photo © dejan mrdja
2025
Théâtre du Jeu de Paume, Aix-en-Provence
Oliver Leith / Benjamin Britten The Story of Billy Budd, Sailor
Told over and over again from port to port, the story of Billy Budd is an enigma: how is it possible that this handsome sailor, admired by all, should have ended up a criminal, hanging from the yardarm of his ship?
Like a mythical scroll that elicits endless comment, Melville’s unfinished novella has produced a fascinating fog of meaning. In the story itself, the mists of war invading the North Sea obscure to the point of obliteration the very ideas of law and society in the West; and they also mingle fatally with the nebula of homosexual desire which in turn destroys and saves the protagonists – that poor sample of humanity lost on the high seas.
For Ted Huffman and Oliver Leith, condensing Britten’s opera by reinterpreting its narrative and sound content means re-focusing their attention on the essential: reconnecting with its folk roots, with the eternal sailor’s ballad; questioning the queer fog that floats down from Melville and Britten to us, turning into a political and metaphysical meditation on what constitutes humanity, on what cements or destroys a community.
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Angharad Davies Empty Spaces II
Karlheinz Stockhausen KONTAKTE
Aaron Holloway-Nahum Dig It! world premiere
GBSR performs five concerts at 2025's Darmstadt festival, exploring the world of spatial audio.
They bring their much-hailed interpretation of Stockhausen's KONTAKTE to the place of the work's premiere in 1961 over three performances, both in 'traditional' quadraphonic presentation and in a version that exploits the detailed spatialising capacities of d&b Soundscape in the festival's 3D Audio Art Lab.
The duo will also perform Angharad Davies's Empty Spaces II, a work created in close collaboration with the composer that is intricately tied to her practice as one of Europe's leading free improvisers, and is based on a series of solo violin improvisations recorded in the empty rooms above a disused high street shop in Wales.
They will also give two performances of a new work by Aaron Holloway-Nahum, Dig It!, transforming six architectural practices into music: Bury, Embed, Absorb, Spiral, Carve, and Mimic. Exploiting virtuosic spatial audio techniques, spoken word, and multichannel video in collaboration with video artist and architect Dejan Mrdja, the new piece explores of our fundamental connections to the earth – and to each other.
click here to see the whole festival programme;
or see below for details of each concert:
Angharad Davies Empty Spaces II
Karlheinz Stockhausen KONTAKTE
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Karlheinz Stockhausen KONTAKTE
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Karlheinz Stockhausen KONTAKTE
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Aaron Holloway-Nahum Dig It! world premiere
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7:30 pm
Bold Tendencies, London
Oliver Leith Garland world premiere
with 12 Ensemble, EXAUDI & Patricia Auchterlonie
cond. Jack Sheen & Naomi Woo
Bold Tendencies' season ends with the world premiere of Garland, a large-scale new work for orchestra and chorus of 118 performers by Oliver Leith, visionary British composer of the new generation.
Garland is a spectacular procession of sound, music and singing. Leith’s most ambitious work to date is performed by the amassed forces of 12 Ensemble, GBSR Duo, EXAUDI, soprano Patricia Auchterlonie and a mixed amateur chorus; conducted by Naomi Woo and Jack Sheen with choral refrains written by Charlie Fox.
The choir is augmented by a horse, bicycles, car and other pedestrian detritus ‘played’ to create noise and rhythm. 32 string and 16 brass players unite with a large battery of percussion and sampler keyboards to form an atypical orchestra, enveloping the audience in sound, as the performers circulate the Concrete Concert Hall.
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Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London
Oliver Leith Doom and the Dooms
Guitarist Sean Shibe begins his residency at the Southbank Centre with GBSR Duo and 12 Ensemble for Leith’s Doom and the Dooms.
The work imagines Doom and the Dooms performing their greatest hits, in a concert that takes in melancholy harmonies, fast-paced rock, distortion and microtonal string writing.
Shibe takes the mantle of the lead guitarist, with strings and keyboard standing in for a singer. The result is a bittersweet evocation of a history and music that never was.
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(tickets also give holders access to After Dark: Sean Shibe – Electric Counterpoint in the Queen Elizabeth Hall Foyer at 9.15pm)
Stadtcasino Basel, Switzerland
Laura Bowler Things are against us
with Basel Sinfonietta & Laura Bowler
Four female British composers from different generations and with highly diverse styles: English conductor Jamie Phillips unites energetic female power at its finest in «Women's Voices/UK».
Laura Bowler has been described in the media as a «triple threat composer-performer provocatrice» and is considered a rising star in the scene. Her work is multidisciplinary, socially critical and usually expansive in scope.
GBSR join Laura Bowler on stage with the Basel Sinfonietta for the world premiere of her triple concerto Things Are Against Us.
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Arvo Pärt Für Lennart im memoriam
Floating Points Requiem for CS70 and strings
Koreless Agor track reimagined
Woven around well-known Pärt pieces such as Für Alina and Fratres, new works by DJ and producer Koreless, producer and composer Floating Points, British composer and violinist Sasha Scott and composer and cellist Oliver Coates will cast a new light on Pärt’s works, while demonstrating his considerable influence on composers today.
