mira calix premieres new piece commisioned by the Bang On A Can Allstars
On Sunday, June 27, from noon until midnight, Bang on a Can will present its annual Bang on a Can Marathon, at the River To River Festival, held for the fifth year at World Financial Center Winter Garden (220 Vesey Street, NYC) and co-presented by Arts World Financial Center. Founded in 1987, the Marathon is still FREE and this year brings together more than 150 astounding performers and composers from throughout the world, performing in numerous genres and experimental styles, for 12 hours of uninterrupted live, ear-bending, border-crossing music. The Bang on a Can Marathon is part of the 2010 River To River Festival, the city’s largest FREE summer arts festival. As artistically inclusive as it is audience-friendly, Bang on a Can’s annual 12-hour Marathon has become one of the most diverse, most open and most exciting music events in the world. “Imagine Lollapalooza advised by the ghost of John Cage,” wrote Vanity Fair. “There are other places to hear new contemporary music, but it is seldom offered with such a potent blend of intensity, authority, and abandon.”
bang on a can
The Creators Project
The Creators Project is a new network dedicated to the celebration of creativity and culture across media, and around the world. At a time in the history of the arts where digital technologies have revolutionized distribution, democratized access, and completely re-imagined the scope and scale with which an artist can create a vision and reach an audience, The Creators Project is a completely new kind of arts and culture channel for a completely new kind of world.
The Creators Project has two mandates: on one hand it’s a modern day media channel that we will continually identify and celebrate the work of visionary artists wherever they are. On the other hand it is also a content creation studio, an arts foundation of sorts that will facilitate the production and dissemination of new work with these artists and their collaborators.
The distribution of the content takes place here, at www.thecreatorsproject.com, via a variety of other media including print, television and mobile, and, importantly, also through a series of exhibition events and performances that will roll-out in different urban centers around the world the summer of 2010 and beyond. The Creators Events series begins this June in New York City with a collection of curated artworks and installations, screenings, a panel discussion and dozens of performances by creators from all over the world. The series then moves to London, Sao Paulo, and Seoul, and culminates in Beijing with a huge 3-day Creators exposition in September.
the creators project
half flower, half self
by Alice Oswald (TS Eliot Prize winner) and Mira Calix.
Resonance
18 June, Howard Assembly Rooms, Leeds
Mira Calix With
Oliver Coates: Cello, Sarah Nicolls; Piano, Charmian Bedford: Soprano
Resonance is Opera North's rolling programme of artistic development and new commissions in music, image and performance. Resonance provides a forum for the most exciting contemporary artists to bring new work to life through workshops, artistic residencies at Opera North and work in progress performance. It allows Opera North to push at the boundaries of its practice and enables partner artists and companies as varied as composer Gabriel Prokofiev, theatre director Neil Bartlett and theatre companies Faulty Optic and Forced Entertainment, to bring new elements into their work.
For 2010 Opera North has commissioned three new short works exploring different ways that the relationship between a composer and a writer can work, and the ways in which music interacts with literary writing.
3 Composers
Opera North Projects has commissioned 3 short new pieces from three very different composers, Mira Calix, Larry Goves and Emily Hall, each of whom approaches the intersection between electronic and classical music from a different direction. The three have impressive CVs, having had their work performed at the most prestigious locations including the Wigmore Hall, The Royal Festival Hall, Aldeburgh and the Manchester International Festival. Between them they have worked with musicians and partners as diverse as the London Sinfonietta, London Symphony Orchestra, God Speed you Black Emperor and The Royal Shakespeare Company. They are part of a generation redefining the landscape of contemporary classical music.
