Category Archives: Concerts

Five minutes with: Kalia Baklitzanaki

The new term has arrived, and with it City University Concert Series 2013-14. Next week Kalia Baklitzanaki takes to the stage with her ensemble and we spent a bit of time with her talking about her musical influences.

 

Your performance at City University London will include both traditional repertoire from the Mediterranean and Middle East, and your own compositions. Can you explain how these connect, and how your compositions are influenced by the musical traditions that you have learned?

Growing up on the island of Crete in Greece, I was surrounded by traditional music. Music there is very much a living tradition and a part of the seasonal life cycle. The folk music of the island and of the rest of Greece have strongly influenced my compositions. Historically Crete has been a point of contact with many other cultures such as Venetian, North African and Ottoman, and I have therefore been interested in learning about the music of these cultures as well. Some of the repertoire I will present tonight reflects my travels and studies with musicians in these areas.

 

The instruments in your ensemble come from a number of different musical traditions. Why have you chosen these particular instruments, and do you face any problems when trying to integrate them?

I selected the instruments and instrumentalists in my band, as they are ideal for interpreting music of the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. Vasilis Sarikis will be playing percussion used in Greece, Turkey, the Middle East and Spain such as: riq (tambourine), darbuka (goblet drum), frame drums and cajon. Jon Banks will be playing the kanoun (zither) which is used in Greece, Turkey and the Arab world. Theo Lais will play the Cretan lyra (fiddle) and laouto (lute). I will be singing in various languages, playing the nay (reed flute) used in Greek, Turkish, Arabic and Iranian music, and the Greek/Bulgarian kaval flute. Ruth Goller will keep us all together with her bass line on the double bass which has successfully been incorporated into traditional music of these areas. All the musicians are amazingly talented on their instruments and I am really pleased to be able to work with them all!

 

Can you tell us about the other music and dance projects that you are involved in?

The other main project I have is ‘Dunya Duo’ with percussionist Vasilis Sarikis, where we write and explore repertoire for nay, voice and percussion. Projects and musicians I have worked with in the past include: Natacha Atlas, Syrian, Kuljit Bhamra, Kharabat Ensemble, Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Kit Downs, Jadid Ensemble and Paprika.

 

You have lived and studied in London for a number of years. Do you feel that the city has influence the music that you write and perform?

London is a crossroad for many artists, and this has given me the opportunity to work with a great variety of artists and musical traditions. The support provided to the arts has also been invaluable for creating and sustaining projects.

 

You can find out more about Kalia and her music here: www.kaliamusic.com

Kalia will be performing on Tuesday 22nd October at 7pm in the Performance Space, College Building. This concert is part of Inside Out Festival.

Admission is free. To book a place head to:  http://www.city.ac.uk/events/2013/october/kalia-music-of-the-eastern-mediterranean-and-middle-east

Or follow us on facebook: http://facebook.com/CityUniConcerts

 

Erik Nyström and Peiman Khosravi present AMBIT at BLOCK 336, Friday 18th October

Recent City PhD graduates Erik Nyström and Peiman Khosravi are premiering Ambit, a new multichannel sound installation and electroacoustic concert event, at the Block 336 gallery in Brixton. The event is part of Everything Wants to Run, an international exhibition curated by Mark Jackson, featuring nine artists exploring concepts and conditions of materiality in contemporary art practice.

“Ambit explores visuospatial imagery evoked by the apparent physicality of sound material. Projected sonic images liquefy the surfaces and boundaries of the room, as if it were an elastic topology. Thus a mutable world of illusory spaces emerges that transcends the geometry of the listening environment — bringing into bringing into consciousness the tension between ‘here and now’ and a universe extending beyond.”

The gallery is going to be immersed in transforming sonic environments in an evening which takes spatial music in new directions, blending concert listening with the temporary non-linear spatial experiences of installation work.

 

Details

Friday 18th October, 2013

7pm: installation

8pm: Concert

Khosravi – Vertex, Convergences

Nyström – Lucent Voids, Latitudes

 

BLOCK 336

336 Brixton Road

London SW9 7AA

 

The event is FREE and no booking is required.

 

Department of Music sponsors first edition of the London Contemporary Music Festival

City’s Department of Music was happy to sponsor the first edition of the London Contemporary Music Festival, which took place from 25th July – 4th August at Peckham multi-storey car park. The festival featured performances from an array of artists including Glenn Branca, Tony Conrad, Jane Chapman, SND, Leon Michener, Max Baillie, and many others.

