Program Notes:

We all inhabit familiar spaces. The most familiar of places, those that we feel most attached to and contained by, are fertile grounds for the unexpected.

In massive, cookie cutter style apartment complexes of the mid-20th and 21st centuries, we see individuals decorating identical spaces in myriad ways, expressing culture, tastes, and trends. If you enter different units in the same building, you have a feeling of a familiar space – a space which might appear different in the most superficial of ways, but at its core, is simply a replica of a space. How we interact with these familiar spaces is determined by the relationships that we have formed with our own space. We explore different spaces in a similar way, imbuing these spaces with simultaneous meaning and purpose.

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Performed by Open Union
Modular Synth: Peter Bell
Electric Guitar: Patrick Ellis

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Bio:

Paolo Griffin is a composer based in Toronto, Canada, whose music explores focused/unfocussed listening, repetition, generative composition, and microtonality, while maintaining a focus on close collaboration and creative spontaneity with the performers he works with.

Paolo is the Artistic and Executive Director of Freesound, a Toronto-based collective that consists of a core group of the city's most adventurous young musicians and interpreters of contemporary music. Freesound present concerts throughout the year with an interest in the work of emerging composers.

A fierce advocate of accessible arts and inclusive practices, Paolo is also the Managing Director of Xenia Concerts, a Toronto-based charity that focuses on presenting accessible concerts and musical events for autism and neurodiverse communities. Through his work with Xenia, Paolo has helped to shape such programs as Sound.colLAB - a collaborative project in which seven neurodivergent artists have co-created an original piece of music under the mentorship of
professional musicians.

2022-23 engagements include lectures at the Sibelius Academy in Finland, and the Tuckamore Chamber Music Festival's Widening the Circle initiative where he appeared as a mentor composer. Other events include premieres with the Continuum Ensemble, with saxophonist
David Zucchi in Toronto, and at the Aurore Renaissance Music Festival in Helsinki. Paolo's music has been featured in at festivals across Canada, including Ottawa Chamberfest, Toronto Summer Music, and Big Lake Arts Festival. His music can be heard in concert and on the radio
by performers and ensembles such as Continuum Ensemble (CA), Residentie Orkest (NL), The New European Ensemble (NL), Avanti! Chamber Music (FI), Thin Edge New Music Collective(CA), Duo Holz (CA), Freesound (CA), and more.

Paolo holds degrees from the University of Toronto and the Royal Conservatoire of the Hague where he studied with Peter Adriaansz and Martijn Padding. Other teachers have included Linda
Catlin Smith, Anthony Tan, Juhani Nuorvala, Chaya Czernowin, Mayke Nas, Matthew Whittall, Jukka Tiensuu, Rodney Sharman, Gary Kulesha, Nobert Palej, Huba de Graaff, Jan van de Putte,
Ana Sokolovic, Peter Ablinger, Christopher Theofanidis, Mario Garuti, Dmitri Tomozco, Amy Beth Kirsten, and Chen Yi.

Paolo's sits on the board of Musicworks Magazine. His work and research is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Canadian New Music Network.

Paolo Griffin - Familiar Spaces (2022)

Performed by Open Union on the 27th of September 2024 at Centrala, Space

Performed by Open Union
Modular Synth: Peter Bell
Electric Guitar: Patrick Ellis

Live sound by Joseph Ockford
Audio taken from 'Open Union: Live at Centrala, Birmingham' filmed by Alexander Henshaw 

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Bio:

Wilson Leywantono is a composer currently based in Indonesia. His music has been performed in the UK, the Netherlands, Ireland, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Japan, Indonesia and Malaysia by many professional ensembles and performers such as Orkest de Ereprijs, New European Ensemble, Rosetta Contemporary Ensemble, Open Union, the Azalais Quartet, Hordienal Quartet, Decibel, Le Page Ensemble, the Schubert Ensemble, Thallein Plus Ensemble, Fumiko Miyachi, Mary Wiegold, Rowland Sutherland, Miriam Kitchener, etc.

More info on Wilson here: wilsonleywantono.wordpress.com

Wilson Leywantono - open con (2024)

Performed by Open Union on the 27th of September 2024 at Centrala, Space

Performed by Open Union
Modular Synth: Peter Bell
Electric Guitar: Patrick Ellis

Live sound by Joseph Ockford
Audio taken from 'Open Union: Live at Centrala, Birmingham' filmed by Alexander Henshaw

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Bio:

Christine Cornwell is a performer/composer and producer based in Rotterdam with strong links to free improvisation, collective practice, and strives to initiate projects for artists from different disciplines to work together. In her work, she works closely with performers and audience, recently at Screen Dive/Gaudeamus in Utrecht, workshops with Hackers&Designers + Questions Collective in Amsterdam, and a new series Sounding Here at Rotterdam's Batavierhuis. 

Christine has a Masters in Classical Composition from Codarts University of the Arts, and a Bachelor in Music Performance (violin) from Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. She currently mentors students at Codarts University of the Arts and is employed as a Creative Producer there.

More info on Christine here: https://christinecornwell.info

Christine Cornwell - invisible poetry, instructions for singing to ghosts (2024)

Paolo Griffin - Familiar Spaces (2022) - Live at Centrala, Birmingham

Programme Note:

A conversation between two individuals on completely different wavelengths.

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Performed by Open Union
Modular Synth: Peter Bell
Electric Guitar: Patrick Ellis

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Bio:

May Chi is a Hong Kong-born songwriter, composer and visual artist based in the East Midlands. Her compositional works delves into aspects of her personal life as well as her intrinsic connection with nature and saudade to create a cathartic musical experience. Influenced by electroacoustic and ambient music production techniques, she is interested in the exploration of the limitations of instruments and small ensembles to create and mould various sounds, timbres and ambiences. Her works have been performed by ensembles including Quatuor Bozzini, Fidelio Trio, Thallein Ensemble and Tresonant. She was also the commissioned composer for Pilot Theatre’s ‘Monoliths’ VR (2022), which has been selected for festivals including BFI London Film Festival, Melbourne International Film Festival and Re:Publica Berlin.

More info on May here: www.may-chi.com

May Chi - this is what it feels like talking to you (2022) - Live at Centrala, Birmingham

Open Union is an experimental music duo made up of composer-performers Peter Bell (modular synthesiser) and Patrick Ellis (electric guitar) based in Birmingham and London.

Described by the treasured composer Howard Skempton as being, ‘sometimes subtle and unstable; sometimes rich and dense’, the duo aims to build up strong collaborative relationships to create new verbal and text based works. Their current collaborators are Christine Cornwell, Wilson Leywantono, May Chi, Paolo Griffin and Seán Clancy.  

The duo have performed across the UK at events such as Ealing Extranormal, AMOK, Don't Mind Control, Birmingham Modular Organisation and CODA Festival. In 2025, they supported Passepartout Duo at Centrala Space, Birmingham as part of their UK Tour, and in 2023, undertook a mini tour of The Netherlands as part of the Sounding Here concert series, where they performed at Splendor in Amsterdam and Batavierhuis in Rotterdam.

In July 2025, they co-hosted a portrait concert with saxophonist David Zucchi featuring music by Paolo Griffin at the Hundred Years Gallery.

New tracks tagged #peter bell