3 Writers
The three composers have each chosen a living writer to work with, either based on longstanding artistic partnerships or newly developed collaborations for this project. Mira Calix works with TS Eliot award winning poet Alice Oswald on her poem 'Narcissus' and a second poem specially commissioned for the project. Emily Hall works with award winning author of deadkidsongs and Ghost Story Toby Litt to explore motherhood within the structure of the song cycle. Larry Goves works with long term collaborator, poet Matthew Welton to set his sequence of poems, following on from their successful collaboration with the London Sinfonietta.
opera north
Chorus Comes to London
Chorus, an installation collaboration between United Visual Artists and Mira Calix
will be at the Wapping Project in london from the 16th of June until the 18th of July 2010
open daily between 12 noon and 10.30pm except sundays - 5.30pm closing
entrance is free
the wapping project
Mira Calix and The Adventures of Prince Achmed
The Adventures of Prince Achmed directed by Lotte Reineger in 1926 is a beautiful and creatively narrated fairytale based on elements from the collection 1001 Arabian Nights.Mira Calix Takes Reineger’s creativity further with her brand new musical accompaniment for this silent animation live at the BFIand on tour in the U.K. during March and April.
birds eye view festival
cliffordandcalix
lost foundling
new album on Aperture Records released 1st of March 2010
Warp artists Mark Clifford and Mira Calix have been good friends for a long time. During the 5 year period between 1999 and 2004, they'd meet up from time to time, hang out, drink a lot of coffee, smoke too many cigarettes, stay up all night and make some noise. The songs on Lost Foundling come from this very loose and irregular working period. Their initial plan was to come back to the tracks at some point, mix them and release them. However, they were both busy with other projects and when Andrea Parker expressed and interest in releasing the material on her newly established Aperture label, the duo discovered it was impossible to go back and meddle in their material.
Mira and Mark had recorded their songs on an evolutionary range of formats, whatever was to hand, and when they went to dig out the computer files, dat tapes, floppy and zip drives, they were reminded that most of these had become obselete, in what felt like a brief decade. There was no going back. The duo selected 13 of their favourite tracks, leaving them untouched. An Ep of remixes will be released later in March, including mixes by Simon Pyke, Andrea Parker, Ultradyne and Luke Vibert.
aperture records
you can hear mira discussing the new album and playing tracks on both resonance and redbull radio online:
redbull fireside chat
resonance fm
Mira Calix has won a British Composers Award for her composition My Secret Heart, commissioned by Streetwise Opera. Touted as the classical equivalent of the Mercury Prize, the award is yet another fantastic achievement for Calix and the creative team of 'My Secret Heart" . The judges described the piece as "transformational, capturing raw humanity and giving voice to the disenfranchised in a sound-world which is original, absorbing and unsettling"
My secret Heart continues to tour - the installation will be at the Northern Stage from Tue 23 – Sat 27 Feb 2010 (Tue – Sat 10.00 - 23.00 / Mon 10.00 -18.00) and in Paris at the Nemo Festival in April.
for the current tour schedule go to my secret heart
An extract from the Lumiere Sky Arts documentary, filmed in Durham Cathedral, and featuring Mira discussing the process of creating the soundtrack to Chorus with UVA, is now available to whatch online:
sky arts
Progress is happening with exchange and return. to keep updated on the project go to:exchange and return
and for current updates go to facebook..you know where it is ...
Mira Calix has been nominated for The British Composer Awards for My Secret Heart
Sarah Rodgers, BASCA Chairman and Chairman of the Awards said:
“These are some of the most remarkable results we have had in the 7 year history of the Awards. The panels are required to judge works, rather than composers and the all-encompassing scope of the nominations proves the integrity of this approach. Emerging talent is a strong feature of this year’s list of nominees and we truly celebrate that.”
http://www.britishcomposerawards.com
As part of the Calling Out Of Context Festival, the Institute For Contemporary Arts has commissioned She'll Be Around
a new score for surround sound performed by Mira Calix and percussionist Sarah Creswell
on the 20th Novermber 2009 at the ICA London.
Chorus the installation collaboration between UVA and Mira Calix goes to Durham Cathedral
12th-15th November 2009 as part of the Lumiere Festival produced by Artichoke.
http://www.artichoke.uk.com
Strata 2 wins Best Original Soundtrack at
Rencontres Audiovisuelles 9th Lille Short Film Festival.
Mira Calix has been awarded a £25k Grant For The Arts by the Arts Council Of England for a new project: Exchange And Return.
Mira Calix is being supported by The National Lottery through Arts Council England to develop her skills by exploring and creating new links
between elecrtronic music and classical orchestration. The project will see her working in partnership with larry Goves and Tansy Davies, both celebrated composers in the field of British contemporary classical music.
