Friday 14 August 2015, 8pm
Fantastic programme curated by conductor Ilan Volkov and performed by his Summer Strings ensemble alongside legendary pianist John Tilbury. Also on the bill, a solo voice performance by Israeli musician Maya Dunietz, following her new tape – ‘Vocal Studies’ – on My Dance The Skull records.
PROGRAMME
Ilan Volkov, began his career as Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa, and was Chief Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra from 2003-2009. Since then he has been the orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor.
He is a frequent guest conductor with orchestras around the world, including BBC Scottish, and his recordings have won critical acclaim as well as prestigious awards. Volkov is very active in the new music scene and has premiered many contemporary orchestral works, including compositions by Jonathan Harvey, Hans Abrahamsen, Unsuk Chin, Mark-Anthony Turnage and others. Ilan Volkov also works regularly with leading ensembles in modern music such as Ensemble Modern and Musik Fabrik. Volkov has curated various new music events in Israel over the last six years including Hafarot Seder and Hapzura. He has also collaborated with Iancu Dumitrescu, AMM, John Butcher, John Oswald, Zeena Parkins and John Zorn to mention a few. Volkov is a member of the improvisation trio Mines, an ensemble consisting of two violins and drums.
John Tilbury is renowned for his peerless interpretation of the piano music of Morton Feldman, John Cage, Christian Wolff and Howard Skempton. In addition to the performances and seminal recordings that he has made of these composers’ works, he has been an eloquent advocate of their music in his writing and speaking about them. The same is true of the attention he has paid to the music and ideas of Cornelius Cardew, the subject of his authoritative biography published in 2008, and with whom he played in the legendary improvisation groups the Scratch Orchestra and AMM. In the last ten years John Tilbury has performed a range of plays and prose pieces by Samuel Beckett.
Video by Helen Petts
Maya Dunietz (1981) is a pianist, composer, creator of sculptures, installations and performances, combining singing, instrumentation and recording techniques with digital technologies and a varied array of materials. She merges different art fields into a single malleable mass. Her works are influenced by their spatial context; Dunietz has performed as soloist, composer and ensemble member with Meitar Ensemble, Saar Berger (Ensemble Modern), Bat Kol Choir, Hyperion Ensemble, Solistensemble Kaleidoskop, and others. Her works have been shown in institutions such as Centre Pompidou, Palais de Tokyo, Bemis Center of Contemporary Art, Fondation Cartier, Arnolfini Gallery, Reykjavik Arts Festival and many more.
