Name: Pleasurable by Laura Bowler
Duration: 7 min 57 s
Description: String Quintet commissioned by the Manchester Camerata and premiered at the Royal Exchange Theatre in 2015

Live Performance recording at Sound Festival 2020. Laura Bowler (Voice) Ruth Morley (Bass Flute)

Commissioned by Sound Festival
Text by Timothy Morton

Wicked Problems

Composed  for Soprano, Clarinet in Bb/ Bass Clarinet, Harp and Double Bass
Performed by The Hermes Experiment at Trinity Laban on 11.05.21
Voice - Héloīse Werner
Harp - Anne Denholm
Bass Clarinet - Oliver Pashley
Double Bass - Marianne Schofield

Ease In

Rosie Middleton - voice 
Emiliano Gavito - bass flute
Adam Starkie - bass clarinet 
Sophie Wahlmüller - viola 
Christian Lozano Sedano - e-guitar 
Finbar Hosie - electronics

And the colour of where you can never go was commissioned by Donaueschingen Musiktage for lovemusic

And the colour of where you can never go - Laura Bowler + lovemusic

Metal contrabass clarinet : Alain Billard
World premiere 
Espace de Projection, Ircam, Paris

Art Of Metal II (2007, 11')

Low quality recording of the World Premiere of my most recent Saxophone Quartet, commissioned and premiered by the Ferio Saxophone Quartet. 

Ludovico Technique is a homage to Burgess’ novel, Clockwork Orange. The work lifts both textual and structural elements from the novel and places them within the context of the Saxophone Quartet. It explores ideas of habit, ritual, strictness, violence, play and humour.

Video to be uploaded shortly to Youtube.


Ludovico Technique WATCH video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obXxBcATVcU

String Quintet commissioned by the Manchester Camerata and premiered at the Royal Exchange Theatre in 2015

Pleasurable

First performed by London Sinfonietta, conducted by George Benjamin, 
on 21 July 2018 as part of the BBC Proms, at Roundhouse, London. 

The Verdala was one of the ships that brought the British West Indian Regiment from the Caribbean to Europe to fight in World War I. Already knowing that I wanted this piece to highlight the BWIR’s involvement in the war, and thinking about titles around the time that the 2018 ‘Windrush Scandal’ surfaced, it seemed fitting to name it so, as a reminder that there have been many ships long-prior to Windrush interweaved throughout British and British-Caribbean history. 

I have been particularly drawn to the writings of Caribbean/Guyanese poet and political activist Martin Carter for many years, who expressed his feelings of the British-Caribbean experience, and military presence through powerful and poignant imagery in his texts. Lines from his ‘O Human Guide’ inspired the musical material for ‘Verdala’: 
‘In the burnt earth of these years...So near so near the rampart spiked with pain... The guilty heaven promising a star...Each day I ride a wild black horse of terror...’ 

Intricate interweaving woodwind lines feature throughout, often punctuated by strong raw chords in the strings, recurring chimes in the harp, and initial beating from the claves. Highly direct and rhythmic activity dominates following the opening section, which foreshadows this, except when biting ‘jabs’ give way to a softer, quieter ‘chorale’ in the low woodwinds and brass, before building-up again, becoming more unsettled, and culminating wildly and piercingly.

Verdala [EXTRACT]

Covid Lockdown Breath Machine is a binaural sound project written by
Lavinia Murray and composed and sound designed by Dr. Robert Bentall.

Full Version available here: www.digital-lyceum.com/theatre

Designed specifically to be experienced in bed, alone, with the lights off the curtains drawn and your headphones on Covid Lockdown Breath Machine is a fantastical, transformative and ultimately uplifting journey into the symptoms and imaginings of a coronavirus patient. Take a breath and let this breeze whisk you to a world of kaleidoscopes, household gods, mushroom spores and a fresh but capricious westerly wind.

Lavinia Murray (aka F.J. McQueen) is an award-winning writer, performance poet, zinester, illustrator and animator. Close to 100 of her scripts, both original works and adaptations have been produced by BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4, including Émile Zola’s Blood, Sex and Money, for which she was a co-recipient of the BBC Radio 4 Audio Drama Award for Best Adaptation, Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials and H.G. Wells’ Ann Veronica. Through which she has built her renown as an experimental writer. Her novel, Out Damned Spot! - William Shakespeare, Crime Scene Cleaner, written under her pseudonym, F.J. McQueen, was published by Urbane Books in 2016.
​
Dr Robert Bentall is a composer, performer, sound designer and principal lecturer in music production at Leeds Conservatoire. His works, which have been heard across Europe as well as North and South America, are primarily within the electroacoustic sector and hybridise ambient, folk, dance, improvised and experimental music. He has held artist residencies at the Electronic Music Studios, Stockholm, Visby International Composers Centre, CMMAS Mexico, University of Huddersfield and Cryptic Glasgow, and was a finalist for both the 2013 Franz Liszt Composition Prize in Weimar, Germany and the 2014 Oxford/Sennheiser Electronic Music Prize. 
He has previously collaborated with Knaïve Theatre, creating and performing the sound design for the play, War with the Newts.
​
Covid Lockdown Breath Machine, Us, (Post 23/3) and Have Your Passport Ready by Stand and Be Counted Theatre together form our Arts Council England’s Emergency Response Fund for Non-NPOs funded programme.
​
To be released as part of Knaïve Theatre: A Digital Lyceum's inaugural season 7th -14th November 2020: www.digita-lyceum.com/theatre

COVID Lockdown Breath Machine Teaser (Headphones required)

https://www.youtube.com/user/missbowls77

Laura Bowler, described as “a triple threat composer-performer-provocatrice” (Arts Desk-Premiere of FFF at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival) is a composer, vocalist and Artistic Director specialising in theatre, multi-disciplinary work and opera. She has been commissioned across the globe by ensembles and orchestras including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, ROH2, Opera Holland Park, The Opera Group, Manchester Camerata, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Quatuor Bozzini (Canada), Ensemble Phace (Austria), Ensemble Linea (France), Omega Ensemble (Australia), among other groups both in the UK and abroad. Recent projects include; a music theatre work, FFF, for Ensemble Phace (Vienna) and vocalist (herself) commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and HCMF; Feminine Hygiene, a multimedia work for large ensemble and vocalist (herself) commissioned by the BBC Philharmonic and Sounds from the Other City Festival; Damned Mob of Scribbling Women- a 20 minute music theatre song cycle for leading UK new music vocalist Lucy Goddard recently nominated for a British Composer Award; Antarctica, a 50 minute multimedia work for orchestra and vocalist (herself) co-commissioned by Manchester Camerata and BBC Radio 3.

Laura has performed and premiered works internationally as a vocalist including the premiere of Louis Aguirre’s The Way The Dead Love as part of European Capital of Culture Aarhus 2017 programme and the World and Canadian premieres of Jennifer Walshe’s boxing opera, Training is the Opposite. She is also the vocalist in contemporary music ensemble, Ensemble Lydenskab based in Aarhus, Denmark, and has recently formed a duo with Red Note Ensemble’s flautist, Ruth Morley.

Upcoming projects include a multimedia music theatre work for London Sinfonietta for 2021; a multimedia music theatre work for Decoder Ensemble to premiered at the HCMF2020 festival, Indus Opera project with Gestalt Arts, multimedia solo vocal work for Alwynne Pritchard and a new work for voice and flute for Laura Bowler and Ruth Morley.

Pleasurable

Laura Bowler

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