To follow the year long project go to
http://www.exchangeandreturn.com

malcolm & mira duet 13 august 09
BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction have setup a special session and collaboration between Mira Calix and Scotsman Malcolm Middleton
(also from the band Arab Strap).
In their own words, the Late Junction series "makes the introductions between two musicians, in this instance between electronic composer Mira Calix and singer-songwriter Malcolm Middleton, and the artists then begin a musical adventure as they write and perform new material for the session."
Malcolm Middleton, once half of cult Scots songsters Arab Strap, has as a solo musician become a voice of sparkling unpredictability, unafraid of touching on his own dark side. He has just released his fifth solo album Waxing Gibbous, and his work balances a fragile mix of self-doubt, humour and wry observations on the human condition.
Malcolm and Mira Calix, who live a few hundred miles apart, have been exchanging their new musical ideas online, and will piece them together when they first meet to record at the BBC’s Maida Vale studios in early August. Presenter Max Reinhardt will be on hand to present the session which will be broadcast exclusively on Radio 3's Late Junction programme on 13th August.
http://www.malcolmmiddleton.com
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tp52
My Secret Heart wins a covetable RPS award !
The Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards are presented annually and reflect the Society's guiding principles of Excellence, Creativity and Understanding. Nominations are made by RPS members and the music profession and each award is decided by an independent jury consisting of the music industry's most distinguished practitioners. The awards honour a broad sweep of live music making, including categories for performers, composers, inspirational arts organisations and education. The awards are now universally recognised as the most prestigious accolade for live classical music-making in the United Kingdom.
In September the installation will be at the Redbrick Building Gallery in Yokahama, Japan with a mira calix & Flat -e show in Tokyo on the 7th, details on "gigs" page.
http://www.mysecretheart.co.uk
New Video for Ort - Oard, a sinfonietta short
go to londonsinfonietta to view and play the piece for cello and electronics.
the video was created by Alastair McColl alastairmccoll and Niki Chan, former Kingston students.
Sinfonietta Shorts is a series of commissions by some of today’s leading composers in celebration of the ensemble's 40th anniversary.
Each piece is scored for a small group of performers or soloist from the London Sinfonietta. One of the most exciting elements of the project will be that the score of most Sinfonietta Shorts will be available to download for free (for a limited period of time after the premiere) giving any musician anywhere the opportunity to have a go at playing the pieces.
The first five Sinfonietta Shorts were premiered on 2 December at Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall and continue throughout our 2008-2009 season.
New Releases:
Musique pour Statues Menhirs - various artists
Musique pour Statues Menhirs is a project devised by the french label arbouse recordings in partnership with with the museum Fenaille * (Archaeological Museum of Rodez). artists were invited to create a musical response to the european neolithic statues menhirs. following the premiere performance by mira calix, mapstation, fennesz and david daniell at the musuem in april, comes the release of the cd including new works by these and other artists.
cd available on warpmart/bleep
http://www.arbhouserecordings.com

Whale Music Remixed
Last year naturalist David Rothenberg released a recording called Whale Music, which explored the sonic richness of these great beasts’ music and language, live in the ocean and in the studio. Tape Op called it “beautiful and musical…” The Telegraph said it “pushed the barriers between human history and natural history. The Chronogram called it “a new genre of world music! The didgeridoo tonality of humpbacks or capoeira beats of sperm whales may hint at foreign sources from which our own species’ musical culture was invented.” All About Jazz New York gave the album its award for Best Cover of the Year 2008.
This year he sent copies of this record to some of the world’s finest electronic musicians, with hopes that they might do great things with such unusual material. The contributors come from the far corners of the Earth, making music of many kinds, all infused with the depth and wonder of the songs of whales.
remixers include - mira calix, francisco lopez, lukas ligetti, waren burt, strings of consciousness, dj spooky and more.
Two pure whale recordings are included for listeners’ own remixing pleasure, belugas from Russia’s white sea, and one lone male humpback off the shore of Maui smack in the middle of mating season.
