Sunday 13 September 2015, 8pm
Laura Cannell celebrates the release of new album Beneath Swooping Talons, heading up a great string-laden triple bill alongside violinist – and OTO Associate Artist – Angharad Davies and cellist Oliver Coates. Exploring the space between ancient, improvised, traditional & experimental music, Laura Cannell's music is transcendent and otherworldly – balancing a rigorous understanding of (and fascination with) the past with a bracingly modern approach.
“Laura Cannell has a sonic aesthetic that seems to come from the depths of ancient English time. She improvises pieces using, mostly, recorder and fiddle, and several of these pieces are presented on Beneath Swooping Talons. Deep and powerful work here, all the more so for being recorded in single takes.” – Norman Records, review of Beneath Swooping Talons
Laura Cannell is an internationally acclaimed composer and musician whose music straddles the worlds of contemporary and ancient music, drawing on the emotional influences of the landscape. In 2024 she released a monthly EP series on her Brawl Records Label under the heading, ‘A Year of Lore’, and her 10th solo album ‘The Rituals of Hildegard Reimagined’ came out August 2024 to rave reviews.
She is regularly broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 6Music and was recently featured on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme as well as two Spotlight Scene features on BBC 6Music. Laura has also performed throughout the UK and Europe and collaborated with the likes of writer and comedian Stewart Lee and the cellist Lori Goldston (Earth/Nirvana) with a 2024 duo album released on State51.
Recent performances include The British Library double bill with Gazelle Twin, ALICE - Copenhagen, Artist in Residence at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival, performance & lecture at The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. Laura was also a contributing composer/performer to the score of feature film HARVEST which premiered at Venice Biennale, New York and London International Film Festivals in late 2024.
www.lauracannell.com
www.brawlrecords.co.uk
“The raw beauty of her melodies glimmer through prickly thickets of stark and dissonant chordal drones” – THE WIRE
“this music feels ancient, it also feels brutally alive, as if a giant was waking from long slumbers, about to make its way in the world” – THE GUARDIAN
“beguiling, mournful solemnity wreathed in power and sonority. Cannell is one of the country’s most promising musicians.” – RECORD COLLECTOR
“an essential work of modern British folk and avant-garde composition.” – THE QUIETUS
Angharad Davies is a Welsh violinist based in London working with free-improvisation, compositions and performance.Her approach to sound involves attentive listening and exploring beyond the sonic confines of her instrument, her classical training and performance expectation.
Much of her work involves collaboration. She has long standing duos with Tisha Mukarji, Dominic Lash and Lina Lapelyte and plays with Common Objects, Cranc and Skogen. She has been involved in projects with Tarek Atui, Tony Conrad, Richard Dawson, Gwenno, Roberta Jean, Jack McNamara, Rie Nakajima, Tim Parkinson, Eliane Radigue, Georgia Ruth and J.G.Thirlwell.
Most of her records are released on Another Timbre but she also has releases on Absinth Records, Confrontrecords, Emanem, Potlatch and winds measure recordings.Her first orchestral piece was commissioned by LCMF in 2019.
Oliver Coates is a cellist, composer and producer based in London. He has performed solo shows in China, Russia, Brazil, Egypt and Australia, and made his New York debut at Le Poisson Rouge. He was the winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award 2011 and is an Artist in Residence at the Southbank Centre. Two major commissions premiered in 2017: HELIOTONES, for girls' choir, flutes, cello and electronics, for Borealis Festival, and Shorelines, for string quartet and electronics, for Cryptic at Operadagen Rotterdam.
In 2016 Coates released a solo record, Upstepping, on PRAH, and a collaborative record, Remain Calm, with Mica Levi on Slip. He works closely with Levi, London Contemporary Orchestra, Elysia Crampton, Jonny Greenwood and the visual artist Lawrence Lek, for whom he has scored the award-winning video pieces Unreal Estate and QE3. He has conceived and programmed the Southbank Centre’s long-running Harmonic Series and its first DEEP∞MINIMALISM festival in 2016, which featured Pauline Oliveros’ last public Tuning Meditation.
