One of the best and most renowned British contemporary classical music ensembles Apartment House will perform the music of contemporary British composers, which is rarely performed in our country, in three Russian cities — Moscow (1 October), St.Petersburg (8 October), and Nizhny Novgorod (4 October).
Apartment House
Apartment House was created by the cellist Anton Lukoszevieze in 1995. Under his direction it has become a venerable exponent of avant-garde and experimental music from around the World. Disregarding style, fashion and hip things, and forging nowhere with a Zeitgeistian zeal, Apartment House’s performances have included many the UK and World premieres of music by a wide variety of composers. Notable portrait events have featured the composers Jennifer Walshe, Christian Wolff, Gerhard Stäbler, Luc Ferrari, Dieter Schnebel, Christopher Fox, Laurence Crane, Michael Parsons, James Clarke, Helmut Oehring, Clarence Barlow, David Behrman, Philip Corner, and Richard Ayres. The Apartment House group is of flexible instrumentation, allowing for a vast range of performance possibilities. They are a regular feature on the European music scene and have even ventured as far as the USA and Australia. Their recordings and videos have been released on Mere Records (Jennifer Walshe’s XXX Live_Nude_Girls!), Cold Blue Music (Peter Garland String Quartets), Matchless Recordings (Cornelius Cardew Chamber Music) and Asphodel (Zbigniew Karkowski). There recent double album of music by composer Laurence Crane has received critical acclaim.
Laurence Crane
Laurence Crane was born in Oxford in 1961 and studied composition with Peter Nelson and Nigel Osborne at Nottingham University. He is closely associated with the British ensemble Apartment House, who have given numerous performances of his work since their formation in 1995. He has composed several pieces especially for the ensemble, including John White in Berlin, which was commissioned in 2003 by the Maerzmusik festival in Berlin. Another Timbre, a UK based label, recently released a double CD of Crane’s chamber and instrumental music, performed by members of Apartment House. He has also developed working relationships with Plus-Minus Ensemble (UK/Belgium), Ives Ensemble (Netherlands), Cikada Ensemble (Norway) and Asamisimasa (Norway).Plus-Minus Ensemble commissioned Octet in 2008 and this work was subsequently shortlisted for the Royal Philharmonic Society award for chamber-scale composition. Composer and pianist Michael Finnissy has recorded Crane’s piano music, a disc that was released by the Divine Art/Metier CD label in June 2008. Further portrait CD’s are planned by Cikada Ensemble, Ives Ensemble and Asamisimasa.
- 20th Century Music (1999)
I composed 20th Century Music on 31st December 1999. The duration is around 3 minutes and the ambitious dedication is «to everyone involved with 20th Century Music». Tim Parkinson gave the first performance at St Cyprian’s Church in London on 15th March 2000. -
Trio for Ros and Peter (1989)
Trio for Ros and Peter is a short single movement for violin, cello and piano. I composed it in January 1989 as the title music for a short film, Daniel and Martin Boyle, which was written and directed by Ros Bailey and Peter Anderson. The first concert performance took place on 14 March 1992 at Christ Church in Highbury in North London.
Tom Philips
Tom Philips is an English artist, he was born in London in 1937, where he continues to work. He is a painter, printmaker and collagist.
- Ornamentik
Ornamentik was written and drawn (it is a graphic score with instructions) at the request of the American trombonist Stuart Dempster, who asked for a piece that would suggest, within the character of a sustaining instrument, various provocative challenges to corner him into inventing new sounds or techniques. It was premiered at the Cheltenham Festival in 1969.
John Lely
John Lely lives in London, writes music and words, plays objects and electronics, and curates concerts. John is interested in the variety of sounds, correspondences and experiences that can emerge through the use of limited sets of musical building blocks. His pieces explore sound, silence, proportion, process, perception and listening. His work has been influenced by associations with Antoine Beuger, Alvin Lucier, Christian Wolff, Michael Parsons, Tom Johnson, Manfred Werder, Taylan Susam and Laurence Crane, among many others. John’s music is performed internationally by soloists and groups. Formative and ongoing collaborations include work with the musicians of Apartment House, the Bozzini Quartet and the Edges ensemble. He is co-author, with James Saunders, of Word Events: Perspectives on Verbal Notation (Continuum 2012), a book about text scores. Together with composers Tim Parkinson and Markus Trunk he curates Music We’d Like to Hear, a concert series described by TEMPO as an oasis of thoughtful and idealistic music-making’.
Tim Parkinson
Tim Parkinson, lives in London, writes music, organises and performs in concerts, «Music We’d Like to Hear» with John Lely and Markus Trunk since 2005, plays ’any sound producing means’ with James Saunders as «Parkinson Saunders» since 2003, plays with groups from Set Ensemble to Manorexia, his music performed from LA to Tokyo, from Viitasaari to Christchurch, championed especially by Apartment House and Incidental Music and the excellent associated soloists therein, also by other ensembles such as Dedalus and the Basel Sinfonietta, an opera «Time With People» to be premiered at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2014, many recordings including 2 CDs on Edition Wandelweiser, featured in The Ashgate Research Companion to Experimental Music. Born 7th July 1973, at school 11 years, at University for 3, studied briefly with Kevin Volans in his house in Dublin, went to Ostrava 2001 met Christian Wolff and Alvin Lucier, aside of which never sought any further education except life and self.
- Symphony 2014 b
«Symphony» refers both to the original meaning of the word as «sounds, together», and as a proposal for an arena of content.
Amber Priestley
BORN IN THE SHADOW of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Amber Priestley has lived in the UK since 1991. She obtained her B. A. at the University of Sussex and her doctorate in composition at the University of York. The majority of her work deals directly with musicians performing both music and theatre. Some recent performances include those by Exaudi, Claudia Molitor, London Sinfonietta, the Bozzini Quartet and the Workers Union. Amber is particularly fascinated by the visual aspect of a completed score, especially simple but elegant staves which are, in fact, stripes! She finds these stripes to be æsthetically pleasing and add to the joy of composition.
- The Skriker
Long ago I played violin for a production of Caryl Churchill’s play The Skriker, where I was asked to be Yallery Brown, a sprite‐like figure — here wearing a pink jumpsuit & playing fiddle tunes. Because of this, I began to be aware of the amazing structures which unfold in Churchill’s dramas. This work for Apartment House, Maisie Fidgets about the Room, is a response to another of Churchill’s plays.