A portion of the proceeds from this recording will benefit the Whalesong Project, which broadcasts humpback whale sounds live from Hawaii over the internet, http://www.whalesong.net
http://www/cdbaby.com/cd/davidrothenberg also available on itunes
British Music Information Centre announces the release of
Recovery / Discovery
40 years of Surround Electronic Music in the UK
BIRTWISTLE – HARVEY – ALVAREZ – CALIX
Release date: March 2009
Bmic announces its first release as Sound and Music: Recovery/Discovery, a compilation CD/sound DVD based around one of the first major ‘surround sound’ pieces in the UK, Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s Chronometer. Recovery/Discovery, a project funded by the British Council, brings together a quadraphonic version of Birtwistle’s pivotal piece, which was up until recently believed to have been lost, alongside major electronic works by Jonathan Harvey, Javier Alvarez and Mira Calix in surround format.
Today’s feature films, sports TV broadcasts and computer games soundtracks all have surround sound that can be brought into the living room, but previously the use of the direction of sounds and their movement in space remained limited to specialised concert set-ups and the limited circles of hi-fi buffs. Many successful electronic works, such as the ones on this CD/DVD, were only released on stereo CDs, even if they had elaborate spatial distribution in their concert versions. Indeed the original quadraphonic version of Chronometer had all but disappeared into oblivion until the Artistic Co-ordinator of the Holland Festival, Lieven Bertels, initiated a search for it in 2006:
“When I wanted to program Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s only strictly electronic work Chronometer at a concert in 2006, I discovered that his publisher could not tell me where the tape could be obtained despite being clearly listed in his official catalogue. I made contact with Peter Zinovieff, the ‘animateur’ of Chronometer and the founder of the EMS studio where the piece was realised, who confirmed that he had entrusted what remained of his EMS tape library to electronic music artist Peter Kember. These tapes had earlier been salvaged from the basement of London’s Royal National Theatre, where they had ended up when EMS had closed.”
After investigating a stereo version of the piece from the Boulez/Birtwistle LP The Triumph of Time (Argo ZrG 790) in 1975, Zinovieff identified one 4-channel 1/2” master tape labelled “Chronometer Finale” as the ‘final’ quadraphonic mix played at the public première of Chronometer at a concert at Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall on 24 April 1972. This tape was subsequently transferred into the digital domain and carefully restored by mastering and restoration specialist Simon Gibson at the EMI Abbey Road Studios, London, in April 2008, ready for this compilation.
Featuring sound recordings of Big Ben and the Wells clock (one of the oldest surviving clocks, continuously running since 1392) from London’s Science Museum, Chronometer was one of the most complex electronic music endeavours of all time. Four sets of 100 sequences were created from these samples using computer analysis, and Birtwistle prepared a score laying out the tensions, mood and form of the piece, which was then reinterpreted by the Musys computer programme to send instructions to a host of tape recorders to start, stop, filter, amplify or distort the sounds accordingly.
The recovery operation was the stimulus to ask what other works could complement Chronometer in the context of being the first major ‘surround sound’ piece in the UK, and in particular focusing on its exploration of the mechanisms of recording time.
Jonathan Harvey’s Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco (1980) is a quintessential part of the British electronic repertoire and a beautiful tribute to the British choral tradition, its many cathedrals and the bell ringing associated with them. The piece, which was made at the IRCAM studios in Paris, sets up a dramatic interplay between the deathly peeling bells (recorded at Winchester Cathedral) and a lone chorister’s voice singing a text found on one of the bells, revealing the contrasting forces of life versus death and is, according to the composer, symbolic of the battle of the human spirit to penetrate the intimidating world of the machine.
Although Javier Alvarez is a Mexican composer, it is his electronic piece Temazcal, composed at the Royal College of Music in London in 1984, that is perhaps his most successful to date, and one of the party pieces of the ‘live+electronic’ repertoire worldwide. The piece for surround tape and live maracas, inspired by the likes of Stephen Montague and Trevor Wishart, shows an ear-opening eclecticism and a fresh sound that even today sounds new and exciting. For this release percussionist Joby Burgess made a new high resolution surround recording of the live maracas part.
