8–9 May 2024
Thrilled to host a two-day residency with experimental vocalist, movement artist and composer, Elaine Mitchener, to mark the release of her first ever solo LP, Solo Throat, released on Otoroku.
Elaine Mitchener is a veteran of vocal expression in the global Black Avant Garde, traversing free improvisation, cross-disciplinary music theatre and contemporary composition with clarity and joy. Drawing on the work of African-American and African-Caribbean poets Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Aimé Césaire, Una Marson and N. H. Pritchard, the twelve new vocal compositions on Solo Throat disrupt semantic sense, play with the margins of lyrical translation and give rise to new voicings.
This special two-day residency centres on the spirit of sonic and physical experimentation / improvisatory encounters in response to - or away from - some texts by Afro-diasporic poets that have inspired Elaine's work, as well as an opportunity for people to play together who wouldn’t normally do so from the world of dance, poetry, music, visual art. Not to be missed!
Elaine Mitchener is a British Afro-Caribbean vocalist, movement artist and composer working between contemporary / experimental new music, free improvisation and visual art. She is currently a Wigmore Hall Associate Artist; was a DAAD Artist-in-Berlin Fellow (2022) and was an exhibiting artist in the British Art Show 9 (2021-22). In February 2022 Mitchener was awarded an MBE for Services to Music. Elaine is founder of the collective electroacoustic unit The Rolling Calf (with Jason Yarde and Neil Charles). Her regular collaborators include: composers George E Lewis, Jennifer Walshe, and Tansy Davies; visual artists Sonia Boyce, Christian Marclay and The Otolith Group; chamber ensembles Apartment House, London Sinfonietta, Ensemble MAM, Ensemble Klang, and Klangforum Wien; choreographer Dam van Huynh’s company; and experimental musicians such as Moor Mother, Loré Lixenberg, Saul Williams, Pat Thomas and David Toop. While developing her own projects, Elaine continues to work as a collaborative and interpretive singer.
