Tuesday 8 September 2015, 8pm
First event of a new performance series curated by sound artist Tasos Stamou.
The series aims to explore the ritual side of contemporary music, presenting performers whose works reflect the combination of cutting-edge and traditional practices. ‘Audio Hieratic’ stands in the borders between electroacoustic and ceremonial music. The first event of the series is focused on multi-instrumentalist performers of the free improvised music scene whose style is highly influenced by traditional Eastern cultures. Terry Day (handmade bamboo reeds, balloon, drums, poetry, small percussive objects), Sharon Gal (voice and hand-held electronics), Tasos Stamou (modular synthesizer, prepared zither, feedbacks) & Steve Beresford (electronics, miniature objects) joined by artist, radio presenter and improviser Sharon Gal (voice and hand-held electronics) will perform in solos and quartet improvisations, presenting a huge variety of sounds made by traditional (reeds, strings and vocalisms) and electronic (live sampling and feedbacks) means.
Sharon Gal is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, vocalist and composer, specialising in free improvisation, experimental music and collaborative, participatory large group compositions. She works with voice, electronics, extended techniques, field recordings, found audio, video and collage; exploring presence, listening, embodiment, and the relationship between people, sound and space. Sharon performs solo and in collaborations with: David Toop, Steve Beresford, Phil Minton, Charles Hayward, John Butcher, Andie Brown, Yoni Silver, Sue Lynch, Anat Ben David and Lina Lapelyte.
Since 2007 she has directed a series of site specific, large group compositions, inviting musicians and non-musicians to take part. She curates music concerts, including the series Sound Matter, at Café OTO, and concerts at Iklectik arts lab. Her music is released by many labels, including five solo albums and various collaborations.
Past performances include The V&A, ICA, The Whitechapel Gallery, Tate Modern & Tate Britain, MACBA, and Colour Out Of Space, Borealis, Supernormal, Supersonic, TUSK, and Tectonics festivals. Her experimental work, Etudes by Sharon Gal, a collection of text & colour scores, presented as a deck of 78 cards, was supported by Sound and Music and published in 2021.
https://www.sharon-gal.com/
https://sharongal.bandcamp.com
Terry Day is a first generation pioneer improviser from the 1960s: an improviser, multi-instrumentalist, lyricist, songwriter, visual artist and poet.
A self-taught musician in a family of musicians, he began improvising on the drums with his brother in 1955. In the early ‘60s he formed the Hardy Holman Day trio, focusing on free improvisation. Later he became part of the band Kilburn & the Highroads, with Ian Dury. Sharing their interest in visual art and painting they both studied at Walthamstow School of Art and later at the Royal College of Art, London. As an art student in the ‘60s he was also a pioneer of free improvisation, free jazz & experimental music.
He formed a duo with guitarist Derek Bailey in the late ´60s and was a regular member of The Continuous Music Ensemble,The People Band and, later on, Alterations with David Toop, Steve Beresford & Peter Cusack.
Terry has collaborated with many musical luminaries, groups, dancers, painters, poets and performed in theatre. He now plays bamboo reed flutes, drums, recorders, balloons & improvises with his lyrics, prose and verse. Since 2000 he has been part of London Improvisers Orchestra. In recent years he has toured twice in both Japan and Brazil, and has performed with improvising orchestras in Malaga, Tokyo and Madrid.
Tasos Stamou: is a Greek electroacoustic music composer and performing artist, a music technologist and a tutor, a studio and radio producer.
After migrating in U.K over a decade ago, his sound artstarted being inspired by the idea of nostalgia. His latest albums are combining electronic music with his South East Mediterranean heritage. He has performed in over 300 shows in Europe and in U.S.A in venues and festivals of innovative music (Bent Festival, Incumbate Festival, Supernormal Festival, Café OTO, Seanaps Festival, The Barbican, etc.). He has over 20 releases in independent music labels (Discrepant, Ikuisuus, Moving furniture, Coherent States, KukurukuRecordings, etc.). He has collaborated with several veterans of exploratory music, such as Steve Beresford, Anna Homler, Mike Cooper, Savina Yannatou, Adam Bohman, Tomomi Adachi.
Stamou is also leading workshops of improvised music, hardware hacking electronics for music production and workshops for younger audiences introducing contemporary music. In the last couple of years Stamou is also using radio as a medium,
as a podcast radio producer (Stegi Radio), guest producer or creator of radio art pieces.
Steve Beresford has been a central figure in the British and international spontaneous music scenes for over fifty years, freely improvising on piano, objects, electronics and other things with people like Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Han Bennink and John Zorn. Long-standing groups have included Alterations (with David Toop, Terry Day and Peter Cusack), The Melody Four (with Lol Coxhill and Tony Coe, both RIP) and London Improvisers Orchestra.
He has written songs, composed for large and small ensembles, and scored short films, feature films, TV shows and commercials. He was part of the editorial teams of ‘Musics’ and ‘Collusion’ magazines, writes about music in various contexts, and was a senior lecturer in music at the University of Westminster.
Steve has worked with Christian Marclay on various Marclay mixed media pieces. He has also worked with The Slits, Najma Akhtar, Stewart Lee, Ivor Cutler, Prince Far-I, Alan Hacker, Tania Chen, Louis Moholo-Moholo, Faradena Afifi, Blanca Regina, Ray Davies, Mandhira De Saram, The Flying Lizards, Zeena Parkins, The Portsmouth Sinfonia, Ilan Volkov, Rachel Musson, Vic Reeves, Lore Lixenberg, Valentina Magaletti and many others.
Beresford has an extensive discography - around 500 releases - as performer, arranger, free-improviser, composer, conductor and producer. He was awarded a Paul Hamlyn award for composers in 2012.
In 2021, Bloomsbury published a book by Andy Hamilton: ‘Pianos, Toys, Music and Noise: Conversations with Steve Beresford’.
In 2022, Siglio published the book ‘Call and Response’, which partnered photographs by Christian Marclay with notated improvisations by Beresford.