Mira Calix is a UK-based composer and DJ in the UK signed to the WARP label. Her piece Nunu Wadudu (2008)uses the sounds of London Sinfonietta players and a swarm of live insects, scratches, scrapings, buzzing wings and crickets, to create a delicate yet refreshing live+electronics surround soundscape that has received worldwide public acclaim since its première.
to order the lp and hear clips:
http://www.bmic.co.uk/recoverydiscovery
Whale Music Remixed album
remixes of David Rothenberg's whale recordings now available on terranova music
Associate Professor of Philosophy, David Rothenberg is known as a writer, philosopher, ecologist, and musician, speaking out for nature in all aspects of his diverse work. He is both a respected authority on deep ecology, and a jazz clarinetist known for his integration of world music with improvisation and electronics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILPzkze3RHw
CHORUS
United Visual Artists
Commissioned by Opera North Projects
With music by Mira Calix
To celebrate the opening of the Howard Assembly Room, Leeds, Opera North Projects have commissioned United Visual Artists to create a site specific response. ‘Chorus’ is an array of pendulums of light and sound, suspended from the ceiling of the auditorium. The concept arose from the search a simple and unifying relationship between light and opera. Rather than having a physical object interrupting the newly renovated space, the moving forms and localised sound will create a performance that can be both observed and participated in. The kinetic movement of light and sound invites people to move through the space and be immersed in the experience. As 'Chorus' is based on a real-world physical system, each repeated performance will have subtle rhythmical variations, with no two performances being alike.
Each pendulum has unique score, an individual ‘voice’ which can be heard when moving through the paths of light, but together they form a duet of light and sound. Structured in three distinct phases the sound is abstracted by Mira Calix who worked with members of the Opera North Company, recording them as individuals, composing them as a chorus. ‘Chorus’ invites us through its hypnotic rhythm’s to focus our senses and to dissect the sources of the score and the movement within.
The arc of pure white lights hypnotise and seduces, with the rhythm of the pendulums oscillating between harmony and phasing. By transforming the sound to light relationship with movement, the work encourages the viewer to reconsider the way they see and hear the world and how our senses are linked. 'Chorus' offers a suspension of standard time, replacing it with a mesmerising moment, measured by the swing of the pendulum.
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Lead designers - Alexandros Tsolakis & Dave Ferner , additional programming - George Konstantinou, Tom Whittock & Greg Bakker, creative direction- Matt Clark
to see the stills and video
http://www.uva.co.uk
to watch a short promo for my secret heart
http://vimeo.com/2131989
The Elephant in the Room: 3 Commissions
a new album on Warp released October 08:
A follow up to 3 commissions, which was released in 2004 and featured the London Sinfonietta. This album comprises of pieces taken from 'Elephant and Castle', an opera commissioned for the Aldeburgh Festival, 'Dead Wedding' commissioned by Opera North and 'memoryofamoment', extracts from a piece commisioned by the Faster Than Sound festival as an installation with video artist Quayola. The musicians who performed these new compositions during these productions; comprise of The Young Danish String Quartet, cellist Oliver Coates, Violist Xandi Van Dijk and Clarinetist Peter Sparks, as well as members of the Opera North Company.
" With The Elephant In The Room, you’ll feel Mira Calix, in your head, telling you a story, taking you someplace. It may be dark in places, but don’t be alarmed. Enjoy the journey. She has. And she’s not done traveling yet."
warp
My Secret Heart
My Secret Heart is a new commission by Streetwise Opera of a music and film installation written by electronic composer and Warp artist Mira Calix, video artists Flat-e and sound designer Dave Sheppard. They are working with around 80-100 Streetwise performers from across the UK to create a unique work that will be shown around the world.
The new piece is inspired by the Allegri’s 17th-century choral work Miserere Mei, a piece so protected by the Vatican that they put an embargo on it. It wasn’t until Mozart transcribed it during a visit to Rome that the world began to share this astonishing work. Mira Calix and Flat-e have used the theme of secrecy to explore movements and singing with Streetwise’s participants to create this new century-leaping work.
