Month: September 2014

Canard de “Fizzle”, avec lapin

Bruce Coates brings us news of the new season of Fizzle, curated by Andrew Woodhead. This concert may quack you up, so be sure to attend: hop to it!

The new season of Fizzle kicks off with the fabulous duck-rabbit, featuring:

Joe Wright – saxophone/electronics,
Tom Taylor – piano/electronics,
James Opstad – double bass/electronics

Should be a delightful gig, come on down!

Gig starts at 8pm at the Lamp Tavern, Barford St, Birmingham.

£5/£3 OTD

Behind the Irritable Hedgehog

One of our regular go-to composers is the founder of Irritable Hedgehog Recordings, David D. McIntire. McIntire works on worldwide minimalism and postminimalism, totalism, and all the postmodern ‘isms’ anyone could want, from his base in Missouri. The official site of Irritable Hedgehog has music by a number of composers (pianism by R. Andrew Lee, design by Scott Unrein) is worth visiting: http://irritablehedgehog.com/Recordings.html . However, today we were perusing McIntire’s Soundcloud page, which includes a bunch of his Hedgehog tracks, plus E.I.O, a free improvisation group which McIntire co-founded. Well worth a little listen: https://soundcloud.com/irritable-hedgehog-music .

The Tortoise, His Journey — No Dreaming

The Tortoise and His Raincoat: Music for a Very Long Walk is an event created by Nat Evans, who is hiking the 2600 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada, creating environmental recordings and collaborating with composers along the way. Scott Unrein, a Portland-based composer who is associated with the Missouri-based minimalist recording company Irritable Hedgehog, has written episode 6: Nacre. You can hear it (if you listen carefully — it starts very softly!) here: https://soundcloud.com/natevans-1/the-tortoise-6-scott-unrein-oregon-nacre

Edited for errors. Really, we shouldn’t let admin try to write copy! (Virginia)

Lewis-Shrapnel Duo in London

Well, this looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun. John Lewis was one half of the legendary 1970s piano duo with Dave Smith. Hugh Shrapnel was a member of the (can we repeat legendary? Oh, okay, we will) legendary minimalist quartet the Promenade Theatre Orchestra. Both composers have come up with loads of great pieces over the years, so we expect good things from this concert. And the free wine’s a bit of a draw!

Hugh Shrapnel and John Lewis Piano Duets and Solos

Saturday 27th September 6.30 pm                                  

Schotts Music Publishers, 48 Great Marlborough Street, London W1F 7BB                                                   (Nearest tube Oxford Circus)

Shrapnel and Lewis’s music complements each other. The former’s amiable sepia-tinted portraits of S.E. London life and locations contrast with the latter’s more aggressive jazz-tinged depictions of the Chemical Elements.

Expect train journeys, rare-earths, cemeteries, evil-smelling liquids and much more…

Admission £8, (concs. £5) and free wine!