Current MA student Sam Mackay was co-director of the festival, and recent PhD graduates Peiman Khosravi and Erik Nyström were the audio engineers for most of the events. Both were also involved as performers: Peiman Khosravi performed Bernard Parmegiani’s ‘De Natura Sonorum’ and the tape part for his piece ‘Violostres’; Erik Nystrom performed his own 2012 piece ‘Catabolisms’. Finally, another recent PhD graduate, Ambrose Seddon, gave the world premiere of his piece ‘Secure’, inspired by the sounds of the womb.

The festival was the brainchild of four young contemporary music enthusiasts with a shared desire to bring new classical music to dynamic, appropriated spaces. At the same time, it was crucial to mobilise the best talent the scene had to offer, even booking iconic artists based abroad such as Charlemagne Palestine and Tony Conrad. Discussing the festival’s ambitious approach in The Daily Telegraph, critic Ivan Hewett said the following:

“This determination to seize the moment and “kiss the joy as it flies”, is exciting. One feels the tremor of something that touches on real cultural energies, which is at least as valuable as any purely musical experience the event might offer. Everything has happened at top speed; the tickets mostly melted away within a few days of the festival’s announcement… All this has happened in joyous defiance of the accepted way of launching an arts festival”

A controversial debate was sparked following the festival’s climax, a sprawling 90 minute piano recital by Mark Knoop which culminated in a performance of Philip Corner’s Piano Activities. The piece, which calls for the destruction of the piano, was described by The Guardian as ‘morally dubious’ and ‘creatively redundant’, charges which were fiercely debated by a number of musicians and critics in the subsequent days.

Ben Schoeman wins the Contemporary Music Prize at the Cleveland International Piano Competition and performs at Festivals in Edinburgh and Bucharest

DMA student Ben Schoeman has been awarded the prize for the best rendition of a contemporary work at the prestigious Cleveland International Piano Competition in Ohio, USA. Schoeman performed the Toccata for John Roos by the South African composer Surendran Reddy (1962-2010). This Toccata includes several elements of South African jazz and mbaqanga dance music and is a highly virtuosic work. Schoeman was one of 28 selected participants who took part in the event. He was praised in Cleveland Classical by critic Daniel Hathaway, who wrote the following:

South African pianist Ben Schoeman brought the session to an end with Bach and Haydn that felt completely right. His reading of the Toccata, BWV 911 was dramatic in concept, full in tone, his playing virtuosic where it was meant to sound improvisatory and clear and neat when counterpoint was involved. Schoeman responded to Haydn’s delightful C major Sonata (Hob. XVI:50) with elegantly cheerful playing full of character and contrast and festooned with pearly passagework. South African composer Surendran Reddy’s Toccata for John Roos was pure dessert: jazzy, bluesy, caffeinated and just bordering on the pianistically trashy, Schoeman played it with amused glee.

After his success at the Cleveland Competition, Schoeman went on to give six recitals at the Royal Over-Seas League Concert Series that forms part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland. He also travelled to Bucharest to perform Liszt’s Piano Concerto no. 1 at the George Enescu International Festival, where he collaborated with conductor Vlad Vizireanu, members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Camerata of Romania.

http://festivalenescu.ro/en/calendar/events/symphonic-concert-side-by-side

Mr. Schoeman has also recently been named a ‘Steinway Artist’. His name appears on an international roster of artists, including musicians such as Vladimir Horowitz, Martha Argerich, Radu Lupu as well as Schoeman’s teacher at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Prof. Ronan O’Hora.

http://www.steinway.com/artists/solo-profile/s/BenSchoeman

Schoeman is currently completing his doctoral thesis on South African composer Stefans Grové’s piano music under the supervision of Dr. Christopher Wiley.

Genevieve Arkle, Siân Dicker and Letitia Keys will give concert in Charroux, France with Ian Pace on July 20th

On July 20th, 2013 in Charroux, western France, at Château de Rochemeaux (through the kind generosity of veteran pianist Jorg Demus in providing the venue), three singers from City will give a concert of solo arias, duets, trios together with pianist and Lecturer in Music at City Ian Pace. The concert will feature music of Mozart, Rossini, Mendelssohn, Wagner-Liszt, Wagner-Busoni, Glinka-Balakirev, Chaikovsky, Léhar, Britten and Sullivan.