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Royal Opera House Linbury Theatre
Following its sold-out run in the Linbury Theatre in 2021, composer Oliver Leith and librettist/co-director Matt Copson’s visceral opera returns to The Royal Opera.
Adapted from Gus Van Sant’s 2005 film loosely based on the final days of grunge icon Kurt Cobain, Last Days is an introspective meditation on the silent torment and alienation that created a modern myth.
Starring Agathe Rousselle (Titane) as Blake and featuring an original aria recorded by singer-songwriter Caroline Polachek, the opera captures the slow unravelling of a man haunted by outside noise and inside turmoil.
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2026
Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, London
Karlheinz Stockhausen KONTAKTE
Aphex Twin Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments pt2
with Sam Wilson & Joseph Havlat
Hear a pairing of works that straddles a musical dispute: Stockhausen’s landmark KONTAKTE and Aphex Twin’s Computer Controlled Instruments pt2.
In 1995, Stockhausen was asked to listen to the music of Aphex Twin, commenting that Aphex should ‘immediately stop with all these post-African repetitions’. Aphex Twin responded that Stockhausen might want to ‘stop making abstract, random patterns you can’t dance to’.
Thirty years later, this programme juxtaposes the electroacoustic works of these very different giants of electronic music.
In the Purcell Room event, hear KONTAKTE, one of the musical masterpieces of the post-war avant-garde. GBSR Duo’s ‘landmark performance’ (Tom Service, BBC Radio 3) sees the musicians perform their virtuosic parts from memory, interlocking them precisely into the electronic sounds that swirl around the audience.
Following the hall performance, we move to the Queen Elizabeth Hall Foyer for Aphex Twin’s EP Computer Controlled Instruments pt2, released in 2015 on Warp Records.
click here for more information and tickets (DOUBLE BILL)
click here for more information and tickets (Aphex Twin only)
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Past concerts:
2025
Claudia Molitor In den Träumen
Aaron Einbond Prestidigitation
Angharad Davies Empty Spaces II
GBSR's performance at City University's SPARC Symposium offers the chance to hear a programme exploiting the University's extraordinary ambisonic system. From Angharad Davies's study of overwhelm Empty Spaces II, to Aaron Einbond's Prestidigitation, using spatial microphony to place the audience inside a circle of developing chimes and rattles, to Claudia Molitor’s In den Träumen, eliciting from the performer both mechanical precision and dreamlike improvisation inside-and-out of the piano, this concert promises to be a unique and immersive experience.
4-6pm Workshop
Prior to the performance, GBSR Duo give an insider view of performing immersive sound live: the duo will present hands-on demonstrations of the instruments, techniques, technologies, and aesthetics that go into producing this evening’s concert event with 3-D sound.
Selection from the Scottish Lute Manuscripts
Rowallen MS: Swint Sant Nickola
Straloch MS: Canaries
Rowallen MS: A Scots Tune
John Dowland Lachrimae Antiquae
Sasha Scott new work world premiere
John White Drinking and Hooting Machine
Oliver Leith Doom and the Dooms
“Bootlegs, footage and hearsay” - Oliver Leith's recreation of imaginary band Doom and the Dooms' only concert is the centrepiece of this wistful programme, celebrating the porousness of high and low art from the stylistic magpies of the Scottish Lute Manuscripts to brand new work by genre-hopping violinist and electronic musician Sasha Scott.
Linda Catlin Smith new work (world premiere)
Joe Bates new work (world premiere)
Cassie Kinoshi new work (world premiere)
Alex Tay money & yes (world premiere)
with EXAUDI
Ace vocal ensemble EXAUDI joins forces with the high-octane percussion and piano partnership of GBSR Duo for Alex Tay’s meditation on the ‘mania of solitude’, the latest in Wigmore Hall’s Voices of Today commissions, presented together with three other world firsts.
Angharad Davies Empty Spaces II
Angharad Davies Solo Violin and Four Bass Amps
GBSR present work by, and with, one of Europe’s leading free improvisers and experimental violinists, Angharad Davies.
Three works about the shifting dynamics of relationships and the new perspectives granted by death and its enforced changes. Empty Spaces II uses samples of Angharad Davies’s violin playing (recorded in empty rooms of a disused building) to allow Siwan Rhys to ‘play’ the absent soloist. The violin is used as a jumping-off point for an exploration of absence and a clearing of imaginary space. Rydal Mount (for GBSR and Davies) is a piece rooted in the familiar task of house emptying – in this case the score is constituted by a series of photographs of items discovered and collected by Davies while clearing a relative’s house, the piece breathing new life into a frozen, inaccessible time. Davies’s amazing solo ‘unravelling’ of the violin, Solo Violin and Four Bass Amps, completes the programme.
2024
Bates Mill Blending Shed, Huddersfield
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival
Julius Aglinskas Synchronicity uk premiere
Lawrence Dunn Double Sonata uk premiere
At hcmf// 2024, GBSR combine with star Lithuanian violin-cello duo Twenty Fingers to provide a rich, colouristic and rhythmic canvas for two of the subtlest sonic palettes.
