Saturday 10 August 2024, 7.30pm
Launch show for 'The Rituals of Hildegard Reimagined' – the tenth solo album from UK based Composer, Performer and Improviser, Laura Cannell.
Exposed and raw, Laura Cannell’s latest album is an offering of contemporary minimalism to a 12th century composer, a thank you to a lost uncle and a way to process an anxiety disorder. The music feels ancient as she breaks down and reconstructs selected music by the 12th Century Polymath Hildegard von Bingen alongside her own compositions. The 12 track album is performed on bass recorders, a 12 string knee harp, delay pedal and sparse layering, conjuring a bridge to connect the centuries. The Rituals of Hildegard Reimagined was improvised and recorded in single takes.
"Hildegard's music gradually became a significant presence in my life. I revisit her music at times when I feel overwhelmed, or when I need to reset my inner musical dialogue. Sometimes the sparsity is too intense, leaving room for the darkness to make itself at home, other times, it radiates joy and gives me inspiration to create worlds within the spaces between the notes.” – Laura Cannell (June 2024)
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
“an essential work of modern British folk and avant-garde composition.” – THE QUIETUS
Laura Cannell is an internationally acclaimed composer and performer from East Anglia. Her music straddles the worlds of contemporary and ancient music, it is semi-composed, semi-improvised and draws on the emotional influences of the landscape whilst exploring the spaces between early and experimental music. She has released seven solo albums to critical acclaim, mainly performing on Overbowed Violin and Double Recorders. Recent EPs have also seen her recording on church organs and with vocals.
Following a couple of years (from 2020) of collaborative releases, remote projects, and sound installations Laura returns to her solo work and throughout 2024 has embarked on a project under the heading of “A Year of Lore”, writing, recording and producing an EP of new music every month exploring real and imagined Lore such as Sealore, Earthlore, Riverlore and Mountainlore. Alongside this project which includes signed limited edition CDs, Laura was recently co-commissioned by The Marian Consort and The Cheltenham Festival to compose and 8 part vocal composition called Plantlore: For the Plants that Bind Us. In May 2024 Laura was an Artist in Residence at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival which included performing solo in Norwich Cathedral, a New Line-up of her Modern Ritual curated night and more.
Laura has released seven solo albums, toured throughout the UK & Europe, and is regularly broadcast on the BBC. Performances include Deep Minimalism at Queen Elizabeth Hall, solo at King’s Place, touring & recording with cellist Lori Goldston (Nirvana, Earth), These Feral Lands Album (with writer/comedian Stewart Lee) and solo at The Barbican. Commissions have included: Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Historic Royal Palaces sound installations both solo and with Mira Calix. She is regularly broadcast on the BBC, including live in concert and making playlists for Late Junction Mixtape, BBC 6Music and the World Service. She has also recorded a Maida Vale Session with harpist Rhodri Davies. Laura’s music has been used for film & television internationally and on the catwalks at Paris and London Fashion Weeks.
In 2020 she appeared on the BBC Radio 4 Documentary Life, Death and The Foghorn with Jennifer Lucy Allan, and curated and toured her Modern Ritual Series throughout the UK 2017 - 2018. She has performed solo extensively in Europe and has been featured in The Irish Times with Kate Ellis, The FT, The Guardian, The Quietus, and The Wire Magazine (Aug 2022). Other highlights include performing at Flow Festival (Helsinki), Fano Free Folk Festival in Denmark, Le Guess Who? In Holland, Unsound in Poland and many others.
Jennifer Lucy Allan is a writer and broadcaster. She writes on underground and experimental music, and is a presenter on BBC Radio 3's Late Junction. Her first book, The Foghorn’s Lament, was out in 2021 on White Rabbit Books. Her next book Clay: A Human History is out in 2024.
Arianne Churchman is an artist from Suffolk, working in London. Her work looks at British Folklore and traverses performance, sound, film, textiles and objects. Often slipping in and out of tradition her works look for spaces where we might encounter strange and magical transformations within folklore. Her recent works focus on Suffolk horse folklore, transforming this material into new feminist collective histories and psychedelic dreamscapes in the form of a Dream Horse Cult. She frequently collaborates with other artists including Benedict Drew, Chloe Langlois and Plastique Fantastique.