For further information, please see the following link:

http://poitoucharentes.angloinfo.com/whatson/featured/26189/arias-duets-and-songs-by-mozart-rossini-britten-and-other-composers-plus-transcriptions-from-wagner

Ben Schoeman (DMA) selected to take part in the Cleveland International Piano Competition 2013

City University DMA student, pianist Ben Schoeman, was selected as one of 30 pianists to take part in the Cleveland International Piano Competition. This is one of the world’s most prestigious competitions and a member of the World Federation of International Music Competitions (WFIMC). Ben Schoeman is a student of Dr. Christopher Wiley (City University, London) and Prof. Ronan O’Hora (Guildhall School of Music & Drama). He is currently completing a doctoral dissertation on the piano music of the South African composer Stefans Grové. Schoeman won the 1st Prize in the 11th UNISA International Piano Competition in Pretoria (also a WFIMC competition) as well as the Gold Medal in the Royal Over-Seas League Music Competition in London. In 2012 he won the Glass Trophy of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama after his performance of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no. 1 with the Guildhall Symphony Orchestra in the Barbican Hall. He passed two pre-selection rounds to be accepted as one of the 30 competitors in the Cleveland Competition. The event will take place between 28 July and 12 August 2013 in Cleveland (Ohio), United States of America.

For more information, please visit the competition website: http://www.clevelandpiano.org/

Ben Schoeman (DMA) gives performances at the National Arts Festival in South Africa

City University DMA student, pianist Ben Schoeman, has given concerts at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa. At the prestigious Gala Concert of this event on 30 June 2013, Schoeman performed Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of conductor Richard Cock. The prominent South African critic Jeff Brukman (Head of the Music Department at Rhodes University) described his performance as “a sensitive interpretation” and wrote that “compositional features and inner-voiced thematic material were highlighted through Schoeman’s careful voicing of the richly-hued tapestry” (Cue Newspaper, Grahamstown). On 2 July Schoeman gave a solo recital at the National Arts Festival. His programme included works of Haydn, Schumann, Wagner-Liszt as well as the South African composer Surendran Reddy.

During his South African visit, Ben Schoeman also gave two chamber music recitals in collaboration with his duo-partner cellist Anzél Gerber. The two musicians won the first prize in the IBLA Grand Prize Competition in Italy (2012). Their first recital took place at the ZK Matthews Great Hall of the University of South Africa on 23 June and was described by the critic Thys Odendaal (Beeld newspaper) as “an ecstatic performance that can surely be described as a highlight of Pretoria’s concert calendar for this year”. On 1 July the Gerber/Schoeman Duo repeated their programme to a capacity audience at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. The following review appeared in the Cue Newspaper (Wednesday 3 July 2013): http://cue.ru.ac.za/2013/07/moments-of-virtuosity/

City Summer Sounds: Five minutes with Georgia Rodgers

In the final of our series of five minute interviews, we spoke to Georgia Rodgers, an Islington based composer pursuing a PhD in Music at City University.

This piece has come after a year long collaboration with cellist Séverine Ballon. How did that come about, and how has it been working with her?

I was introduced to Séverine by my supervisor Newton Armstrong last October, and she was kind enough to agree to work with me on this piece. It has been an absolutely brilliant experience and a real privilege. Séverine is a fantastically talented cello player. She plays with several renowned ensembles and is also pursuing a PhD in extended cello technique. Not only that but she is a great teacher; she showed me what is possible on the cello, what works and what doesn’t. She helped me to focus on the sounds I was interested in, to concentrate on what was important in the composition, and to communicate my ideas. She is also very patient! I’ve learnt so much from her and I’m very grateful.

Your piece combines electronics with the solo cello. How are these two aural aspects interacting with each other?

Ah, well that’s the million dollar question! The electronic sounds are derived entirely from simple processing of the live cello. Everything coming out of the loudspeakers is a slightly delayed or layered version of the live sound from the stage. In fact, the question you ask – how do the electronics and live sound interact with each other – is one of the key concerns of the composition. I’m interested in how our perception of the sound of the cello is altered when we hear a mix of live and electronic versions of it. I think by actively considering what we are hearing in this way, we may learn something about our own perception, what sound is and how it behaves. So, how do the two parts interact? I’d be interested to know what the audience thinks after hearing it!

