Events
EXAUDI: The Mirror of Speculation - Durham
EXAUDI vocal ensemble will be performing pieces from Mark Dyer’s Scribe project in this performance of mediaeval vocal music. Featuring pieces from the Codex Chantilly (ca. 1400) and the Old Hall manuscript - the manuscript which Dyer sampled to create the works in his project - EXAUDI will also be performing new works created for them by A-level students at St Leonard’s Catholic School, in partnership with Durham Music Service.
Johannes Ciconia: Le ray au soleyl
Jacob Senleches: La harpe de melodie
Rodericus: Angelorum psalat
Various: Music from the Old Hall Manuscript
Marcel le Gan, ed. Mark Dyer: Scribe
Guillaume de Machaut: Tant doucement; Fin cuers doulz; Riches d’amour
James Weeks: Four virelais
For full details and to book tickets, visit Durham University’s webpage for the performance →
EXAUDI: The Mirror of Speculation - Cork, Ireland
In this programme, EXAUDI create an aula specularum – a Hall of Mirrors – reflecting ancient and modern speculations back on each other until medieval and contemporary seem to merge. From the Ars subtilior repertoire, Ciconia’s puzzle-canon Le ray au soleyl is ‘solved’ in a multitude of ways; Senleches’ famous La harpe de mellodie is performed both with and without its canonic triplum; and Rodericus’ notoriously hermetic Angelorum psalat is presented in competing notations and turned into a musical uroboros, eating its own tail. Machaut’s lilting lovesongs are interleaved with Evan Johnson’s delicate treatment of Petrarch, and then filtered through a work by John Cage in James Weeks’ Four Virelais.
At the heart of the programme is the world premiere of composer Mark Dyer’s project Scribe. Working with RNCM PRiSM, Dyer trained a computer to ‘learn’ the notation of the English Old Hall manuscript, dating from c.1415, using machine learning, and to produce new facsimiles, which Dyer transcribed. The resulting compositions are attributed to a fictional 14th-century musician and presented alongside original Old Hall works in a fascinating extension (and obfuscation) of ‘speculation’ – this time by an incognito, non-human composer.
Cyborg Soloists: Uncanny Bodies - London
A vibrant programme of musician-technology interactions in which performing bodies, musical instruments and novel hardware and software collide, offering three manifestations of the modern-day musical cyborg. Featuring the winners of our 2022 Call for Collaborative Music Projects, Kathryn Williams and Ed Cooper, and Ben Jameson and Harry Matthews.
Drones and tones merge with the human pulse, both heard and imagined, in Fourfold by flautist Kathryn Williams and composer Ed Cooper. Using Soundbrenner’s vibrating metronomes and their own heartbeats, the duo weave a dreamy soundscape with alto flute, electric guitar and fixed media. Active listening combines with performance and spoken word, constructing an augmented, bodily instrument.
Composer-guitarist Ben Jameson and composer-pianist Harry Matthews’ Aeolian Fantasy forms a digital aeolian harp as they feed Vochlea’s audio-to-MIDI software Dubler 2 with prerecorded and live wind sounds. Beautiful and uncanny microtonal harmonies fill the space from small speakers, augmented by live performance on acoustic guitar and synthesisers.
Celebrated Canadian clarinettist Heather Roche presents a poignant set of works for low clarinets and electronics. ‘Droning falsities (for one’s self)’ (2019), composed by Mark Dyer, uses unstable performance techniques and prerecorded murmurs to conjure the ghost of Renaissance composer Guillaume Dufay. In tribute to Robert Phillips, who tragically passed away recently, Heather will perform ‘Rutaceae’ (2015) in which the distinction between live instrument and tape part is held, beguilingly, at a knife’s edge.
Sounds of Now: Contemporary Music for All - Sheffield
A programme of music by CoMA’s Sheffield, Manchester & Allcomers participants including work by Cyborg Soloists composer Mark Dyer.
Join CoMA (Contemporary Music for All) for this programme of works that interweaves explorations of the human voice into the unique colours of an open ensemble. CoMA Sheffield and CoMA Manchester are joined by composer Mark Dyer (of the Cyborg soloists project), and will present his piece Mensura for voices and Soundbrenner wearable metronomes alongside other works by Sheffield and Manchester based composers, including a world premiere by Peter Bourne.
The programme will also include two pieces by the CoMA Allcomers Ensemble made up of players from all around Sheffield who have joined the ensemble for the day.
Free conceret. Full details, including how to participate in the CoMA Allcomers Ensemble, on the Music in the Round website →
Hidden Vortices - Egham, Surrey
Cyborg Soloists: Hidden Vortices features new works created as part of Zubin Kanga’s music-technology research project Cyborg Soloists, supported by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship and hosted at Royal Holloway. Zubin will perform and discuss new solo piano and multimedia works by Joanna Ward, Luke Nickel, CHAINES (Cee Haines), and his own composition, featuring a range of technological extensions of the piano and the performer including MiMU movement-sensor gloves, a new robotic piano mechanism, Soundbrenner haptic metronomes and ROLI keyboards with surface sensors. Mark Dyer (the project’s postdoctoral research assistant) will also present a performance by students of his new work, Mensura, featuring an ensemble wearing Soundbrenner Pulse devices, deriving games of tempo and rhythm from their shared heart rates.
Joanna Ward: Full and Hollow for remotely activated piano (designed and built by Sam Underwood and Richard Sewell)
Mark Dyer: Mensura for voices and Soundbrenner Pulses
CHAINES: Escape TERF Island for ROLI keyboards, touchpads and live electronics
Zubin Kanga: Steel on Bone for piano, MiMU gloves and live electronics
Luke Nickel: hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess for piano, Soundbrenner Cores, electronics, video and strobe lights
Free admission, booking required. Find out more and book tickets →