The fecund ambiguity of Julius Aglinskas’ music, suggesting by turns coldness, solitude and melancholic nostalgia, finds tantalising mirrorings and contrasts with Lawrence Dunn’s mercurial musical tongue, omnivorously exploring supersaturated detail and sparseness, microtonal dissonance shading into open-hearted lushness, and po-faced self-seriousness lapsing into knowing absurdity.
This concert is supported by the Lithuanian Council for Culture, Association LATGA, Vaughan Williams Foundation, Francis Routh Trust and hcmf//, in partnership with Meno Genas and the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. Julius Aglinskas's Synchronicity was commissioned by LRT Klasika.
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Andrius Maslekovas Shadows of Nighttime Canvases
Arturas Bumšteinas 50% DNA Canon
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John White - Yet Another Exercise
Christopher Hobbs - Another Exercise
Another collaborative programme with Twenty Fingers Duo, this time with the two duos showcasing British and Lithuanian works in separate sets at London's Cafe Oto. GBSR's set focuses on duos and pairings, featuring works by the British Experimental School legends the Hobbs-White Duo, alongside works by both Tim Parkinson and Angharad Davies, the his-and-hers linchpins of the UK's current experimental music scene.
Kaunas State Philharmonic, Kaunas
Julius Aglinskas Synchronicity
At Išarti 2024, GBSR combine with star Lithuanian violin-cello duo Twenty Fingers to provide a rich, colouristic and rhythmic canvas for two of the subtlest sonic palettes.
The fecund ambiguity of Julius Aglinskas’ music, suggesting by turns coldness, solitude and melancholic nostalgia, finds tantalising mirrorings and contrasts with Lawrence Dunn’s mercurial musical tongue, omnivorously exploring supersaturated detail and sparseness, microtonal dissonance shading into open-hearted lushness, and po-faced self-seriousness lapsing into knowing absurdity.
This concert is supported by the Lithuanian Council for Culture, Association LATGA, Vaughan Williams Foundation, Francis Routh Trust and hcmf//, in partnership with Meno Genas and the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. Julius Aglinskas's Synchronicity was commissioned by LRT Klasika.
Muzikos Ruduo (Autumn Music) Festival
Julius Aglinskas Synchronicity world premiere
Lawrence Dunn Double Sonata world premiere
performance broadcast live and live streated on LRT Klasika
At Muzikos Ruduo 2024, GBSR combine with star Lithuanian violin-cello duo Twenty Fingers to provide a rich, colouristic and rhythmic canvas for two of the subtlest sonic palettes.
The fecund ambiguity of Julius Aglinskas’ music, suggesting by turns coldness, solitude and melancholic nostalgia, finds tantalising mirrorings and contrasts with Lawrence Dunn’s mercurial musical tongue, omnivorously exploring supersaturated detail and sparseness, microtonal dissonance shading into open-hearted lushness, and po-faced self-seriousness lapsing into knowing absurdity.
This concert is supported by the Lithuanian Council for Culture, Association LATGA, Vaughan Williams Foundation, Francis Routh Trust and hcmf//, in partnership with Meno Genas and the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. Julius Aglinskas's Synchronicity was commissioned by LRT Klasika.
George Crumb Music for a Summer Evening (Makrokosmos III)
with Joseph Havlat and Sam Wilson
Returning to the concrete concert hall for a third season after performances of Stockhausen/Aphex Twin in 2022 and Galina Ustvolskaya/Oliver Leith in 2023, GBSR brings the iconic American composers George Crumb and Steve Reich and iconoclastic English composer Steve Martland to Bold Tendencies, joined once again by trusted collaborators Jo Havlat and Sam Wilson. George Crumb's Music for a Summer Evening (1975) is one of greatest of all his works, using a vast array of percussion and keyboard instruments from Tibetan prayer stones to the African thumb piano. Steve Reich is illuminated with his brilliant and beautiful Quartet from 2013, written for two pianos and two vibraphones. Steve Martland's Drill (1987) for two pianos is one of his most radical and profound pieces, exemplary of his distinctive, edgy sound.
L Andriessen The Memory of Roses
Barbara Monk Feldman Duo for Piano and Percussion
Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou The Garden of Gethsemane
Luke Lewis O Dreamland! (festival commission, world premiere)
L Andriessen Deuxième chorale
Lucio Tasca DSFC (unison)
Cassandra Miller Sinner, please
Martland arr. GBSR Mr Anderson’s Pavane (version premiere)
A concert programme that pays tribute to Steve Martland, in what would have been his 70th birthday year, as well as to his teacher Louis Andriessen. It also reflects on the nature of homage and of memory, on the influence both of individual artistic forebears and of musical history writ large.
Luke Lewis's new work not only pays tribute to his mentor Steve Martland but also Lindsay Anderson, the dedicatee of Martland's own Mr Anderson's Pavane (heard here in a new arrangement for the duo). Luke's piece, lovingly retreading the same steps of homage that Martland himself took, is thus a celebration not only of the influence of his mentor but also of the idea of influence itself.
Luke Lewis O Dreamland! (festival commission)
Joe Duddell A Life Cycle (world premiere)
CHAINES Autopsy of an Aberration (world premiere)
Join CHAINES and GBSR Duo as they undertake an imaginary autopsy. Echoing incorruptible saints and marked witches, an aberrant human is set on the surgeon’s slab to be dissected post-execution. Do we view a monster or a martyr? This never-before-heard piece combines amplified percussion, keys and vocals with electronically processed sounds, synths and samples.