The installation will be previewed in Lucerne in October, premiered at the Royal Festival Hall on 3rd December and tour to galleries and festivals across the world through 2009.
http://www.streetwiseopera.org
http://www.mysecretheart.co.uk
Recovery to Discovery
a new album released in surround (SACD) by the BMIC curated by Lieven Bertels
The album contains the quintessential works from the British avant-garde electronic music
scene of different generations written in surround. These include Sir Harisson Birtwistle's only electronic piece;
Chronometer, Jonathan Harvey's “Mortuos Plango” and Javier Alvarez’s Temazcal and includes a newversion of Mira Calix's NUNU, a piece created with insects and the London Sinfonietta recorded in Paris and |Brugge. Release Date Nov 08
Rock Music/Rock Art:
two new pieces commissioned for the London Sinfonietta,, based on an early rock instrument found on an island in Lake Victoria and performed by
them and the Lead Musicians of Uganda Dance Academy, five of Uganda's finest musicians.
The eclectic mix of music on the night, will also include the world premiere of Nigel Osborne's Lolui Island-inspired Gorofa Point for trombone and electronics and more.
details on the gigs page :
new remix of Freaky Bitches with Oliver Coates on cello out now on Touchin' Bass
http://www.touchinbass.com
ELECTRO ESSENTIAL SINGLE - dmc update
Andrea Parker Feat. DJ Assault & DJ Godfather 'Freaky Bitches Remixes (Second Installment)'
The original was the first many heard of Andrea Parker's Touchin' Bass imprint: in at the deep end with some prime Detroit-style booty bass graced by the presences of ghetto-tech luminaries DJ Assault and DJ Godfather. Earlier in the year the tune was reactivated with new mixes from Alpha 606, Kero, weedjs and Ed Devane. Now comes the second blast which possibly pushes the boat further out than even this remarkable label has ever ventured previously. The opening name won't be a stranger to TB devotees. It's Adrian 'Eggfooyung' Michna of Miami's Secret Frequency Crew on top squelchy, old skool-boosting form. Veteran electronic marauder and TB stalwart Clatterbox turns in a typically metallic dark electro romp. Next label newcomer and renowned techno-wiz Justin Maxwell turns the tune into a cloudily sinister house mutant using a loop of vocal. Next some pure racket from Montreal's LCEDP going the dustbin-white noise industrial route. Midway a laughing goat exposes himself. The masterstoke comes with the final mix: Warp's Mira Calix teaming up with classically-trained cellist Oliver Coates to take the track into avant garde realms as a freeform electronics dogfight Oliver's cello, which curls out a snatch of 'Planet Rock'. It's minutes before a beat comes in. Fearless stuff, as usual.
last year Andrea climbed Mount Kilimanjaro for charity. Now she's going to tackle the avenue of the Volcanoes in aid of the NSPCC. She deserves your support at http://www.justgiving.com/andreaparker.
Faster Than Sound dates announced: 27th & 28th of June 2008
http://www.fasterthansound.com
Strings of Consciousness remix is to be released in May
http://www.myspace.com/stringsofconsciousness
The Questionnaire - thierry massard puts musicians on the couch... http://the-questionnaire.blogspot.com/:
Onibus Soundtrack
Following the great success of Dead Wedding in 2007, Opera North Projects has commissioned this brand new music and film work from composer and musician Mira Calix (WARP).
For this new live event, Calix has worked in collaboration with the makers of Onibus, an award-winning documentary film tracing a public bus journey across Brazil. Calix's score for clarinet, marimba, cello and laptop, weaves around the film's subjects as they talk, laugh and argue their way across South America.
Part of Opera North's 'Resonance' series of creative residencies and performance, showing as part of the Late Music Festival and the Evolution Festival, in collaboration with Fuse Leeds. Onibus is directed by Augusto Contento.
National Centre for Early Music, York
Saturday 7 June 7:30
£8 (£6 Concessions)
Tickets 01904 658338
http://www.latemusicfestival.org
evolution festival
24th may
Leeds town hall
http://www.lumen.org.uk
musicians: oliver coates - cello http://www.olivercoates.com
peter sparks - clarinet http://www.maslink.co.uk/cvs/clarinets/sparks(peter).htm
mark norman - marimba http://www.4-mality.com/players.htm
mira calix
http://www.operanorth.co.uk
Pollinaria - installation
ARTISTS, SCIENTISTS AND ORGANIC FARMING IN THE HEART OF RURAL ABRUZZO, ITALY
Legendary electronic composer Mira Calix will be the first voice of Pollinaria,
a new project in Italy's Abruzzo countryside that combines residencies for artists and scientists with organic farming
At the edge of the Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga National Park sits an ancient land in the scenic Vestini’s territory.
