Wednesday 3 May 2017, 7.30pm
The UK premiere of Linda Catlin Smith’s ‘Dirt Road’, a 60-minute piece for violin and percussion, played by Mira Benjamin and Simon Limbrick of Apartment House. Their realisation of ‘Dirt Road’ was released on CD last year on the Another Timbre label and received rave reviews.
“Music of cold, clear beauty” - Alex Ross, New Yorker
“A magical piece, very likely the thing I’ve played most this year” - Michael Pisaro
“A lonesome kind of beauty…haunting and special’ Julian Cowley” - The Wire
Produced with kind assistance from the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres de Quebec.
Linda Catlin Smith is a Toronto-based composer who studied with Morton Feldman and Rudolf Komorous. Her music is at once gentle and steely. As Jack Sheen says: ‘Smith’s music encapsulates the beautiful paradox within all economic music: by stripping back the music to its pure essentials, one’s listening experience is totally heightened, resulting in an awareness of the sounds and a receptiveness to them which is if anything maximal rather than minimal.”
Isaiah Ceccarelli and Katelyn Clark also live in Canada, and develop pieces largely through honing and re-working improvised material. Ceccarelli plays percussion, and Clark the organetto, a rare medieval instrument appearing at Cafe Oto for the first time. The organetto is a hand-pumped miniature organ, producing extraordinary sounds which Clark modifies using folds of paper to adjust timbre and tuning. The duo’s work is unique, and is featured on a new CD of Isaiah Ceccarelli’s music, ‘Bow’, which was released on Another Timbre in February 2017 as part of the Canadian Composers Series.