This concert is supported by PRS Foundation’s The Open Fund and the Hinrichsen Foundation. Autopsy of an Aberration was developed with the support of Stapleford Granary and The Glasshouse International Centre for Music’s Summer Studios.
Catharina Pratten selected pieces
Harold Budd/Brian Eno arr. GB The Plateaux of Mirror
John White Drinking and Hooting Machine
Oliver Leith Doom and the Dooms (world premiere)
with Sean Shibe & 12 Ensemble
Oliver Leith's huge new work sees GBSR, 12 Ensemble and guitarist Sean Shibe combine forces to perform a transcription of a band's gig that never happened. Before that it's a fascinating and highly eclectic programme ranging from Catharina Pratten's intimate works for the small Romantic guitar to GB's arrangement of Harold Budd and Brian Eno's The Plateaux of Mirror, taking in also a seminal Ligeti work and a tribute to legendary British Experimental School composer John White, who died at the beginning of this year.
Oliver Leith good day good day bad day bad day
Oliver Leith's masterpiece of melancholia finally comes to Wigmore Hall. This is a unique opportunity to hear this celebrated work in the ideal acoustic for its intense and painful intimacy.
Blake, a musician, has recently escaped rehab to return home. But he is haunted by objects, visitors and memories distracting him from his true purpose – self-destruction. Adapted from Gus Van Sant’s 2005 film based on the final days of Kurt Cobain, this new opera plunges into the torment that created a modern myth.
GBSR Duo join the LA Phil New Music Group to form the opera's ensemble.
2023
Sun 3 Dec
with Ian Dearden, Sound Intermedia
The groundbreaking Soundscape surround-sound system offers an opportunity to hear the movement of sound in three of Stockhausen's most ambitious multi-channel electronic works with revolutionary clarity.
From the explosive Klavierstück XV SYNTHI-FOU for multiple sampler keyboards and eight channel sound to the beatific, posthumously-realised STRAHLEN, Stockhausen's version of Klavierstück XIX for ten channels of electronically-treated vibraphones, GBSR present the bookend masterpieces of Stockhausen's electronic keyboard oeuvre, all before Stockhausen's last electronic composition, the visionary and controversial 24-layered octaphonic monster COSMIC PULSES.
Lisa Illean Tiding II (silentium) (UK premiere)
with Michael Acker (SWR Experimentalstudio) and Lisa Illean, electronics & sound projection
Lisa Illean’s extraordinary, aquatic study of sonic transience Tiding II (silentium) is inspired by “hypnotic hours listening to the world sounding through water, my head half-submerged, patterns of distant chattering mingling with the periodic rubbing of the sea”.
Precisely calibrated combinations of saxophone multiphonics, electronic processing, metal percussion and virtuosic inside-piano work combine to evoke that environmental mormorando, layers of sound effortlessly yet unpredictably floating in and out of perception. Hushed in tone, sensations between the vast and the intimate are at tension. Sheets of electronic sound and sustained tones resemble the revolving light from a lighthouse raking the ocean’s surface. The sound floods and ebbs; interwoven layers surface and recede in a delicate balance.
Bates Mill Photographic Studio, Huddersfield
Angharad Davies Empty Spaces II (world premiere)
also featuring Liudas Mockūnas
Angharad Davies's new work for GBSR Duo is intricately tied to her practice as one of Europe's leading free improvisers, and is based on a series of solo violin improvisations recorded in the empty rooms above a disused high street shop in Wales:
“These short pieces involved preparing the space by placing a chair in an empty room. Taking a photo of that empty chair. Then I sat on that chair and filled the room with sound. I responded to each room differently – placing sound in spaces that are familiar to me, but that have never had space or time for my own music. Alien terrains that I’ve never considered possible for framing or hosting my personal sound."
In Empty Spaces II GBSR becomes that terrain, the host of Davies's sound, as her playing entirely suffuses the work: both indirectly, in the improvisatory structures developed in close collaboration with Davies; and directly, in the incorporation of treated and untreated samples of her violin into the texture of the work. The space becomes synthetic; the emptiness transmutes; the soloist is there, but also not there.
Also featuring Lithuanian improvising saxophonist Liudas Mockūnas performing the UK premiere of his “Hydro 3”.
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St Andrew's Cathedral, Aberdeen
Barbara Monk Feldman Duo for Piano and Percussion
Christopher Fox Earth & Sea (world premiere)
GBSR Duo present the world premiere of Earth & Sea by Christopher Fox, a work inspired by the rhythms of the tides, wind and waves.
Alongside this brand new work, they play music by Barbara Monk Feldman and Tim Parkinson: the gentle beauty of Feldman’s work inspired by the nature and landscapes of her native Canada, as the cracked seaside soundtrack of Parkinson's evokes a world that is both nostalgic and futuristic.
Co-commissioned by sound & GBSR Duo with the support of the Hope Scott Trust.
