October/November Performance Dates
October 19-23rd: Fast and Dirty Dance Project, Aberdeen, hosted at Woodend Barn, public performances tba.
November 5-8th: Resonant Frequencies, as part of sound festival in Aberdeen, featuring myself, Burkhard Beins, Will Guthrie, Mark Wastell, James Wyness, and fORCH.
November 15th, Shifting Currents: Holland as part of November Music Festival in s-Hertogenbosch, featuring myself, Rick Reed, and Keith Rowe.
November 19th, Shifting Currents: Aberdeen as part of sound festival, featuring myself, Rick Reed, and Keith Rowe.
November 23rd, Shifting Currents: Huddersfield as part of Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, featuring myself, Rick Reed, and Keith Rowe.
**11/13 Interview concerning shifting currents on Huddersfield Website here.
November 27th, Winter Light Night in Dundee, with Claire M Singer and Jack Keenan (visuals), at the Dundee Contemporary Arts. 10pm, free.
November 30th, Scotland Homecoming, commissioned work for bagpipe, fiddle, accordion, and percussion featuring Patrick Keenan, Martin MacDonald, Claire M Singer, and Naomi Ballentyne. Inverurie Town Hall.
Fast and Dirty in the Shire, October 19-23rd
Participating with a range of dancers, choreographers, and musicians in Citymove’s fast+Dirty in the shire workshop/lab. It will host around 12-14 selected creator participants from fields within and bordering contemporary dance with the aim to provide a safe environment where ideas and themes can be practically explored, shared and discussed over a period of 5 days….. However in the spirit of fast+Dirty with more making and showing than talking. Woodend Barn Centre, Banchory. Possible performance on 23rd, attendance by invitation (hint).
Resonant Frequencies, sound festival, Nov 5-8
A weekend of experimental music curated by Bill Thompson.
“The relationship between live electronics and percussion has a long history, stretching back to the early work of John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, David Tudor, and Max Neuhaus to name just a few. In many of their works they chose to focus on the timbral qualities as much as the rhythmic aspects of percussion, extending this with the use of found objects, prepared instruments, and live electronics. Each of the artists featured in Resonant Frequencies – Mark Wastell, Burkhard Beins, Will Guthrie, and Bill Thompson – explores a similar territory in their own practice. In a series of solos, duets and a final quartet, this crossover between percussion and live electronics is fully explored as the artists improvise in various combinations during the week.”
November 5th, Burkhard Beins and Bill Thompson, 2 solo sets and one duet, 8pm, at the Suttie Centre, Aberdeen. Donations.
November 6th, Will Guthrie and Mark Wastell, 2 solo sets and one duet, 7:30 pm at the Lighthouse Museum in Fraserburgh (free bus available from Aberdeen), £5-£7.
November 7th, UK Premier of Bill Thompson’s GATES performed by Burkhard Beins, Will Guthrie, Mark Wastell, and Bill Thompson, 8pm, Citymoves Dancespace, Aberdeen, £5-£7. Support by James Wyness.
November 8th, Resonant Frequencies, Connect: Lecture by Ricard Barrett of fORCH, workshop by Burkhard Beins, and Concert at the Lemon Tree by the improv ensemble fORCH. Aberdeen Uni during the day, evening at the Lemon Tree. Day session free (rsvp required for workshop), concert 7pm, £5-£7.
Shifting Currents Tour, Nov 15, 19, 23rd
Shifting Currents with Bill Thompson, Rick Reed, and Keith Rowe returns in a series of concerts in November.
November 15, November Music, s-Hertogenbosch, Holland, 5:30pm.
November 19th, Cowdry Hall, Aberdeen, Scotland, 8pm, £5-£7.
November 23rd, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Huddersfield, England.
Presented in partnership with Le Weekend, sound, November Music, and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, and with generous support of the PRS Foundation for New Music, The Scottish Arts Council, and the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation.
Dundee Contemporary Arts, Nov 27th
Performing with Claire M Singer and Jack Keenan. An evening of live electronics and visuals at the DCA. Stay tuned for more information.
Premiere of new work Cairn, Nov 30th
New work commissioned by the Aberdeenshire Council for Scotland’s Homecoming 2009 celebrations. Written for bagpipe, drum, fiddle, accordian, and live electronics. Inverurie Town Hall, evening. More info soon.
Upcoming Workshops
TechFest Aberdeen: September 14-18
A workshop for young people involving recording and computer composition. Delivered with Claire M Singer.
Creative Identities Workshop: October/November
Delivered with Claire M Singer, Ross Whyte, and Patrick Keenan. A range of workshops dealing with experimental composition, recording, and circuit bending. Hosted and supported by Peacock Visual Arts, Aberdeen, and Creative Identities.
