Hen Ogledd

Hen Ogledd is Dawn Bothwell, Rhodri Davies and Richard Dawson.

Originally formed as DAWSON-DAVIES: HEN OGLEDD by avant folk savant Richard Dawson and improvised harp pioneer Rhodri Davies, they’ve dropped the surnames and become a trio with the addition of Dawn Bothwell, who also performs altered electronic torch songs as Pentecostal Party.

It’s been a transformative move, Dawson playing guitar, iPad and a panoply of tabletop knickknacks, Davies cleaving new spaces open with his blazing harp splutterations, with Bothwell’s sweet and sour voice and electronics taking the three of them down unexplored avenues littered with hypnotic diversions and long moments of delirium.

Loré Lixenberg

Lore Lixenberg has evolved a practice based on voice, that has three major features. Firstly, exploring extended vocal techniques and hyper-extensions of the voice (‘BIRD’ and ‘THE BIRD STUDIES’, pieces, that explore language and syntax through birdsong) Secondly, drawing on socially engaged practices (PRET A CHANTER, THE VOICE PARTY) and thirdly, exploring digital technologies and apps for their operatic dramatic potential creating a new form - the APP-ERA, (SINGLR, VOXCOIN, IDENTITY THEFT). Incorporating comedy into her compositions applying bel canto singing into physical theatre, comedy and free-improvisation  she works with Simon Munnery, Richard Thomas, Stewart Lee and  Complicite (McBurney). She has performed internationally on concert platforms and galleries, opera houses, in operas and has collaborated on experimental installations and vocal performances with experimental composers visual and sound artists like Acquaviva, STELARC, Bruce Mclean, ORLAN, Georgina Starr, Imogen Sidworthy and David Toop. Her stuff has been shown at at The Hamburger Bahnhof , Galerie Nord Berlin, Ikon Gallery UK, The Armory NY, Emily Harvey Foundation NY among others. She published an artist book ‚Memory Maps’, monographic CD ‘The afternoon of a phone’ (£@B). She started THE VOICE PARTY standing in British election of 2019 and will satnd again in 2024. Her vinyl release NANCARROW KARAOKE, a record of Nancarrow piano rolls she transcribed for her own voice multi-tracked is on the De Player label. 

Conlon Nancarrow

Conlon Nancarrow (October 27, 1912 – August 10, 1997) was an American-born composer who lived and worked in Mexico for most of his life. He became a Mexican citizen in 1956.

Nancarrow is best remembered for his studies for player piano, being one of the first composers to use auto-playing musical instruments, realising their potential to play far beyond human performance ability. He lived most of his life in relative isolation, and did not become widely known until the 1980s.

“This music is the greatest discovery since Webern and Ives… something great and important for all music history! His music is so utterly original, enjoyable, perfectly constructed but at the same time emotional…for me it’s the best of any composer living today.” – György Ligeti (in a letter to Charles Amirkhanian)

“Conlon’s music has such an outrageous, original character that it is literally shocking. It confronts you. Like Emerson said of Thoreau, ‘We have a new proposition.” – John Cage (from On Conlon Nancarrow, Eva Soltes)

“The stuff is fantastic… You’ve got to hear it. It’ll kill you.” – Frank Zappa (from Musician, with Dan Forte).

(colonnancarrow.org)

Naomi Sato

Naomi Sato (Tokyo Japan 1975) graduated from the saxophone class of Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 1998. She finished 2nd phase saxophone studying at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam in 2002.
She studied improvisation and composition at Conservatorium van Amsterdam.
Naomi is the Semi Finalist of the 2nd International Adolphe Sax Concours in Dinant(1998), and the 3rd prize winner of Saxophonewettbewerb Gustav Bunke in Hannover(1999). She studied the saxophone with Nobuya Sugawa(Tokyo), Arno Bornkamp(Amsterdam) and Claude Delangle(Paris).
She had played with Philharmonic Orchestra of Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music(Tokyo, Japan), Orcketre de lfAcademie europeenne de musique with Pierre Boulez (Aix-en Provence, Fronce), Ensemble Lucilin (Luxembourg), het Residentie Orkest(The Hague, Netherlands), het Ives Ensemble(Zaandam,Netherlands).
She studied the Sho with Ko Ishikawa at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. She is collaborated with many composers and played with Teo Loevendie (composer, saxophone), Harry Starreveld(Flute), Merlijn Twaalfhoven(composer, viola), Olivier Sliepen (saxophone), Laura Carmichael (Clarinet), Netherlands Vocaal Laboratorium, and Nieuw Ensemble(Amsterdam, Netherlands). She has given chamber music concerts in Japan, Netherlands, France, Germany, Denmark and Luxembourg with member of her chamber music grope Duo X Project, improvisation trio Karooshi(Sax, Harp, Contra Bass), and Vlinder Vangers( sho + electronics). And she gave lecture concerts about eMusic scene in Amsterdam through Japanese traditional musicf in Conservatorium van Amsterdam(2000), North Eastern University(2005) and UM Dartmouth(2005).

Alice Jeffreys

Alice Jeffreys is a composer of acoustic music. Alice is currently studying for a PhD in Composition at City, University of London, with Newton Armstrong, exploring emergent temporal paradoxes in listening.