Mwldan 2, Aberteifi / Cardigan
BBC Radio 3 New Music Show LIVE
Barbara Monk Feldman Duo for Piano and Percussion
Eva-Maria Houben avalon orchard with Rhodri Davies
Also including performances by Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, Jenn Kirby and Rhodri Davies
Galina Ustvolskaya Composition №2 Dies irae
Oliver Leith good day good day bad day bad day
The merciless, cruel sonic world of Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006) comes together with the addictive tones of British composer Oliver Leith (b.1990): “Deadpan, subversive, quietly anarchic, disarmingly heart-sore and sweet-sour music.” (Kate Molleson).
The music of Ustvolskaya is tough and uncompromising. Famously reclusive, she committed her life to her compositions, of which only 25 survive. Her output is exemplified by Composition №2, "Dies irae" (1973): brutal, violent and unforgettable. Written for eight double basses, piano and a large wooden cube that in some performances resembles a coffin, it has been called music that sounds 'dead behind the eyes’.
By contrast, Oliver Leith’s good day good day bad day bad day (for piano, keyboards and percussion), evokes a conciliatory world where the spectre of anxiety and codependency always lurks unconfronted. Its picture of the musical “everyday” of George and Siwan’s living room is a tender, intimate and ambiguous elongation of domesticity into the public realm. Both pieces speak to our human capacity to engage in acts of free will, even as we may seem trapped by societal structures in our current moment of crisis.
Mica Levi Lonely Void from Under the Skin
Mica Levi Love from Under the Skin
Romitelli Flowing Down Too Slow
Harold Budd & Brian Eno arr. GB Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror
with 12 Ensemble
GBSR Duo and 12 Ensemble combine to explore ascent and descent: visions of heaven and hell from the lonely void to the plateaux of mirror.
12 Ensemble join GBSR Duo for a programme of heavenly and hellish visions by five composers working between classical and non-classical music – culminating in Harold Budd and Brian Eno’s glittering, suspended Ambient 2 in a new arrangement by the performers. Before that, Laurence Osborn’s new work TOMB! uses the genre of the tombeau to take a sideways look at classical music’s death fixation.
Thu 8 June
7:30 pm TBC
Phipps Hall, University of Huddersfield
Lucio Tasca D.S.F.C (unison) world premiere
Barbara Monk Feldman Duo for Piano and Percussion
Tim Parkinson Project 9000
Tom Hawkins Multiple Repetitions world premiere
Aldo Clementi Tre ricercari UK premiere - with David Zucchi, saxophone
Part of a short residency at Huddersfield University during which we'll also be giving workshops to composition students. At this recital we'll play new pieces from two post-graduate composers alongside existing works from our repertoire, and give the UK premiere of Aldo Clementi's gorgeous Tre ricercari with saxophonist extraordinaire David Zucchi.
Mica Levi Lonely Void from Under the Skin
Mica Levi Love from Under the Skin
Romitelli Flowing Down Too Slow
Harold Budd & Brian Eno arr. GB Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror
with 12 Ensemble
GBSR Duo and 12 Ensemble combine to explore ascent and descent: visions of heaven and hell from the lonely void to the plateaux of mirror.
12 Ensemble join GBSR Duo for a programme of heavenly and hellish visions by five composers working between classical and non-classical music – culminating in Harold Budd and Brian Eno’s glittering, suspended Ambient 2 in a new arrangement by the performers. Before that, Laurence Osborn’s new work TOMB! uses the genre of the tombeau to take a sideways look at classical music’s death fixation.
St Andrew's and Blackfriars' Hall, Norwich
Mica Levi Lonely Void from Under the Skin
Mica Levi Love from Under the Skin
Romitelli Flowing Down Too Slow
Harold Budd & Brian Eno arr. GB Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror
with 12 Ensemble
GBSR Duo and 12 Ensemble combine to explore ascent and descent: visions of heaven and hell from the lonely void to the plateaux of mirror.
12 Ensemble join GBSR Duo for a programme of heavenly and hellish visions by five composers working between classical and non-classical music – culminating in Harold Budd and Brian Eno’s glittering, suspended Ambient 2 in a new arrangement by the performers. Before that, Laurence Osborn’s new work TOMB! uses the genre of the tombeau to take a sideways look at classical music’s death fixation.
Tim Parkinson Project 9000 (world premiere) (performed by GBSR)
Tim Parkinson untitled 2021b (world premiere) (performed by Tim Parkinson)
plus video works by Sophie Clements and Simon Payne
A programme of new and recent experimental single-screen and expanded video works by Sophie Clements and Simon Payne, alongside new music by the composer Tim Parkinson, performed by GBSR Duo.
Tim Parkinson’s music exhibits a collage approach, often juxtaposing the sounds of found objects, various kinds of musical material, or snippets of speech: ‘What I want is a large and unforeseen diversity of pitches and intervals – randomness, patterns, shapes’.
Eva-Maria Houben avalon orchard
Tim Parkinson violin and piano piece 1998
Barbara Monk Feldman The Northern Shore
with Mira Benjamin
GBSR Duo is joined by violinist Mira Benjamin for a rare performance of a major work by Canadian composer Barbara Monk Feldman. She creates music of exquisite simplicity, where sounds seem to float outside time, and The Northern Shore replicates the sensation of viewing the subtly changing light on the horizon of Canada’s Atlantic coast. The concert will open with a work by Eva-Maria Houben, whose delicate music relishes the space and silence between sounds, along with a duet by Tim Parkinson that plays on the musicians’ ability to work together but also to drift off into their own soundworlds.
