Sunday 21 May 2023, 2pm
Douglas Benford, Steve Beresford, Verity Lane and Mark Sanders will be improvising from graphic scores by Calum Storrie and Livia Garcia. There will be three new pieces by Calum Storrie; one each for solo, duo and trio. Livia Garcia will be showing one of her animated pieces for a duo of Douglas Benford and Mark Sanders.
For Storrie this will be an experiment in the live performance of the scores. Not only has he no idea how the scores sound but he has never previously considered how they might be practically organised in a live setting. For the audience this will be an exercise in looking as well as listening. It remains to be seen if there will be any shared understanding of how these two senses overlap and relate. Maybe the musicians will be seeing the scores for the first time as they respond to them.
Please Note: 1968 Film Group will be filming the event for the documentary 'Calum Storrie: Drawing Etc'. The cameras will be focused towards the playing musicians only but by being at the event you are giving your permission to be filmed.
As a composer and sound artist, Douglas Benford has been involved in various audio genres since the late 1980s, performing at many institutions/venues in the UK (Bristol’s Arnolfini, London’s Science Museum, Tate Modern, The Roundhouse, ICA and Glasgow’s CCA), festivals worldwide and had installation work in numerous UK art spaces. He is a regular contributor to the London Improvisers Orchestra, as well as playing with Confront Recordings’ The Seen collective. His collaborators in recent years have included Blanca Regina, Dominic Lash, Martin Vishnick, Crystabel Riley, poet Tamar Yoseloff, Olivia Moore, Matt Atkins, Lina Lapelyte, Jem Finer, Clive Bell, John Edwards, Jennifer Allum, Sue Lynch, sculptor Rob Olins and many more.
Steve Beresford has been a central figure in the British and international spontaneous music scenes for over fifty years, freely improvising on piano, objects, electronics and other things with people like Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Han Bennink and John Zorn. Long-standing groups have included Alterations (with David Toop, Terry Day and Peter Cusack), The Melody Four (with Lol Coxhill and Tony Coe, both RIP) and London Improvisers Orchestra.
He has written songs, composed for large and small ensembles, and scored short films, feature films, TV shows and commercials. He was part of the editorial teams of ‘Musics’ and ‘Collusion’ magazines, writes about music in various contexts, and was a senior lecturer in music at the University of Westminster.
Steve has worked with Christian Marclay on various Marclay mixed media pieces. He has also worked with The Slits, Najma Akhtar, Stewart Lee, Ivor Cutler, Prince Far-I, Alan Hacker, Tania Chen, Louis Moholo-Moholo, Faradena Afifi, Blanca Regina, Ray Davies, Mandhira De Saram, The Flying Lizards, Zeena Parkins, The Portsmouth Sinfonia, Ilan Volkov, Rachel Musson, Vic Reeves, Lore Lixenberg, Valentina Magaletti and many others.
Beresford has an extensive discography - around 500 releases - as performer, arranger, free-improviser, composer, conductor and producer. He was awarded a Paul Hamlyn award for composers in 2012.
In 2021, Bloomsbury published a book by Andy Hamilton: ‘Pianos, Toys, Music and Noise: Conversations with Steve Beresford’.
In 2022, Siglio published the book ‘Call and Response’, which partnered photographs by Christian Marclay with notated improvisations by Beresford.
Verity Lane (music maker and project leader) – Born in Tottenham and spending the last 10 years in Japan, music-maker, sound artist and producer Verity Lane specialises in creating highly visual soundscapes for traditional Japanese instruments. Her music is rich in Japanese aesthetics, exploring the concepts of mujo (impermanence), yugen (inherent beauty meets the austere- similar to the sublime) and ma (space – similar to the concept of Western rubato).
Mentored by the late Indian composer John Mayer, she went on to complete a BA Hons in Japanese and music at School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), and won an award by JASSO to study at Osaka University, Japan. She then went on to complete an MA in composition at Osaka College of Music. Recently, two pieces from her ‘3 Summer Pieces’ for bass koto (Japanese harp) were premiered on BBC Radio 3’s ‘Late Junction’.
Lane is also a producer and event organiser, with her new experimental community music series ‘Tottenham Soundscapes’ gaining much attention.
https://www.facebook.com/veritycomposer/
https://soundcloud.com/verity-lane
Mark has worked with a host of renowned musicians including Derek Bailey, Henry Grimes, Mathew Shipp, Evan Parker, Roswell Rudd, in duo and quartets with Wadada Leo Smith and trios with Charles Gayle with Sirone and William Parker.
In situations using composition Mark works in a number of projects including Christian Marclay’s Everyday for film and live music and John Butcher’s Tarab Cuts - both projects have performed major festivals throughout Europe and Brazil. He has performed works by guitarist John Coxon in Glasgow and Sydney playing with the Scottish and Sydney Symphony Orchestras. With New York’s ICE Ensemble he has performed John Zorn’s The Tempest in London and at Huddersfield New Music Festival.
Mark also works in the groups of Paul Dunmall including Deep Whole Trio with Paul Rogers, and the ensembles of Sarah Gail Brand, including a long-standing duo. He has a lengthy discography including a solo album, has performed internationally and played at major festivals including, Nickelsdorf, Ulrichsburg, Womad and notably at Glastonbury with legendary saxophonist John Tchicai.
"ubiquitous, diverse and constantly creative, drummer Mark Sanders always outdoes himself, whether playing with restraint or erupting like a dynamo." Bruce L Gallenter, Downtown Music Gallery. NY
Calum Storrie is an artist, writer and designer. His art practice takes a number of forms from drawings of imaginary architecture to collage and spontaneous drawings of live performances. He has also created graphic scores for Steve Beresford, Douglas Benford and the Ligeti Quartet. He has designed exhibitions for, among others, the Royal Academy, the Museum of London and Wellcome Collection. His collaboration with Steve Beresford, ‘Nine Day Score’, is released on Cafe Oto’s Takuroku label.
Livia Garcia is a visual artist and a railway civil engineer. She received a full scholarship in 2008 to pursue her MA(Fine Art) at The University of Leeds, UK. Garcia is also the founder and director of the platform and micro art space Project DIVFUSE to support the development of multi-media and sound art. Her recent art practice involves working with various musicians, such as Steve Beresford, the London Improvisers Orchestra, ONe_Orchestra New, Dave Tucker, Catherine Pluygers etc with her film graphic scores.
www.divfuse.com
www.liviagarcia.com
