to its innovative regional touring model, the City Residencies programme. In October 2012 SE launched residencies in Inverness and Dundee, and in June 2013 Aberdeen and Perth also receive their first–ever Scottish Ensemble residencies.

Throughout the 4-day residencies SE undertakes a wide range of on- and off-platform events designed specifically around individual communities. Events have included: coaching sessions with young and amateur musicians, pop-up performances, late-night and cross-art-form events, tea dances, ceilidhs, and more. This new model is ambitious and has already delivered significant results. It has brought about a considerable increase in audience numbers, strengthened key relationships with community stakeholders and is bringing high-quality music-making to previously unreached groups.
2013/14

The Scottish Ensemble’s season takes audiences on a number of exciting musical journeys around Scotland and Europe; each programme is inspired by place and musical identity. 2013/14 includes four major tours in Scotland, four city residencies, concerts at London’s Wigmore Hall, lunchtime concerts, and chamber music performances. It also includes late-night gigs and a whole range of activities in surprising and unusual locations as part of the city residencies.

Season highlights include:

·         A season of work rooted in the idea of musical place and identify.

·         Performances of Martin Suckling’s full set of Musical Postcards written for the Ensemble.

·         A new commission from Danish composer Christian Winther Christensen in a programme to include classic Scandinavian string repertoire alongside contemporary voices.

·         A major tour of Scotland with rising star mezzo soprano Sophie Harmsen, which will culminate in a performance at London’s Wigmore Hall.

·         Concerts with Chris Stout and Catriona McKay, to include Sally Beamish’s Seavaigers, plus new material from Stout and McKay.

·         A new commission to some of Scotland’s most exciting composers, each writing a variation on a traditional Scottish melody.

·         The continuation of SE’s relationship with key broadcast partner BBC Radio 3.

Nordic Nights
Concerts by Candlelight
 6 December Aberdeen / 7 December Inverness / 8 December Dundee / 9 December Perth / 10 December Glasgow / 11 December Edinburgh

The Scottish Ensemble’s popular December ‘Concerts by Candlelight’ series has a Nordic twist in 2013. The programme includes a new arrangement for the Ensemble of Grieg’s string quartet and an usual journey through ‘Holberg’s Time’ with fascinating detours via exciting contemporary Scandinavian voices. 

Grieg                               From Holberg’s Time (Holberg Suite)
                                      with interludes from contemporary     
                                      Scandinavian composers including
Christian Winther
Christensen                       New Work (SE Commission)

Sibelius                            Andante Festivo
Grieg                               String Quartet No. 1

Love and War in Bohemia
21 February Inverness / 22 February Dundee / 23 February Glasgow / 24 February Edinburgh / 26 February London 
Following her successful UK debut with the Scottish Ensemble in 2012, the thrilling mezzo soprano Sophie Harmsen returns to perform with the Scottish Ensemble in February 2014. She performs Dvořák’s magical love songs alongside virtuosic baroque arias in a concert centring on musical treasures from Bohemia. The concert concludes with a Suk’s beautifully romantic Serenade for Strings.

Pavel Haas              Study for String Orchestra
Dvořák                    Love Songs (arr. Matthews)
Handel                    Selected Arias
Biber                      Battalia
Suk                        Serenade for Strings in E Flat Major

Mezzo soprano         Sophie Harmsen 

Seavaigers
Aberdeen 24 April; residency 21-24 April / 29 April Perth; residency 26-29 April /30 April Glasgow / 1 May Edinburgh 
In April, the Scottish Ensemble team up with folk super duo Chris Stout and Catriona McKay for the final musical journey of the season, one SE will take to Aberdeen and Perth as part of the city residencies. Sally Beamish’s Seavaigers was composed especially for the Ensemble and these two soloists; it describes a sea journey from Dundee to Shetland. The programme also includes Bach’s Double Violin concerto in a performance that explores the work’s folk roots. There is also a composite new commission from some of Scotland’s most exciting musical voices, all writing a variation on a traditional Scottish melody.

Stout/McKay            Sunstone (new material)
Sally Beamish           Seavaigers
Bach                      Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor
Various Composers   Scottish Variations (SE new commission)

Violin                     Jonathan Morton
Scottish harp           Catriona McKay
Fiddle                     Chris Stout

Scottish Ensemble Artistic Director Jonathan Morton said:

Presenting exciting concerts of the highest quality throughout Scotland and in London remains our main objective, but in 2012 our activities broadened significantly in two areas. Firstly, we launched our first annual city residencies, and secondly we raised our profile internationally through two major touring projects in the USA and in China and Taiwan. In quite different ways these experiences have enriched our purpose, and encouraged us to keep striving for deeper and more meaningful engagement with our audiences.

The 2013/14 season is rooted in the idea of musical place and identify. Highlights include a genre-crossing programme with folk musicians Chris Stout and Catriona Mackay, featuring an evocative score by Sally Beamish; our Christmas programme, including new and familiar Scandinavian music transporting you to a Nordic winter landscape; and in February, a musical collaboration with a star of opera stages and concert halls, mezzo soprano Sophie Harmsen.

Edit-Point: Sight/Sound/Place

Sound competes with vision. Sense competes with  non-sense. Edit-Point presents three audio-visual works in which various kinds of chaos are brought to order.