This dramatic location is an integral player in the manifold fermenting forces that constitute Pollinaria,
a hybrid of residency programs dedicated to interactions between art and science and practices of organic farming that preserve
and support local genetic patrimony A countryside farmhouse is the propelling centre of Pollinaria's biodiversity-focused agricultural
activities. The historic home will soon become a research space for artists and scientists and a dwelling for
everyone who wishes to discover the resources and participate in the experience that is Pollinaria
In the evening of Saturday 6th October 2007 Mira Calix will perform a site specific work in the austere environments of the farmhouse,
populated for centuries by families of farmers. In the heart of rural Abruzzo, this opening ritual will be marked by music both
of the origins and technologically advanced, awakening ancient places and concealed inner landscapes pollinaria rises with mira calix
saturday 6th october 2007 18h00
Pollinaria, Torre delle Valli 65010, Civitella Casanova, Abruzzo
Italy N 42°23’28’’ E 13°54’44’’
Free entrance upon reservation: T + 39 349 4003131 info@pollinaria.org
http://www.pollinaria.org
Dead Wedding in the North - Nottingham, Huddersfield and Gateshead
details on in gig listings
Dead Wedding
5th-7th July
Manchester International Festival
Library Theatre
Manchester
http://www.manchesterinternationalfestival.com
http://www.faultyoptic.co.uk
Faulty Optic and Mira Calix commissioned by Manchester International Festival and Opera North Projects
To mark the 400th anniversary of the invention of opera, and with a nod to Monteverdi's L'Orfeo,
Faulty Optic
and Mira Calix re-invent one of the great myths both visually and sonically.
Eurydice dies tragically on her wedding day but Oprheus, her fiancee,bargains to bring her back from the Land of the Dead.
Greedy to gaze upon his bride once more, Orpheus breaks the deal he has made with Pluto, the god of Hades,
and eurydice is lost forever.
If he remarries Eurydice underground, all will be fine; they will be together for eternity. But she has more pressing
tasks as she desperately tries to wash something terrible away. Slowly her faltering memories start to corrode
as
the ferryman churns up the filty waters sending ripples throughut the whole of the underworld.
Elephant and Castle
20th and 21st June
6othAldeburgh Festival
Snape Maltings
Suffolk
http://www.aldeburgh.co.uk
Elephant And Castle
Directed by Tim Hopkins, Music by Mira Calix and Tansy Davies, Libretto by Blake Morrison
Gretel: you never told me it would be scary. who's that staring us from the marsh?
Hansel: no one's staring. and it's not a marsh. we're in the city now. we're in reality, not a dream.
The Elephant and Castle Shopping centre and Snape Maltings Concert Hall were both opened in an era of hope 40 years ago,
and are now being transformed to face the future. Inspired by the imminent demolition of the shopping centre, and its echo
in the current redevelopment as Snape, the opera is about architecture and aspiration, urban legends and primal myths,
past and future, work and play, children and parents
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,2091944,00.htmlr
Mira Calix Live at Ether Festival
10th March
Purcell Rooms
London
http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/festivals-series/ether
Mira Calix takes to the stage at the Purcell Rooms to do a special show celebrating the release of her new studio album
"eyes set ... against the sun”.
Mira will be accompanied by cellist Oliver Coates and viola player Xandi van Dijk as well as co-conspirator in the ensemble group
- Alexander’s Annexe; David Sheppard.
The foursome will take elements from the recently released album and rework them for this performance at Ether.
Oliver Coates attained the highest degree result in the Royal Academy of Music’s history. He maintains a busy schedule of solo recitals and concertos in Europe and Japan, at the same time making recordings of old and new music. He has worked with composers such as Magnus Lindberg and Sofia Gubaidulina, and has had works written for him by many more, including Alicia Grant, Elena Firs ova, Stèphane Altier and Matt Rogers. He attained an MPhil with distinction from Oxford, and from there he helped set up the new music ensemble RADIUS,
which performs at the Wigmore Hall on April 20th.
