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On 31 January 2020, 840 celebrated its fifth birthday with a very special event at Café Oto. The acclaimed soprano Juliet Fraser performed alongside a string ensemble of cello trio (Colin Alexander, Stephanie Tress and Peteris Sokolovskis) and viola (Francesca Gilbert), as well as vocalists Sara Rodrigues and Rodrigo B. Camacho of the New Maker Ensemble.

At the heart of the evening were two high-profile new commissions from composers Laurence Crane and John Lely, both of whom are long-term friends of the series and whose music has featured frequently at 840 throughout the years.

The rest of the programme consisted of a selection from the many pieces that have been written especially for 840’s concerts. Luxuriant, striking and surprising works by composers Georgia Rodgers, Sergei Zagny, Jonathan Cole, Nicholas Peters and Marc Sabat featured alongside brand-new works by 840 curators, Alex Nikiporenko and James Luff. There was also be a module from composer Cassandra Miller and Juliet Fraser’s astonishing ongoing collaboration Tracery.

This concert has been made possible with generous support from Arts Council England, The Richard Thomas Foundation, The Hinrichsen Foundation and The RVW Trust.

840: Five Year Anniversary

late

ALPHA

The work contains 141 C-notes, 150 D-notes, 156 E-flat-notes, 129 F-notes and 96 G-notes in different octaves. No other notes are presented in the work. Thus, the total amount of notes is 672. The overall written duration of the work is 627 quarters.

In the last movement there are 20 C-notes, 32 D-notes, 38 E-flat-notes, 17 F-notes and 5 G-notes. 112 notes in total, but I am not sure this is as interesting as 672. 

www.conceptualism.letov.ru/sergei-zagny/SERGEI-ZAGNY.htm

Studies On Rhythm BACH were written for Tre Voci (www.trevocicelloensemble.com) and premièred by them at the 840: New Music for Cellos on 12/10/2015. This recording was made at Tre Voci's concert in the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building in Oxford on 15/10/2015.

Sergei Zagny - Studies On Rhythm BACH

'SOG' is the magisterial Slip debut of Klaas Hübner, the Berlin-based sound sculptor, improviser, and instrument-builder whose installations coax out uncanny chants from whirly tubes, ceiling fans, styrofoam, and cassette tapes. 

Recorded live in Germany and New Orleans from 2013 to 2016, 'SOG'’s six works mold elemental acoustic forces through elegant constructions ranging from the domestic to the gargantuan. On ‘single tube’, a lone Hübner swings a whirly tube above his head; on ‘château poulet’ - a collaborative work with Andrew Schrock - the artist’s body becomes a 10 metre tower, whose belt and clutch system whirls jumbo tubes attached to the blades of multiple ceiling fans. 

'SOG'’s works play out time and time again in the interstitial zone between automation and spontaneity, machine and body. ‘schwarzwald’ submits ten tape loops of the artist’s voice to a mechanised dance which visually and sonically echoes an eerie forest; in ‘music for ceiling fan and tubes’, Hübner and regular collaborator Lysandre Coutu­-Sauvé sing seductively through whirlies as a ceiling fan chops above their heads. 

Perhaps most astonishing is the psychedelic, otherworldly pleasures 'SOG'’s cyclic architectures illicit. An instinct for hypnotic, primal rhythm powers Hübner’s work as much as lyricism. ‘sswsw’ and ‘extended pickup #1’ - a pair of poignant motorised elegies for metronomes and a funnelled airstream - recall melancholic cuts from Actress or De Leon as much as canonic works from Ligeti, Cage, or Chris Watson.

'SOG' [SLP025] is available on C50 tape or CD, with download. It comes packaged with a fold-out A3 poster containing artwork, documentation, and accompanying notes by Klaas Hübner. Mastered by Owen Roberts.

@klaas-h-bner
www.matchees.blogspot.co.uk

SOG [SLP025] - Klaas Hübner
Released: May 2016

music for ceiling fan and tubes - Klaas Hübner (ft. Lysandre Coutu-Sauvé)

For piano (singing)

Cassandra Miller 'Tracery : Lazy, Rocking' (2017) is part of a new modular work, 'Tracery', for voice and fixed audio. This module features no live performance, but uses the process common to all parts of the piece, that of Juliet trying to sing along to a piece of source material whilst performing a body scan meditation. In this module the source material is the second movement of Ben Johnston's String Quartet no. 8.