2022
Morton Feldman Crippled Symmetry
with Taylor MacLennan and Explore Ensemble
also performing new work by Beatrice Dillon and Nakul Krishnamurthy
Royal Opera House Linbury Theatre
w/ 12 ensemble
cond. Jack Sheen
Oliver Leith Last Days
Blake, a musician, has recently escaped rehab to return home. But he is haunted by objects, visitors and memories distracting him from his true purpose – self-destruction. Adapted from Gus Van Sant’s 2005 film based on the final days of Kurt Cobain, this new opera plunges into the torment that created a modern myth.
GBSR Duo and 12 ensemble combine to form the opera's ensemble.
Aphex Twin Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments pt.2
with Sound Intermedia, Joseph Havlat and Sam Wilson
The two composers of this programme had a famous falling-out in 1995, Stockhausen accusing Aphex Twin of "post-African repetitions". In these pieces they each approach the division between human and machine, and the question of compositional control, from very different directions.
Aphex Twin's Computer Controlled..., originally 'performed' by solenoid drum machines and prepared player pianos, is here presented by live performers on two prepared pianos and percussion. An electronic dance-musical language that became acoustic robot grooves, is transferred once again to human performers.
After ditching the initial idea for KONTAKTE of pianist and percussionist improvising responses to the electronic sounds (rehearsals were "a disaster"), Stockhausen notated a highly intricate, fully composed surround-sound interaction of live and electronic sounds that has to be heard live to be fully believed.
VOCES8 Centre, St Anne and St Agnes Church
Enchanted Vistas: The Music of Barbara Monk Feldman
A portrait concert celebrating the contemplative, rigorous and inquisitive music of Barbara Monk Feldman.
This will be duo’s first performances of many of these extraordinarily delicate and intense pieces since the release of their critically acclaimed recording.
“We are listening to what’s left over when habitual babble is utterly wiped away.” Gramophone
Southbank Centre: SoundState festival
Eva-Maria Houben together on the way
Following the critically-acclaimed sell-out premiere of Eva-Maria Houben's together on the way at hcmf//, the piece receives its second performance at Southbank Centre's SoundState festival.
This performance will feature the Queen Elizabeth Hall's very rarely heard or seen 1960's neo-Baroque organ, which is perfectly suited to the fullest exploitation and exploration of the composer's extraordinary experimental organ techniques.
2021
Thu 18 Nov
9:30 pm
hcmf//
St Paul's Hall
Eva-Maria Houben together on the way
with Eva-Maria Houben, organ
The world première of a very substantial new work composed by Eva-Maria Houben for the combined forces of GBSR and the composer herself.
together on the way was commissioned by hcmf//
an hcmf// article about Eva-Maria's music is here
Sat 17th July
Music We'd Like to Hear
St Mary-at-Hill
Alvin Lucier Silver Streetcar for the Orchestra
Barbara Monk Feldman The I and Thou (European première)
Michael Pisaro-Liu A mist is a collection of points
Thu 17th June
Kings Place
Joanna Bailie Roll Call
Graham Fitkin Chain of Command
Pauline Oliveros Bye Bye Butterfly
CHAINES so smol (hewwo)
Oliver Sellwood Alias States
Nicole Lizée Softcore (European première)
with Sound Intermedia
In an age when technology seems constantly to make inroads not only into our homes but into what we might once have considered the inviolate core of our personalities, this programme investigates human solitude and identity at the mercy of history and technology.
would you like to read an article about this programme?
2020
Sat 21 Nov
hcmf// BBC New Music Show live broadcast
Arne Gieshoff Spillikins (world premiere)
Angharad Davies Rydal Mount (with Angharad Davies, violin)
Live broadcast from Maida Vale for the 2020 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, in collaboration with Angharad Davies and also featuring repertoire performed by Heather Roche, solo clarinet. Presented by Tom Service and Kate Molleson.
Sun 17 May
Vale of Glamorgan Festival
This performance has been cancelled due to Coronavirus.
We have been continuing to work with the Peter Reynolds Composer Studio via online workshops and home recordings.
Watch the Vale of Glamorgan Festival at Home vidcast to see GBSR performances and interviews with GBSR, Anne Denholm and John Luther Adams. Presented by Steph Power.
Thu 18 June
St Mary-le-Bow, London
This performance has been cancelled due to Coronavirus.
2019
Tue 3 Dec
7 pm
City Music recitals
City University of London Performance Space
Christian Wolff For Morty
Barbara Monk Feldman Duo for Piano and Percussion
Jo Kondo Aquarelle
CHAINES so smol (world premiere)
Nicholas Moroz Intralatent
Olly Sellwood Alias States (world premiere)
Nicholas Moroz is supported by the PRS Foundation's Open Fund and the Hinrichsen foundation, and using public money by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, www.artscouncil.org.uk
CHAINES is supported by the RVW Trust.