You recently had a performance of your piece ‘A to B’ which is for acoustic percussion and electronics. How does this piece relate to the upcoming piece?

Yes, ‘A to B’ was performed at City in May this year by Serge Vuille. He did a really great job. The two pieces are quite similar in terms of their fundamentals: both have a solo instrumentalist playing on stage and four loudspeakers positioned around the audience. In both pieces the electronic part is derived entirely from the live instrumental sound using simple delays, layering and some transposition. In ‘A to B’ I investigated a range of extended playing techniques, a literal hands-on exploration of the percussion instruments, exploring the different sonic textures and spaces that could be created. In this new piece I think I have narrowed the range of instrumental material and electronic processing in order to concentrate on very small changes in the sound, trying to isolate thresholds in our perception, for example when does a noise become a pitch? When does a discrete sound become continuous? When does the space shift from front to back, left to right, near to far?

On Monday, your new piece is going to be performed alongside Morton Feldman’s ‘Patterns in a Chromatic Field’. How does your work fit in with this work? Are there any direct influences?

‘Patterns in a Chromatic Field’ is a fantastic piece; I’m really happy to be programmed along side it and am looking forward to hearing Séverine and Mark perform it. I don’t think there are any direct influences from it in my piece, but I am very interested in Feldman as a composer, in particular his approach to time. Feldman said that he was interested in getting at time “in its unstructured existence…before we put our paws on it” – our perception of time as a phenomenon, before we divide it into minutes and seconds. In ‘Patterns…’ he uses slightly varying repetition, a large time scale, and other techniques to approach this. My piece inhabits a very different world sonically but one of my concerns whilst composing it was accessing the present moment, by enabling us to consider our perception of sound.

Finally, “Listen to yourself listen” is a term you have applied to some of your research. What does this mean, and how does this come into play in the new work?

Listen to yourself listen is a phrase I’m using (with some poetic license) to imply a duality of listening – listening whilst at the same time understanding what it means to listen. This is why I’m interested in exploring our perception of sound and how it changes, where the thresholds of perception happen, at what point we hear one thing as opposed to another. I think it’s important to be conscious of our perception of sound in order to approach the sound itself, to learn more about what sound is and how it behaves, as well as learning more about ourselves perceiving it.

You can hear more of Georgia’s music here: https://soundcloud.com/georgiarodgers

Her new composition will be performed by Séverine Ballon on Monday 24th June at 7pm, alongside a performance of Morton Feldman’s Patterns in a Chromatic Field.

For more information about City Summer Sounds head to: http://www.city.ac.uk/city-summer-sounds

Or follow us on facebook: http://facebook.com/CitySummerSounds

City Summer Sounds: Five minutes with Mark Knoop

 

City Summer Sounds is now into its second week. We caught up with pianist Mark Knoop to talk about his upcoming performance in the festival next week.

 You are going to be performing Feldman’s Patterns in a Chromatic Field in next week’s concert, which is very much a piece about communication between the two performers. What does this piece mean to you?

Patterns in a Chromatic Field is an amazing late Feldman work of about 80 minutes duration. Séverine and I have talked about playing the piece for many years, so it’s great to have the opportunity to perform it at last. The title seems simultaneously rather dry musicological language, and also suggestive of the visual arts. Feldman actually subtitled the work “Untitled Composition” and is said to have preferred this designation.

“Patterns…” shares its scale with other late Feldman works, but has a more active surface than the big solo piano pieces. I think of the piece as if viewing a small, highly intricate, slowly rotating crystal, lit from one angle by strong light. As the crystal rotates, we see more detail emerging, then the view suddenly changes as the light hits a new facet.

The cellist Arne Deforce has pointed out a link to the work of Jasper Johns, who writes:

Take an object.

Do something to it.

Do something else to it

Do something else to it.

You’ve performed a number of Feldman pieces in recent years. As a pianist, is there something that draws you to his music?

Feldman’s piano writing is fascinating and powerful, also demanding and frustrating at times. I suppose I was initially attracted to the performative challenge of maintaining the scale of the long pieces, but even the shorter pieces have an way of immediately creating their own unique identity. Feldman does what he wants to do, there is no suggestion of compromise or concern with reaction or result.

You’re an Australian performer, now based in London. What was it that brought you to base yourself in London?

I moved to London in 2000 from Australia partly to distance myself from a rabidly reactionary conservative government and the Olympics. So that worked out well…

You seem to have a real focus on performing new works. Is there something you particularly enjoy about performing new works and collaborating with composers on new works?

