22–23 February 2018
Two evenings of performances of text based scores by Antoine Beuger and Emmanuelle Waeckerlé, realised by Antoine Beuger, John Eyles, Sarah Hughes, Petri Huurinainen, Charlotte Keefe, Will Montgomery, Artur Vidal and Emmanuelle Waeckerlé.
“Speak// if you can” brings together a composer, a writer and several interpreters of text scores. The evenings will explore the points of transformation and translation between text and sound. Antoine Beuger, a founder member of the Wandelweiser collective, has a long established interest in the crossovers between text scores and literary and philosophical texts. Earlier this year, his label released an acoustic rendering of The Story of O, as re-composed by UK-based interdisciplinary artist Emmanuelle Waeckerlé. Taking the work of Waeckerlé and Beuger as a starting point, the two evenings will present new configurations of voice and musical sound, building on George Oppen’s injunction: “Speak// if you can”.
Curated by Will Montgomery and Emmanuelle Waeckerlé with support from the Royal Holloway Poetics Research Centre; the Humanities and Arts Research Institute, Royal Holloway; and the University of the Creative Arts research fund.
Antoine Beuger founded edition wandelweiser with Burkhard Schlothauer in 1992 and has been managing director since 2004. In 1994 he started his now widely known concert series KLANGRAUM (Düsseldorf). Beuger’s music has been performed worldwide, and he has received several international prizes.
John Eyles has played alto saxophone since the early eighties when he bought a second-hand instrument from a music shop in Kilburn High Road. He has been a member of Eddie Prevost's workshop since 2010 and was a founder member of the Mopomoso Workshop.
Sarah Hughes is an artist, composer and performer, producing work that explores the boundaries of interdisciplinary practice, often moving between sculpture, installation, composition and music. Her work has been exhibited and performed internationally, including at South London Gallery, Cass Sculpture Foundation, Supplement, London; and V22. As a performer Hughes has played at various venues including the Musée des Beaux Arts de Nantes; The Wulf, Los Angeles; Cafe Oto, London; Parasol Unit, London; Holywell Music Hall, Oxford, and with a number of musicians including Angharad Davies, Tim Parkinson, Jürg Frey, Michael Pisaro, Antoine Beuger, Patrick Farmer, Stephen Cornford, Ryoko Akama, David Stent, and Dominic Lash. Realisations of her compositions have been published by Another Timbre Records, Suppedaneum, Consumer Waste Records and Reductive Music.
www.sarahhughes.org
http://anothertimbre.com/sarahhughesamm.html
Petri Huurinainen is a Finnish musician and artist currently living in London. He works predominantly with live sound, guitar performances and drawings. His limited edition 12" vinyl record Exile Nothing came out in 2016 and is available from Roughtrade.
Keeffe’s debut album ‘Right Here, Right Now’ is where you’ll find her exhibiting a passion for vibrant soundscapes rendered in live spaces. Released in 2021, also on Discus Music, she earned critical acclaim carving out a niche on the imprint. She also composes and performs for a number of the roster’s artists, including; Hi Res Heart, Carla Diratz and Julie Tippetts. She also co-leads Anthropology Band with the head of Discus Music, Martin Archer.
To date, her music has been featured significantly on BBC Radio 3, Jazz FM and BBC Radio 6, where she's been described as a 'prolific', 'dynamic' and 'excellent improviser!', by the likes of Corey Mwamba, Stuart Maconie and Jez Nelson. Keeffe is a Serious Artist and part of Serious’ Take Five 2022 cohort. She performed a duet with the mighty City of London as part of world-renowned trumpeter Dave Douglas' Festival of New Trumpet Music 2022.
Harnessing the power of art for social change is a crucial part of Keeffe’s musical identity: she has served as Assistant Musical Director of the London Gay Big Band, champions gender and diversity equality, as part of the Parliamentary award-winning Women in Jazz Media team, and played in Marin Alsop's Taki Concordia Orchestra at the World Economic Forum 2019, in front of world leaders and celebrities including Sir David Attenborough.
From stepping on Glastonbury and Wilderness stages alongside Charlotte Church, Laura Mvula and Kate Nash, to broadcasting to an international audience live from her bathroom during the pandemic, Keeffe understands that embracing individuality and letting go of inhibitions is the surest way to grasp the transformative power of music.
“Keeffe shows notable strength of character as she runs the sonic and emotional gamut..." - Kevin Le Gendre, JAZZWISE
Will Montgomery's audio work has appeared on the nonvisualobjects, Entr’acte, Winds Measure, Every Contact without a Trace, Organised Music from Thessaloniki and Cathnor labels. His most recent CD is a realisation of a score written for him by Ryoka Akama, released on the Suppedaneum label. He teaches contemporary poetry and poetics at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Artur Vidal is a London based and Spanish-born saxophone player who grew up in Paris where he studied music, philosophy and history of art. His work involves field recordings, sound walks, dance and improvisation. He has been doing academic research on improvised music and environmental sounds and has become a certified teacher of Pauline Oliveros’s Deep Listening practice. He has published two collections of text scores: The Hum in the Valley (2021) and Friendly Algorithms (2018).
Emmanuelle Waeckerlé is a London based interdisciplinary artist, writer and performer. She is one third of Bouche Bée improvising trio on the edges of Language, with Petri Huurinainen (guitar) and John Eyles (saxophone) and belong to MoWo (Mopomoso workshop group). She is a Reader in photography and relational practices at University for the Creative Art in Farnham. Recent publications include Ode (owed) to O (edition wandelweiser records, 2017), RISE WITH YOUR CLASS NOT FROM IT ( bookRoom press, 2016) Reading (story of) O (uniformbooks, 2015), Code X - paper, pixel, ink and screen (bookRoom press, 2015).