Mon 2 Dec
7:30 pm
EXPO Oxford
Jacqueline du Pré Concert Hall
Nicholas Moroz Intralatent
Nicholas Moroz is supported by the PRS Foundation's Open Fund and the Hinrichsen foundation, and using public money by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, www.artscouncil.org.uk
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7:30 pm
Music at Oxford series
Jacqueline du Pré building, Oxford
Steve Reich Clapping Music
George Antheil Piano sonata no. 2 'The Airplane'
Hannah Lash C
Barbara Monk Feldman Duo for piano and percussion
Liam Mattison ADULTHOOD
David Lang Scraping Song
Charles Ives 'The Alcotts' from Piano sonata no. 2 'Concord, Mass. 1840-60'
Gregory Rose Boudica
Howard Skempton Duet for piano and woodblocks
Mark David Boden and Gregory Rose generously supported by the RVW Trust.
Liam Mattison 2018 RPS Composition Prize winner.
3:30 pm
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival
hcmf// shorts
Huddersfield Town Hall
Nicholas Moroz Intralatent (world premiere)
Nicholas Moroz is supported by the PRS Foundation's Open Fund and the Hinrichsen foundation, and using public money by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, www.artscouncil.org.uk
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Fri 18 Oct
1 pm
Barber Concerts series
Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham
Steve Reich Clapping Music
Mark David Boden Soliton
Hannah Lash C
Liam Mattison ADULTHOOD
Barbara Monk Feldman Duo for piano and percussion
Gregory Rose Boudica
Howard Skempton Duet for piano and woodblocks
Mark David Boden and Gregory Rose generously supported by the RVW Trust.
Mon 26 Aug
2 pm
Presteigne Festival
St Andrew's Church, Presteigne
Steve Reich Clapping Music
Liam Mattison ADULTHOOD (world premiere)
Hannah Lash C
Mark David Boden Soliton (world premiere)
Gregory Rose Boudica (world premiere)
Luke Bedford Faraway Canons
Joe Duddell Parallel Lines
Mark David Boden and Gregory Rose generously supported by the RVW Trust.
Liam Mattison 2018 RPS Composition Prize winner.
Mon 24 - Tue 25 June
University of Southampton
Hartley Residency featured performers
Programme of workshops, talks and performances
2018
Sat 27 October
7 pm
LSO St Luke's
BBC R3 Open Ear
Betsy Jolas Music for Joan
Oliver Leith good day good day bad day bad day (mvmt 8)
In this edition of Radio 3's Open Ear we joined House of Bedlam, BirdWorld and Jessica Aszodi for an evening of experimental and contemporary music. The evening was presented by Sara Mohr-Pietsch and recorded for broadcast on Radio 3.
Thu 11 October
1:10 pm
Warwick Arts Centre
Howard Skempton Agreement
Luke Bedford Faraway Canons
Philip Glass Piano Etude no.12
Betsy Jolas Music for Joan
Hannah Lash C
Chistian Wolff For Morty
Howard Skempton Drum Canon no.2
Oliver Leith good day good day bad day bad day (mvmt 8)
This programme juxtaposes highly systematic compositions with entirely intuitive works, from both sides of the Atlantic.
Sun 30 September
5pm
The Print Room, Notting Hill
Way Out East - Rolf Hind composer portrait
Octandre Ensemble
Rolf Hind A Syllabary (2017)
Rolf Hind The City of Love (2002)
Rolf Hind King David (2008)
Rolf Hind Way Out East (2016)
We joined forces with Stefan Baur and Loré Lixenberg for the first complete performance of Rolf Hind's Way Out East, a blisteringly virtuosic explosion of fractal polyrhythms, rhythmic shouting and homemade instruments. Part of the wonderful Octandre Ensemble's composer portrait of Rolf Hind featuring many many gems.
Thu 30 August
1:05 pm
St Mary le Bow
Oliver Leith good day good day bad day bad day
The second performance of Oliver's astonishing chef-d'œuvre took place at St Mary le Bow in a lunchtime concert.
Oliver Leith is supported by the PRS Foundation's The Open Fund and the RVW Trust.
Sun 24 June
3 pm
St John's Smith Square
«KONTAKTE in context»
John Cage Music for Amplified Toy Pianos
Mauricio Kagel Transición II
Karlheinz Stockhausen KONTAKTE
with Sound Intermedia
At the dawn of the 1960s, the idea of combining electronic sounds and processing with live instruments dawned quite differently on three of the greatest composers of the day. The sonic experiments of the three phenomenal works arising from this foment, all written within a year of one another, are here presented side by side. John Cage's investigations into the sounds of the everyday rub shoulders with Kagel's journey into the dark recesses of the piano's subconscious, before Stockhausen's masterwork takes the listener through the deconstruction of acoustic sound into outer space.
This concert is supported by the London Contemporary School of Piano.
Thu 24 May
7:30 pm
St John's Smith Square
Eric Wubbels doxa (European première)
Morton Feldman Dance Suite (for Merle Marsicano)
Oliver Leith - good day good day bad day bad day (world première)
Three kindred but truly original composers explore the sonorities of piano and percussion. A massive new work by Oliver Christophe Leith, the European première of doxa by American composer Eric Wubbels, and a substantial unpublished work of Morton Feldman.
Oliver Leith is supported by the PRS Foundation's The Open Fund and the RVW Trust.