In Lexicon, a poem by Tom, age 12, is the source for a poignant visual and sonic meditaDon on dyslexia. Words, image and text, distort and reform. There is at once a sense of kaleidoscopic brilliance and thwarted progress as the child’s poem slowly unfolds.

Vanishing Point describes the moment when abstract images pivot on the point of becoming tangible. They fleetingly become real and then collapses back into the unknown. The soundtrack, based on the noise of an old valve radio, glues everything together.

Taking an almost entirely different approach, Are You Everybody distils the chaos of the Kosova war into moments of quiet reflection.

The films are framed by a series of six, new, sonic postcards based on field recordings made in Scotland. Just as the photographer can tweak an image on a computer, there may be digital sleights of hand here too. Less than two minutes each, these sound pieces reveal as much as any photograph: capturing a place and a moment.



Andrew Lewis: Lexicon / John Young: Are you Everybody? / Jo Hyde: Vanishing

Point. Sonic postcards by Timothy Cooper, Nick Fells, Diana Salazar, Pete Stollery,

Nicholas Virgo and Matthew Whiteside

7.30pm Wednesday 25 September, Recital Room,

City Halls, Candleriggs, Glasgow G1 1NQ Tickets £6

(£3)






sound lab:

Edit Point and Sound Lab

Sound Lab has been working steadily at developing opportunities for new composers working in the electro-acoustic arena: sitting between the rigour of classical composition and the infinite potential of the modern machine, their events cultivate emerging artists and the hook up with Edit-Point (Timothy Cooper, Matthew Whiteside and Nicholas Virgis) is a comfortable fit. Taking a closer look at the way the violin and viola interacts with electronics, the programme goes back to Ligeti, a pioneer of experimental composition, and towards the future with two world premieres from Michael Cutting and Gordon McPherson.

String Factory, from Ed Bennett, begins the evening and sets out a clear agenda:  Kay Stephen sets her live violin part against precorded violins. While Reich has used similar techniques to emphasis the pounding energy of minimal grooves, Bennett makes a case for composition as a reflection of a very contemporary isolation. The broken sounds of the violin encase Stephen within a ricocheting racket of noise, disorientating and brutal: her playing is all-too-human, vulnerable and ultimately lyrical.

Next up, Shimmering is a melancholic and episodic reflection on light playing across water - more gentle than String Factory, it harks back to the romantic era, without losing the more modern enthusiasm for eastern  melody. Meditative and calming, despite occasional pizzicato attacks, composer Timothy Cooper combines a sensitivity to elegance with an ear for the exotic.

After the interval, Ligeti's Sonata is an almost deceptive introduction to the second half: against McPherson's Lamenta Infracta, it sounds traditional and ponderous. For McPherson, the technology is all about liberating sound from the limitations of the human player - the subtitle, Stunt Double reveals his intentions. A synthesized version of the instrument plays along, echoing and illustrating Stephen and deepening the sound with languorous additions and chiming notes.

It makes a perfect seque into the finale,  Kaija Saariaho's Vent Nocturne, an almost apocalyptic vision that slides between violence and reflective interludes.

Edit-Point's programme makes a series of bold claims: placing electro-acoustic music firmly in the classical tradition - no tacky nods to dance music here - it suggests that it is capable of addressing contemporary concerns without ignoring the past. The electronics provide the depth equally available through acoustic instruments, but offers a different sort of bed. Not always comfortable, often bracing but ever emotive, the connection between human and machine is imagined as battle and collaboration.

If there is a trend for composition to chase increasingly obscure strategies, these selections balance between accessible and challenging: the lessons of serialism are present, but alongside a respect for older faith in melody. The booming ferocity of much minimalism has been replaced by a more nuanced use of electronic possibilities. Yet at the centre, Stephen's virtuosity brings soul to the mechanical roar and hum.

Recital Room, City Halls

April 17th 2013, 7.30pm

Drums. And Tape. And Drums. And Drums.

Matthew Whiteside is a regular co-host on  The Vile Arts Radio Hour: bringing a touch of intelligence and knowledge to my usual vague understanding of contemporary classical music, he is a tireless supporter of new composition. He's part of the wonderful Said Ensemble, a group committed to bringing classical music into unfamiliar places, like the pub, and he has been known to compose a cheeky electro-acoustic number, or two. In fact, he is prolific. 

His entry into the next Edit-Point show explains why he is a good match for the Vile Arts ethos. It's called Sanshen and early indications suggest that it is going to be a big drum solo. Edit Point have got young percussion Glynn Forrest on board to bash some bits - six new compositions, and the full range of percussion, from maracas (Javier Alvarez’s  Tamazcal sees the instrument made popular by Bez face off against tape) to a rock'n'roll style kit.

Edit-Point are in one of those marginal areas that I love so much: not purely classical composition, not purely electronic and intrigued by the possibilities of sound in specific spaces. Of course, every experimental musician likes to say something like that, but Edit-Point back it up by having a constant programme that challenges emerging composers to think about sound as "cinema for the ears." 

It might be said they are John Cage's children, in their fascination with the complete listening experience. Then again, maybe Cage had an affair with Stockhausen, because these kids like to get plugged into the machine. 

Edit-Point are performing as part of the Sound Lab series: 7.30pm, Wednesday 27 February, Recital Room, City Halls, Glasgow