This Thursday the Ether Festival opens at the Southbank Centre. Ether is an annual music festival, “of innovation, art, technology and cross-arts experimentation” (Southbank Centre website).

Iannis Xenakis
This year there is a strong focus on the work of the French composer, Iannis Xenakis. This includes an International conference comprising several talks, workshops and performances of the composer’s work. Xenakis is known for his use of processes and the application of mathematical theories as compositional tools. As well as writing instrumental and vocal music, Xenakis also wrote electronic music and devised a computerised musical composition tool called UPIC which he used for the composition of some of his electronic work. The festival is running a series of workshops on the use of UPIC.

One of Xenakis’ pieces that is to be performed is Rebonds which is for solo percussionist. Here is a taste of what could be expected at the festival concert on 3rd April:

The Fitkin Band
On the opening day of the festival (24th March) there is a performance by the Fitkin Band. This is the British composer Graham Fitkin’s nine-piece band, formed in 2009. They are joined by musicians and dancers from Trinity Laban Conservatoire in creating a site-specific event. Below is an extract from a live performance by the Fitkin Band:

Fitkin Band live in Nottingham from Fitkin Band on Vimeo.

Another event worthy of note is the world premiere of Will Gregory’s (of Goldfrapp fame) opera, Piccard in Space. For more details on this and plenty of other events, visit the Ether programme which is linked below.

Ether runs from 24th March to 28th April at the Southbank Centre. For full details about the festival, visit the Southbank Centre website: www.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/festivals-series/ether

For more information about Iannis Xenakis on this website, visit: Xenakis, Iannis – Info
To see and hear more of Xenakis’ work, visit YouTube and type his name – you’ll get plenty of hits.

For more information about the Fitkin Band on this website, visit: Fitkin Band – Info
To see and hear more of the Fitkin Band, visit: www.vimeo.com/fitkin

Sandglasses by Justė Janulytė was performed at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival on the 28th November and it forms our third feature on the festival. We hope you enjoy the video below:

Programme note for Sandglasses (by the composer):

“Sandglasses” explores acoustic, visual and symbolic meanings of a sand timer, as a phenomenon. The inspiration of the piece is a simultaneous launch of several sandglasses of different capacity and duration. This idea is materialized in music by a polytemporal canon played by cellos which pass through their entire register at different rates, thus the initial unison splits off, the voices keep moving further from each other and reach the lowest note at different moments. The sounds produced live are being recorded and repeated in several variants that individually slow down and therefore descend, so that every cello’s sound generates its own polytemporal canon. They keep multiplying and layering before finally interlacing into a dense micropoliphonic texture which covers, floods and replaces the real sources of sound.

The musical idea is visualized by the purpose-built cylinder screens, made of tulle, where video images and light effects are projected. They extend and transform the performers’ existence on the stage while creating fictions and submerging spectators into various perceptive experiences.

Although the point of departure of the piece was of a purely acoustic-visual nature, the phenomenon of sandglass, being open for diverse interpretations, got wrapped with some implications and associations during the creative process. The metaphoric sand which seeps from the sandglasses, as a sediment of the passing time, accumulates and submerges the imprisoned individuals. Their identities transform, fade and vanish until the glasses fill up and the relentless operation of the chronometers stops. Everything freezes and the reverse process of purification starts.

For further details about the performance at the festival on 28th November, please click here.

For further information about Justė Janulytė on this site, please visit her page: Janulytė, Justė – Info

To see/hear more of Justė Janulytė’s work, please visit: http://www.janulyte.info