Fri 20 - Sun 22 April
St John's Smith Square
Occupy the Pianos Festival
The duo was heavily featured in 2018's edition of «Occupy the Pianos», including the world premiere of a new piece written for the duo by Luke Bedford, a world premiere from Zoë Martlew, a UK premiere from Rolf Hind, solo performances from both players, George conducting an all-star performance of Peter Maxwell Davies' Miss Donnithorne's Maggot, and more.
specific concert information:
Fri 20 Apr
7:30 pm
St John's Smith Square
Occupy the Pianos Festival
«we come together»
Frederic Rzewski Coming Together
Steve Martland Mr Anderson’s Pavane
Peter Maxwell Davies Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot
Loré Lixenberg - voice
Elaine Mitchener - voice
Nancy Ruffer - flute
Stuart King - clarinet
David Alberman - violin
Zoë Martlew - cello
Craig Apps - percussion
Siwan Rhys - piano
Rolf Hind - piano
Ben Smith - piano
George Barton - conductor, percussion
Sat 21 Apr
2 pm
St John's Smith Square
Occupy the Pianos Festival
«polymorphous polymaths»
Zoë Martlew #skincare (world premiere)
Luke Bedford Faraway Canons for bass drum and piano (world premiere)
Loré Lixenberg bɜː(r)d IV (world premiere)
Loré Lixenberg - voice
Zoë Martlew - cello
Craig Apps - percussion
George Barton - percussion
Rolf Hind - piano
Siwan Rhys - piano
Sat 21 Apr
7:30 pm
St John's Smith Square
Occupy the Pianos Festival
«eastern cow theatre»
Rolf Hind Way Out East: "Varanasi Haiku", "This Is The Cow" (UK premiere)
Mauricio Kagel Scenes from Staatstheater
Loré Lixenberg - soprano, director
Stefan Baur - saxophones
George Barton - percussion
Siwan Rhys - piano
CoMA and amateur musicians
Sun 22 Apr
2 pm
St John's Smith Square
Occupy the Pianos Festival
«you will endure forever»
Jonathan Harvey Tombeau de Messiaen (with electronics)
Horaţiu Rădulescu Sonata no. 3
Claude Vivier Shiraz
John Adams Hallelujah Junction
Eliza McCarthy - piano
Siwan Rhys - piano
Joseph Havlat - piano
Thomas Ang - piano
Sun 22 Apr
4 pm
St John's Smith Square
Occupy the Pianos Festival
«still music»
Rob Burbea Amara Vigil
Alvin Lucier Silver streetcar for the orchestra (solo triangle)
Rolf Hind Walking music from Lost in Thought
George Barton - percussion
Rolf Hind - piano
Eliza McCarthy - piano
Thu 5 April
1:05 pm
St John's Smith Square
Francesca Le Lohé Saida Portraits
John Luther Adams Four Thousand Holes
with Nicholas Moroz - sound projection
Sun 18 February
4 pm
St John's Smith Square
Principal Sound festival
Earle Brown Hodograph I
Jürg Frey Circular Music no.4 for celesta
Luigi Nono 'No hay caminar' soñando
Anton Webern Variations for piano op. 27
Morton Feldman Why Patterns?
Jenni Hogan - flute
Clemens Merkel & Alissa Cheung - violins
Thu 25 January
1:10 pm
Warwick Arts Centre
Steve Reich Clapping Music
Francesca le Lohé Saida Portraits
Howard Skempton Duet for piano and woodblocks
Howard Skempton In Tandem
Howard Skempton Dance VI from Gemini Dances
John Luther Adams red arc / blue veil
2017
Thu 2 Feb
8:30 pm
Holywell Music Room, Oxford
John Luther Adams Three Canticles of the Birds
Georges Aperghis Quatre pièces fébriles
Joe Duddell Parallel Lines
Sat 18 Feb & Sun 19 Feb
12 pm
Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg
Rolf Hind Lost in Thought
Tue 11 Apr
1 pm
St Mary-at-Hill, London
Steve Reich Clapping Music
John Luther Adams Three Canticles of the Birds
Howard Skempton Duet for piano and woodblocks
Howard Skempton Dance VI from Gemini Dances
Thu 7 Jul
1 pm
St Barnabas, Ealing
Steve Reich Clapping Music
Gareth Farr Three Little Pieces for Eve
John Luther Adams Three Canticles of the Birds
Howard Skempton Duet for piano and woodblocks
Howard Skempton Dance VI from Gemini Dances
Alexej Gerassimez Piazonore
Thu 17 Jul
3 pm
St John's Smith Square
Young Artists' Showcase
John Luther Adams Three Canticles of the Birds
Joe Duddell Parallel Lines
2016
Fri 15 Jan & Sat 16 Jan
6 pm & 12 pm
Pontio Centre, Bangor
Rolf Hind Lost in Thought
Sun 4 Apr
St John's Smith Square
Principal Sound festival
Morton Feldman For Philip Guston
(with Jenni Hogan)
Mon 5 Dec
1 pm
St Olave's, London
James Tenney Never Having Written a Note for Percussion
John Cage Child of Tree
John Luther Adams Three Canticles of the Birds