CASSANDRA MILLER Tracery : Lazy, Rocking

Composed in 2013.
Performed by the Ives Ensemble:
Josje ter Haar and Emma Breedveld (violins), Ruben Sanderse (viola) and Job ter Haar (cello)

Holt Quartet

Written in June - September 2017
Performed by Peter Sheppard Skærved at St. Vedast Foster Lane, London - 15.02.2018 

The piece revolves around a few cantabile melodic fragments, manifesting in two or even three voices at once, gradually intensifying and transforming into a soaring singing line at the very top register of the violin, until descending again. Soi in Finnish, means ‘rings’, ‘sounds’, ‘echoes’.

The piece was written for Peter Sheppard Skærved.
___
Recording courtesy of Colin Still (Optic Nerve Productions)
Photo by ©Malene Sheppard Skærved

Soi - for solo violin (2017)

Pauline Oliveros - Suiren

Pauline Oliveros - The Wanderer

Today is a troubling day for many in the UK. After the results of an election that was plagued and stained with lies and deception, we are now left in a very precarious position. Many friends are feeling very dispirited and lost today, as am I. So, I sat in the studio this morning and improvised live to the celebratory speech of the winning party. In response to the situation I then reversed parts of it, as well as using a recording of this very speech and buried it deep within the music, again playing backwards. It's clear to many that this political situation is not taking us forwards, but rather back to a nostalgic and challenging past. So, for this moment, use this music to relax and switch off the news.

Backwards to go Forwards

LA TRUFFE PERIGOURDINE   jeudepistes

Performed by Colin Alexander, Stephanie Tress and Peteris Sokolovskis at 840's 5th Anniversary Concert, Cafe Oto, 31st January 2020

some music for molly (three cellos, 2020)

Dans le contexte actuel, même les parents qui n’ont pas trouvé le temps de se couper les ongles depuis le début du confinement en ont quand même assez eu pour toucher du doigt, voire du bras, la complexité (et la fragilité) littéralement insondable de notre société moderne.

Pouvons nous encore faire quelque chose ? Et si oui quoi ? Mes réponses à cette idée qui tourne, tourne, tourne ...

Episode 16 : Que faire de notre énergie quand notre société est dans la merde jusqu’au cou ?

Sacred Amory Smoke prod by.NextLane Beats

Composed in 2020.
Commissioned by 840 Series, for their 5th anniversary concert, 
with funds provided by Arts Council England, Richard Thomas Foundation, Hinrichsen Foundation and RVW Trust.
Performed by Juliet Fraser (soprano), Colin Alexander (cello), Stephanie Tress (cello) and Peteris Sokolovskis (cello).
Live recording of 1st performance, at Cafe Oto, London on 
31 January 2020.

European Towns

This piece was written for 840 and the NME. It is composed from five combinations of pitches and rhythms, stitched together to make one unfolding form in which groups of notes are covered and uncovered in turn. This process of covering up sounds led me to thinking about the phenomenon of auditory masking, whereby the perception of one sound is altered by another which occurs simultaneously (or very soon before/after). Auditory masking can affect the nature of sounds we hear in various ways, particularly when those sounds are already closely related in pitch or timbre. 

polarpatterns.wordpress.com

Masking Set was performed by Sara Rodrigues (voice), Francesca Gilbert (viola) and Peteris Sokolovskis (cello) at 840: 840: Five Year Anniversary on the 31 January 2020 at Café OTO.

Georgia Rodgers — Masking Set

Soprano Juliet Fraser has a repertoire dominated by the very old and the very new. Specialising in the gnarly edges of contemporary classical music, she is an active commissioner of new music and has worked particularly closely with composers Pascale Criton, Bernhard Lang, Cassandra Miller, Matthew Shlomowitz and Rebecca Saunders. She regularly performs as a guest soloist with ensembles such as Klangforum Wien, Musikfabrik, Ensemble Modern, Plus-Minus and Talea, and has created duo projects with percussionist Maxime Echardour, double bassist Florentin Ginot and pianist Mark Knoop. Juliet is founder and artistic director of the eavesdropping festival in London, co-director of all that dust, a new label for new music, and co-founder and a core member of EXAUDI vocal ensemble.

CASSANDRA MILLER Tracery : Lazy, Rocking

julietfraser