Of course! I see music — like any other artform — to be primarily about creation. In order to have any relevance to contemporary culture, we must be continuously creating and collaborating. Marcel Duchamp maintained that art is no longer art after 20 years — of course in the performing arts there is a place for re-creation and reinterpretation, but the principal view should be forwards, not backwards.

 

You can find out more about Mark Knoop here: http://markknoop.com/

 

Séverine Ballon and Mark Knoop perform Feldman’s Patterns in a Chromatic Field alongside a new work by Georgia Rodgers on Monday 24th June 2013 at 7pm, in the Performance Space (ALG10), College Building.

For more information about City Summer Sounds head to: http://www.city.ac.uk/city-summer-sounds

Or follow us on facebook: http://facebook.com/CitySummerSounds

 

City Summer Sounds: Five minutes with Annie Yim

 

With City Summer Sounds now officially under way, we had a quick chat to Annie ahead of her performance tonight.

Your programme features works by Schubert and Schumann. What is it about these pieces in particular that made you want to perform them?

Schubert was an important influence on Schumann.  Both composers wrote great song compositions and song cycles, and this lyrical quality shines through their instrumental works.  I have always enjoyed programming them together.  Between Schubert’s Improputu in B-flat major and Schumann’s Humoreske, I’m playing two Schumann songs transcribed by Liszt.  They are both love songs, written to express his ardent love for Clara before they married.  Widmung (Dedication) from Schumann’s song cycle, Myrthen Op. 25, was presented to Clara on their wedding day.  Fruhlingsnacht (Spring evening) is from his Liederkreis Op. 39, set to poetry by Joseph Eichendorff.

 

You are currently writing a doctoral thesis on Schumann’s influences upon Brahms. How does this research feed into your performance of Schumann’s works?

 

My research is on Schumann’s influence on the young Brahms, specifically on the little known and very different original version of Brahms’s Piano Trio in B major, Op. 8.

Performance and musicology are very closely connected. They are quite different approaches, but for me as a performer, the goal is the same. My research involves multiple perspectives, including historical, analytical, performance practice, and performing traditions, all of which build one’s understanding of the composer, the music, and the tradition of interpretations of the music. These great works of art require much more than musical instincts to re-create or discover their meaning. I focus very much on Schumann’s musical-aesthetics in my current thesis, which are complex, as his literary and esoteric aesthetics are often entangled by preconceptions about his mental illness, a biographical aspect which often undermine Schumann’s musical innovation.  Brahms, even at 20 years old, recognized Schumann’s genius and ingenuity, and became hugely influenced by his mentor throughout his life, even though they met only four months before Schumann was incarcerated in the mental asylum.

You also recently presented a lecture-recital on humour in Schumann’s Humoreske Op. 20. What aspects of humour can the audience expect to hear in your performance of this piece tonight?

 

Our understanding of humour is quite different, as Humoreske is by no means light-hearted!  The German notion of Humour was originally a literary aesthetic in the 19th Century, championed by writers such as E.T.A. Hoffmann and Jean Paul, who were Schumann’s heroes.

Jean Paul wrote that humour is represented by ‘an infinity of contrasts’, and that laughter is produced when juxtaposing pain and greatness.  For example, in Hoffmann’s novel Life and Opinion of Tomcat Murr, he tells two different but related stories, alternating them often at crucial moments to interrupt one from the other.  Humoreske is used for the first time in history as a musical title by Schumann here.

What happens in Schumann’s Humoreske adheres to it’s literary origin.  We have two contrasting but related tonalities, B-flat major, and G minor, which alternate throughout the work (just like in his Kreisleriana Op. 16).  The great moment arrives towards the end in a frenzied section, when we hear three fff chords in B-flat major, followed immediately in G MAJOR – a terrific sense of freedom is achieved as he breaks free of the B-flat major/G minor plot!  He has reached the zenith through ‘humour’. The Humoreske is indeed Schumann’s musical novel.

You can find out more about Annie Yim here: www.annieyim.com

Annie Yim performs a programme of Schubert and Schumann tonight (Tuesday 11th June 2013) at 7pm in the Performance Space (ALG10), College Building.

 

For more information about City Summer Sounds head to: http://www.city.ac.uk/city-summer-sounds

Or follow us on facebook: http://facebook.com/CitySummerSounds