Sensing Sounds
Evening Event
Monday 10 March 2014 7.30 - 9pm
Main Galleries, Burlington House
£18 / £9
Friends of the RA book first
Sensing Spaces
Intrigued by Sensing Spaces? Check out Sensing Sounds an amazing collaboration with the Royal College of Music. We’ve commissioned six composers to create pieces in response to the exhibition's installations, which will then be performed in situ over the course of a very special evening.
Expect violins, flutes, trombones, saxophones, oboes and voices to sound like you've never heard them before. It's a great chance to see the exhibition after hours, enjoy a drink on us and experience the interactions of architecture and music. In partnership with the Royal College of Music
£18 / £9
Friends of the RA book first
Sensing Spaces
Cameron Graham
Diastole, for voice, violin and alto flute
Composed in response to the installation created by Li Xiaodong, Diastole refers to a type of expansion and 'swelling' that occurs throughout the piece. Whilst each of the voices call out and respond to one another, the resulting utterances form a larger yet still incomplete dialogue. Diastole has been created in such a way as to give a sense of perpetuity when the listener encounters both the music and the installation.
Musicians: Sophie Cunningham (voice); Clarice Rarity (violin); Philippa Mercer (alto flute)
Biography
Cameron Graham is currently pursuing a Master’s in composition at the Royal College of Music. Prior to this he studied at Brunel University and received a first class honours degree. He is primarily interested in the fusion of contemporary classical, experimental, electroacoustic, burlesque, punk-jazz and world music.
Dani Howard
Blue Pavilion, for brass quintet
Blue Pavilion is a new work written for Brass Quintet inspired by the installation designed by Pezo von Ellrichshausen. The piece explores the idea that very simple materials can be constructed in a particular way, in order to create something of great complexity and beauty.
Musicians: Ryan Linham (trumpet); Adam Stockbridge (trumpet); Finlay Bain (horn); Thomas Barton (trombone); Stephen Calow (tuba)
Biography
Dani Howard is an English composer who was born and raised in Hong Kong. Studying as a Scholar at the Royal College of Music, supported by a Douglas and Hilda Simmonds award and the Henry Wood Trust, Dani Howard is increasingly working with cross-arts collaborative projects. Her interest in writing chamber music has led to recent international performances of her work. On 4 March 2014, Tom Highnam will premiere Dani’s work, ‘Mind Games’ at the BBC Young Musician of the Year Percussion Final – a piece commissioned for the occasion.
Ruaidhri Mannion
Scàth, for six saxophones
Performed in the installation design by Grafton Architects, the work appears to infringe on the space in such a complete way that it becomes the totality of a new spatial medium, influencing how light and shadow are formed throughout the space. The rich and electric sound of the saxophone ensemble reflects these enormous blocks, and the audience’s position and movements in the room control the evolving harmony and opacity of sound.
Musicians: Michaela Stapleton (soprano); Philip Attard (soprano); Naomi Sullivan (soprano); Amy Green (soprano); Rachel Ridout (tenor); Neil McGovern (tenor)
Biography
Ruaidhri Mannion is an Irish composer. He is fascinated by the entrancing and transcendental properties of sound, music and the act of listening. Drawing on wide range of influences, his work often combines live instruments and electronics to explore concepts of intuition, deep-listening and theatre. Ruaidhri is a Royal College of Music Scholar.
Joanne Sy
Flung, for violin, oboe and bass clarinet
Taking inspiration from the two archways designed by Eduardo Souto de Moura, Flung challenges the perspectives of the audience by rotating the performers in a ritualistic fashion. The music takes on a literal approach to the way the structure augments our spatial awareness. The primary material of the piece is compressed at first, and is gradually expanded in detail or in sparseness. Lastly, the diversity in the instruments' resonance and timbre aims to enhance one’s sensitivity to sound and the surroundings.
Musicians: Charis Jenson (violin); Alasdair Hill (oboe); James Maltby (bass clarinet)
Biography
Joanne Sy’s music has had public performances at The National Gallery, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and the National Portrait Gallery. She has collaborated with the English National Ballet, British-brand Burberry, Platform at Habitat, Kinfolk Magazine, Hong Kong Arts Centre, and Fresh Wave Short Film Festival in Asia.
Raquel García-Tomás
? [ma], for solo percussion
? [ma] explores the idea of void, one of the most relevant concepts in the installation of Kengo Kuma. Raquel has created a work for solo castanets that reconsiders how we perceive space and proportion. Inspired by the architect’s concept weak architecture, which investigates how the human body reacts to light structures, the composer has articulated her music through a multisensory experience that involves vision, memory, touch and sound.
Musician: Ana Gasco (castanets)
Biography
Raquel García-Tomás is a composer specialising in multidisciplinary creation. Her recent projects include works for the English National Ballet, the Royal British Society of Sculptors and various instrumental pieces with electronics and video. Raquel is currently working on the collective opera Go, Æneas, Go! awarded by the Neuköllner Oper with the Berliner Opernpreis’14.
Nicholas Moroz
Ziggurat, for saxophone, contrabass clarinet, trombones
The work exploits not only the physical and spatial features of the installation by Diébédo Francis Kéré but also the way it changes in this accumulative and chaotic manner. The word Ziggurat – a type of step pyramid of Mesopotamia – is used as a generic title as well as another architectural reference, but especially because of the way the work grows upwards in monumental and eventually exasperating steps.
Musicians: Victoria Puttock (saxophone); Benjamin Mellefont (contrabass clarinet); Jonathan Hollick (trombone); Gordon Maclachlan (trombone); Gareth Murphy (bass trombone); James Alexander (bass trombone)
Biography
Nicholas Moroz’s works have been performed in venues such as the National Portrait Gallery, Snape Maltings and Dartington by ensembles such as the Gemini Ensemble and the Composers Ensemble. Recent and forthcoming performances include 'Asunder' played by the RCM Philharmonic Orchestra and the premiere of the revised version of 'Narrenschyff' at the Aldeburgh Festival. Nicholas is a founding member of the explorensemble, a London-based chamber group that presents modern repertoire alongside new works from emerging composers.