High Frequency YMI Project 2009-2010
Over the course of 2009/2010 I will be working with young people throughout the Aberdeen area to build instruments out of old electronic musical toys. Stay tuned for the eventual live electronics performance group featuring these young people and their instruments (not even kidding!)
Moving Forward: July 22nd
Performing with Claire M Singer and Ross Whyte at the College of Arts and Sciences PG Conference: Moving Forward. The conference is £15/advance and £25 at the door. It actually looks interesting, and we go on at 16:30 on Wednesday, at Elphistone Hall. For more info go here: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/cass/pgradconf/About.html
Open Knowledge Network, June 26th
Speaking about Circuit Bending at Aberdeen’s Open Knowledge Network. Click here for more info.
Le Weekend: Shifting Currents, May 30th
Premiering Shifting Currents in the first of three concerts at the end of the month as part of Le Weekend in Stirling (the other two being at the sound festival in Aberdeen, and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, both in November).
Shifting Currents was inspired by the story of an individual who after receiving a cochlear implant was able to hear various electrical fields as he moved about his daily life. These electrical fields created delicate hums, roaring thunder strikes, ticklish electronic trickles, and other astonishing sounds depending on the specifics of each situation. I thought it was remarkable that not only was he able to hear the sounds of the world we often take for granted, but was also able to hear an entirely different sound world unavailable to the rest of us with ‘normal’ hearing… (read more here).
Burning Harpsichord Media
Burning Harpsichord Mediais a small independent label that I created to release various archival as well as upcoming projects. The first of which is for the upcoming event, shifting currents at Le Weekend Festival in Stirling on May 30th, 2009.
This first release shifting currents:installation is a recording of the full installation running as is, without the…(read more here).
‘What Happened’ at The Arches Glasgow: May 4th
One of my text works, from, will be performed by a mixed ensemble at 7hings event ‘What Happened’ at The Arches, Glasgow, Monday the 4th..
For more info: http://www.seventhings.co.uk/events.php
Here’s the score:
Kilau, April 24th
Performing a live electronics event at Kilau’s in Aberdeen at 730pm. Free and fun, come out. Also playing will be: The Misled Cult of Balvack, and the Matricarians. More info (and now pix!): http://kilaucoffee.wordpress.com/
Fragmented Orchestra Performance, Feb 21st
Claire M Singer and I have been invited to perform as part of the Fragmented Orchestra’s final event, 24 Fragments. We have created an interactive sound and visual installation that will merge into a live electronic and cello performance. The installation begins at 7pm and the performance begins at 8pm. Location is the Thainstone Centre just outside of Inverurie. For more information on how to get to Thainstone click here.
Here is more info on the event:
The Fragmented Orchestra is a huge distributed musical instrument, modeled on the firing of the human brain’s neurons. Made possible by a £50,000 prize awarded to Jane Grant, John Matthias and Nick Ryan, as the winning project for the PRS Foundation’s New Music Award 2008, it is installed at the FACT Gallery Liverpool and 23 other sites across the UK and runs from December 12th 2008 to 22nd February 2009. 24 Fragments will run at all of these sites for 24 hours, from 10am on Saturday 21 February. This sprawling collaborative work, spanning music, art and science, has evolved from a fascination by its creators of the inherent sonic rhythms and adaptive learning of spiking neurons – ie. the electrical impulses of the human brain.
24 Fragments is a 24-hour festival funded by The Wellcome Trust, including all 24 sites of The Fragmented Orchestra, which are linked up by microphones that pick up sound at each site. All of the events during the 24-hour festival are designed to be relayed through the distributed ‘neuronal system’ of The Fragmented Orchestra and via its website: www.thefragmentedorchestra.com
Shifting Currents
I have been commissioned by the PRS Foundation for New Music to write a piece for the Le Weekend Festival in Stirling (May 30th), the sound Festival in Aberdeen (November 19th), and at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (during the week of November 20-29th).
The piece Shifting Current involves using special microphones to collect field recordings of electro-magnetic fields from Stirling, Aberdeen, and Huddersfield that I created a multiple speaker installation of delicate, and also harsh, shifting electronic sounds. This constantly evolving installation forms a shifting sonic web from within which Keith Rowe, Rick Reed, and myself will improvise using live electronics, found objects, and field recordings. Not only will the sounds gathered from each location be combined in infinite combinations, but they will also be combined with the improvised reactions and interactions of the musicians, each themselves using devices that often behave in unique and unpredictable ways.
For more information, email here.