Xandi van Dijk (viola) is a founding member of the Cape Town-based Sontonga Quartet, who have been at the forefront of the contemporary music scene in South Africa. With them, he has premièred over thirty South African works, worked with composers Kevin Volans, Terry Riley and Osvaldo Golijov, and collaborated with artists such as William Kentridge, bow-player Madosini and rock singer Karen Zoid. He has performed in Central Park and at the Lincoln Centre, at the Barbican, the Centre Pompidou, and at various arts festivals such as Dokumenta 11 (Kassel), the Berliner Festspiele and Festival RomaEuropa, Xandi also conducts from time to time, and has recently conducted Philip Miller’s score to the Philip Noyce film Catch a Fire (2006).
www.olivercoates.com
Gavin Bryars curates the Sonnets Project, a unique event jointly
commissioned by Opera North Projects and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
In the first half of this concert, individual sonnets are set by guest composers, including Romanian-born violinist Alexander Balanescu, Antony Hegarty (Antony and the Johnsons), Mira Calix and American singer/songwriter Natalie Merchant.
The second half of the concert will see the premiere of Gavin Bryars's own new work Nothing Like the Sun, composed for the Sonnets Project.
In this new work for eight musicians and three voices, Gavin Bryars's music flows through and around a personal selection of
Shakespeare's sonnets.
The piece is accompanied by a specially commissioned film and is musically directed by James Holmes.
Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
Saturday 24 and Sunday 25th February 7:30
£20 and £15
Tickets 0870 609 1110
www.rsc.org.uk/newsandevents/events/3568.aspx
Djanogly Theatre, Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham
Saturday 3 March 8:00
£15/£12
Tickets 0115 846 7777
www.lakesidearts.org.uk/
The Sage, Gateshead
Tuesday 13 March 8:00
£16 / £13 / £7
Tickets 0191 443 4661
www.thesagegateshead.org
Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester
Thursday 15 March 7:30
£13 and £9 (Concessions available)
Tickets 0161 907 5555
www.rncm.ac.uk
The Venue, Leeds College of Music
Saturday 17 March 7:30
£14 (Concessions £12)
Tickets 0113 222 3400
www.lcm.ac.uk/concert-season/
6 November 06
Alexander’s Annexe debut LP
Push Door To Exit
Wap 152 CD

Alexander's Annexe is an ensemble which comprises of three distinct artists Mira Calix, David Sheppard and Sarah Nicolls. The group takes its starting point from the grandest, most familiar instrument in the classical lexicon, and then proceeds to overturn every preconception you might have had about what piano music actually means. Their music, performed live, and of which Push Door To Exit (recorded live) is the first release, is needless to say, extremely beautiful, in a very unusual, mysterious, unexpected Mira Calix kind of way and is markedly different to anything you will have heard before. Yet it's also about methodology as much as it is the about end result; all three artists who met while on tour with the London Sinfonietta, have different but complementary backgrounds, and have discovered entirely new ways of working. Sarah was the principal pianist at the Warp Works and 20th Century Masters concert at Parco Della Musica in Rome in 2004, while David helped with the arrangement and performance of Mira’s now legendary insect piece “Nunu”. Despite their very different musical training they immediately gelled, and inspired by the Sinfonietta project, they discussed their desired ambition to create new pieces using instruments with electronics from scratch. Alexander’s Annexe was formed and the trio set out to compose new works.
Push Door To Exit was initially commissioned by the Ravello Festival, which is Italy’s oldest festival with strong links to Wagner, taking place on a precipice outdoor stage, that totters over the Amalfi coast. Push Door to Exit only consists of the sounds generated from one instrument, even though it may not sound like a piano piece at all. Its conception was deadly simple; all three artists were given residency time by one of the leaders in contemporary classical music; Aldeburgh Productions , founded by composer Benjamin Britten , to work on a new piece that fused instruments with electronics. This was the trio’s first piece as an ensemble, and have since gone on to write many more and tour. However, musing on their first collaboration and looking for a starting point, Sarah, David and Mira decided to push the piano as an instrument, interpreting it in their natural musical languages.
http://www.alexandersannexe.com
http://www.myspace.com/alexandersannexe
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