John Butcher / Hannah Marshall / Mandhira de Saram / Douglas Benford. Sunday 10th February 15:30

John Butcher
John Butcher’s work ranges through improvisation, his own compositions, multitracked pieces and explorations with feedback, unusual acoustics and non-concert locations. Originally a physicist, he left academia in ’82, and has since collaborated with hundreds of musicians – Derek Bailey, John Tilbury, John Stevens, The EX, Akio Suzuki, Gerry Hemingway, Polwechsel, Gino Robair, Rhodri Davies, Okkyung Lee, John Edwards, Toshi Nakamura, Paul Lovens, Eddie Prevost, Mark Sanders, Christian Marclay, Otomo Yoshihide, Phil Minton, and Andy Moor – to name a few. He is well known as a solo performer who attempts to engage with the uniqueness of place: ‘Resonant Spaces’ is a collection of site-specific performances collected during a tour of unusual locations in Scotland and the Orkney Islands. His first solo album, Thirteen Friendly Numbers, includes compositions for multitracked saxophones, whilst later solo CDs focus on live performance, composition, amplification and saxophone-controlled feedback. HCMF has twice commissioned him to compose for his own large ensembles. Other commissions include for Elision, the Rova & Quasar Saxophone Quartets, reconstructed Futurist Intonarumori, “Tarab Cuts” (based on pre-WWII Arabic recordings, and shortlisted for the 2014 British Composer’s Award), “Good Liquor ..” for the London Sinfonietta and “Fixations and the Open Road” for CEPRO. In 2011 he received a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists. Recent groupings include The Apophonics (+Gino Robair/John Edwards), Thermal (+Andy Moore/Thomas Lehn), Vellum (+Tony Buck/Magda Mayas) and trios with John Edwards/Mark Sanders and Matt Shipp/Thomas Lehn. Butcher values playing in occasional encounters – ranging from large groups such as Butch Morris’ London Skyscraper and the EX Orkestra, to duo concerts with David Toop, Kevin Drumm, Claudia Binder, Ståle Liavik Solberg, Paal Nilssen-Love, John Tilbury, Fred Frith, Keiji Haino, Ute Kangeisser, Matthew Shipp and Yuji Takahashi.
http://www.johnbutcher.org.uk/index.html

Hannah Marshall
Hannah Marshall studied music at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama (first study ‘cello) and John Stevens’ Community Music. She has been making music & sound for theatre and dance productions, and performing in various bands and theatre companies since 1996, working as a performer, sound designer/composer and puppeteer with a broad spectrum of artists and companies. She is continuing to extract, invent, and exorcize as many sounds and emotional qualities from her instrument as she can. She has been a regular member of Alexander Hawkins’ Ensembles and has toured in Europe and South America with Luc Ex and Veryan Weston’s ensembles – SOL 6 & 12. She plays with ‘String Terrorists’ – Barrel (a trio with violinist Alison Blunt & violist/poet Ivor kallin), and has been invited by Fred Frith and Suichi Chino in their residencies at café Oto. She also plays with Terry Day, Tim Hodgkinson, Roger Turner, Paul May, Kay Grant, and the London Improvisers Orchestra.
http://www.hannahmarshall.net/

Mandhira de Saram
Mandhira de Saram is a versatile violinist performing as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral violinist in the UK and abroad. She is a founding member and the leader of the Ligeti Quartet, a young string quartet which has established a reputation as a leading dynamic and imaginative force in contemporary and modern music. She graduated with 1st class honours from the University of Oxford achieving a high 1st in performance and winning the Worcester College Arts Prize for the highest result in an arts subject. International solo and chamber music tours have taken her around Europe as well as the USA, India, China and her country of origin, Sri Lanka. She has performed at prestigious festivals and venues such as the Wigmore Hall, Barbican Centre, Southbank Centre and St Johns Smith Square in London and the Carnegie Hall in New York. Her repertoire is varied consisting of standard classical works as well as free improvisation and original projects often involving collaborations with contemporary composers sound artists and musicians from a variety of genres outside classical music. With her quartet she has worked with Wadada Leo Smith, Meilyr Jones, Shabaka Hutchings, Laura Jurd, Kerry Andrew, Sean Noonan, and following a tour to China and Hong Kong, has collaborated with leading Hong Kong DJ Choi Sai Ho and Japanese sound artist mamoru.
Mandhira was born in London. After completing her primary education in Sri Lanka, she was awarded a music scholarship to North London Collegiate School where she completed her secondary education. She was also a Leverhulme Scholar at the Junior Royal Academy of Music where she performed both as a violinist and pianist, also taking classes in composition and conducting. Her violin teachers have included Igor Petrushevsky, Howard Davis and Levon Chilingirian.
http://www.mandhiradesaram.com/

Douglas Benford
As a composer and sound artist, Douglas 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, Cafe Oto, Tate Modern, The Roundhouse, ICA and Glasgow’s CCA),festivals worldwide (Mutek, Synch, Transmediale) and had installation work in numerous UK galleries (Inc. London, Swansea, Gloucestershire and Essex). After many electronica releases in his ‘si-cut.db’ and other guises, in the past decade he has focused on acoustic improvisation and installations, using field recordings, classical instruments,vocals and children’s toys. As well as often playing with the London Improvisers Orchestra and Confront Recordings/ Mark Wastell’s The Seen collective, his regular collaborators include Blanca Regina, poet Tamar Yoseloff, Angharad Davies, Lina
Lapelyte, Steve Beresford, Adam Bohman, Clive Bell, Sue Lynch, sculptor Rob Olins, as well as – in the past – pop group Saint Etienne, Jem Finer (The Pogues), Momus, Rod Thomas (Bright Light Bright Light), Scanner, Stephan Mathieu and Andrew Weatherall. He was also co-curator with Iris Garrelfs, established in 1996, of Sprawlaudio events in London for over 12 years.
http://douglasbenford.org.uk

Doors 3:30 | music 4pm | entry £5

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